The Nightmare After the Nutcracker!

Today I went to take some photographs of a ballet performance created, Choreographed and Directed by Elana Martinez-Lamke. The Ballet was performed on the Person's Theater at Sonoma State University. I took some backstage and had spent a little bit of time on stage with the girls. The performers were mostly from VEM Dance Studio based in Rohnert Park and a couple girls from a dance studio in Novato.
This production has been a dream of Elena's for quite sometime now, and she began production in September of '09. The ballet is a mash up consisting of characters from "The Nutcracker", "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "The Corpse Bride". Plus, some great music from many other of our favorite Tim Burton movies. I have to say, that I was extremely excited to see this performance and so was my son, (we are huge Tim Burton fans, and my three nieces were characters in the ballet!! ) So most of the family went, and I was very entertaining. All the girls did amazing. There ballet dancing was outstanding and memorable. The cutest little mice and bunnies; the dolls enchanting; the freakiest clowns; ethereal ghosts; Clair charming; Sally sweet; the Corpse Bride stunning, while Victor was nightmarish; and jack was creepy and sinister (as he should be). I really have to say that the costumes and props were done so great, they really made the story seem as surreal as it was meant to be in Clair's nightmare.
Thank you to Elana, VEM Dance studio and all the others involved in helping make this performance a possibility. My family and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will post some teasers of the images we took today, soon. Keep an eye out ;)