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When American Ballet Theatre’s “The Nutcracker” arrived in Orange County in December 2015, it wasn’t simply opening another holiday run. The company made a deliberate decision to anchor Alexei Ratmansky’s production at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, relocating it from New York and pairing its West Coast premiere with the launch of the ABT William J. Gillespie School – a move designed to weave professional performance and dancer training together from the start.
Ten holiday seasons later, that vision has taken hold. What began as a bold institutional partnership has become a defining December ritual at Segerstrom, returning each year with Ratmansky’s detailed choreography, Tchaikovsky’s score performed live by Pacific Symphony, and generations of dancers (both professional and local) who have grown up inside the production.
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