the nutcracker is a creative collaboration of faculty and guest choreographers based on Bettijane Sill’s artistic vision of this traditional tale. After many years of serving as Artistic Director, Bettijane Sills continues to be a grounding force in the production.

the nutcracker is performed by the Purchase Dance Company and children from the community. It is produced by the Director of the Conservatory of Dance Wallie Wolfgruber who oversees all aspects of the production.

Guest choreographers:

John Heginbotham

Nicolo Fonte

Faculty choreographers:

Larry Clark

Ted Kivitt

Bettijane Sills

Stephanie Tooman

Nelly van Bommel

Megan Williams

Angels choreographer:

Addison Reese

GUEST CHOREOGRAPHERS BIOGRAPHIES

John Heginbotham, originally from Anchorage, Alaska, is a Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School, and has danced in the companies of Susan Marshall, John Jasperse, and Pilobolus Dance Theater (guest artist). John is currently a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group. His choreographic work has been performed at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Museum of Modern Art (with the art/pop group, Fischerspooner), Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, and the New York and Toronto Fringe Festivals. He has created commissioned dances for the award-winning youth company The Wooden Floor (Santa Ana, CA), Big Apple Baroque, DanceNOW[NYC],and the rock band, NICKCASEY. John is a two-time recipient of the Jerome Robbins Foundation's New Essential Works (NEW) Fellowship Grant (2010 and 2012). Upcomingprojects include a commission from Long Island University, a performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, and a production of Franz Schubert's Winterreise in collaboration with baritone Jesse Blumberg. John is currently on the faculty of the Mark Morris Dance Center, and is a founding teacher of Dance for PD (tm), a program initiated by MMDG and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. For more information, please visit www.johnheginbotham.com.

Choreographer Nicolo Fonte is known for his daring and original approach to dance. His work has been noted by critics for a unique movement language as well as a highly developed fusion of ideas, dance and design. Born in Brooklyn New York, Fonte started dancing at the age of 14. He studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York as well as at the San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet Schools while completing a Bachelor Degree of Fine Arts at Purchase College, SUNY. Upon graduation he danced with Peridance in NYC and later joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal, dancing in the works of Balanchine, Tudor, Kudelka and Spaniard Nacho Duato. Fonte subsequently joined Duato's Compania Nacional de Danza in Madrid and forged a strong identity in the Spanish company for seven years - for both his dancing and his choreography. En los Segundos Ocultos, (In Hidden Seconds), one of three ballets Fonte made for the Spanish company, was hailed as a breakthrough work of great impact with the poetic vision of a mature artist and indeed this ballet established his presence on the European dance scene. In 2000 Fonte retired from performing to devote himself full-time to his choreographic career due to the increasing demand from companies in Europe and North America for his work. Since that time he has created and staged ballets for The Dutch National Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Royal Ballet of Flanders, Stuttgart Ballet, The Australian Ballet, The Göteborg Ballet, Ballett Mainz, Ballett Nürnberg, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, TANZ Ensemble, Cedar Lake, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, Ballet British Columbia and Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal. Fonte received a Choo San Goh award for his 2002 collaboration with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Almost Tango, of which R.M.Campbell of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote, "Fonte is a thinker, an architect who creates the new rather than reinvent the old. He is a master of manipulating space and creating relationships". Almost Tango was also voted as one of Dance Europe's "Best Premiere's when it was re-staged for The Australian Ballet in 2004. From 2002 to 2006 Nicolo enjoyed an ongoing creative partnership with The Göteborg Ballet in Sweden, creating and staging numerous works that helped establish the company's distinct profile. While in Göteborg he created his first full-length ballet, based on the life of Tchaikovsky, which was widely acclaimed for its marriage of rare narrative skill and thoroughly contemporary choreographic language. "Re: Tchaikovsky" appeared on the "Best of 2005" lists of both Ballet International and Dance Europe. Fonte has also played an important role in the ongoing development of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet as one of that company's most popular guest choreographers. To date he has created six highly successful works for ASFB that have toured throughout the US and overseas - Jack Anderson writing in The New York Times called Fonte "a choreographer worth knowing" when the company presented Left Unsaid at The Joyce Theater in 2005. ASFB continues to invest in their relationship with Nicolo Fonte - their 2010 production of In Hidden Seconds has received outstanding critical reviews on their tours all over the US even while they have added a seventh creation to their repertory, Where We Left Off, which premiered this past February. Fonte consistently collaborates with the most dynamic companies on both sides of the Atlantic: in the past two seasons his work has been presented at The Washington Ballet, The Finnish National Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo (among others) and he has returned to both The Dutch National Ballet and Royal Ballet of Flanders. Reviewing Fonte's Made Man, created for the Belgian troupe in 2010, one critic wrote that it was "an unprecedented suspenseful performance... The intensity built so strongly from beginning to end that you could hear a pin drop in the Flemish Opera House." Upcoming projects include a new Petrouchka for Oregon Ballet Theater this coming October, and a creation (his first) for The Houston Ballet in the spring of 2012.