The Nutcracker: Vegetable ballet

A veggie fairytale ballet for garlic, ginger, eggplant, six walnuts and one rat with iconic music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Arcangelo Corelli.

Framed in a miniature proscenium, The Nutcracker. Vegetable Ballet develops a novel choreography based on the potential of plant-based dancers in an exploration of traditional theatre forms and the possibilities of puppetry.

Daria Gosteva and Anastázie Dobrodinská (BORSHCH group) met at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (KALD DAMU). The oldest puppetry department in the world, KALD DAMU was founded in 1952 by Josef Skupa and given its current name in 1991 by Josef Krofta. Individual disciplines focus on exploring the very essence of what we call theatre; as a whole, the department focuses on explorations of primary theatrical functions, examining the divisions between the traditional theatrical professions of directing, dramaturgy, stage design, acting, costume design, music and dance, with particular emphasis on collective work in which these professions disrupt, overlap, intersect and lose their hierarchy, especially within the rehearsal process, which the department views as the core of theatre making.

Award

The City of Pilsen Award for Daria Gosteva and Anastázie Dobrodinská’s graceful puppet manipulation in The Nutcracker: Vegetable Ballet.

About the company

Daria Gosteva and Anastázie Dobrodinská (BORSHCH group) met at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (KALD DAMU), where they are currently studying. Anastázie (ŘIP, Girls can I ask) focuses on acting and dancing, while Daria (Dinopera, Moskva-Dachnoje, Heavy Theatre, Domysli, KHWOSHCH group) concentrates on scenography and directing. T

he Nutcracker. Vegetable Ballet is the next step in Daria’s research of traditional theatre forms and the possibilities of puppet theatre. It follows Dinopera (KHWOSHCH group), the well-received tragic dinosaur opera which has been travelling around Europe for the last three years.

Anastázie, an actual human ballerina who knows all of the Nutcracker numbers by heart and feet, carefully researched the potential of vegetable dancers to create a unique choreography.

The vegetable ballet is their first collaboration.