Watching The Original Sugarplum Fairy Choreography

“As a Christmas gift to its patrons, the archive at Jacob’s Pillow has sent out this wonderfully vivid clip of Alexandra Danilova in the [Lev] Ivanov Sugarplum solo. … It’s worth comparing Danilova’s performances with that of her great friend Alicia Markova … who danced the Sugarplum in the first complete Western production of The Nutcracker (1934) and continued in the role well into the 1950s.”