Clara’s Dream: A Jazz Nutcracker

By Wayne K. Self, New England Foundation for the Arts

Clara’s Dream, inspired by the Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn jazz arrangement of Tschaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, fuses swing, tap, Irish step, African dancing and drumming, funk and Latin influences to explore the roots of tap dancing and its connection to jazz.   Photo by Nancy G. Horton

This is the story of a new dance work. It is also the story of a choreographer striving to keep a genre of dance alive, and of a small group of presenters and audiences who gave it a great deal of timely support and enthusuasm.

Maine resident percussive dance artist-choreographer, Drika Overton, created Clara’s Dream, a full-length musical theater work highlighting jazz and tap. Inspired by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s arrangements of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite, it was Overton’s longtime dream to create a tap piece based upon it. "I heard the Ellington-Strayhorn arrangements of The Nutcracker performed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra on a PBS special in 1988," Overton recalled. "I found the arrangements a familiar lens through which people can ‘see’ something — not as a push to check out jazz per se." Not long before her encounter with Ellington’s Nutcracker interpretation, she had just settled in what’s known as the Seacoast region, which includes the tiny southeast corner of New Hampshire where Portsmouth is located. She had finally followed her family, most of whom had relocated from the Midwest to Maine years before. Overton as a new Seacoast artist-citizen began serving, in various capacities, the Portsmouth Music Hall. She started first by joining the protest against a developer’s bid to turn that historic vaudeville house (one of five remaining in the U.S.) into a condo, then became employed there as box office and house managers and, ultimately, joined its board. One day soon, the Music Hall would return the favor.

In 1995 — the same year she launched the Portsmouth Percussive Dance Festival (PPDF) — Overton began thinking hard about realizing her idea of a tap musical production. Her thoughts percolated around several points of interest: the 1999 centennial of Ellington’s birth; the advent of a new millenium the following year; and the need for a retrospective of tap dance. Then she acted upon those thoughts. "I applied for a New Works grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (NHSCA) in 1999 and received $1,000 to seed the project’s creation; that served as a ‘green light."

These funds enabled Overton to assemble her creative team of fellow tap artists: the esteemed veteran hoofer Brenda Bufalino, up-and-comer Josh Hilberman, and the comic genius Bob Thomas. Bufalino hosted a 1999 retreat at her home, which laid the foundation for what would result in a finished work. Then came a NHSCA request to all New Works awardees for a camera-ready image to be included in a publication. Overton responded by printing a calling card to promote the still-developing production to New England arts organizations. Around that time, pianist-composer Paul Arslanian, who Overton first encountered in San Francisco circa 1980 as musical director of the Jazz Tap Ensemble, joined the team by becoming the production’s musical director. Her crew of collaborators was finally rounded out, by 2001, with the addition of tap artists Dean Diggins, Christine Hounsell and Jeannie Hill (Hill performed the role of Clara in its debut season).

The cast of Clara’s Dream is seen here dancing exuberantly to Cuban-inspired jazz rhythms inspired by the Arabian Dance from the Nutcracker.   Photo by Nancy G. Horton

There were challenges. "In 2000 (the premiere season of Clara’s Dream) we had a short planning timeframe for putting the show together," Overton recounted. "We also found that the storyline wasn’t quite strong enough to hold the piece together. One of the primary reasons the storyline — an outcome of collaborative creation — wasn’t put together strongly enough was due to geographical distance between creative principals. It proved challenging, particularly, in bringing off rehearsals."

Interest in presenting a modern, new holiday production, however, was strong and the Music Hall premiered Clara’s Dream, followed with an engagement at the Silver Cultural Arts Center at Plymouth State College in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

	Clara’s Dream was developed collaboratively. While the tap and other percussive dancers began with the same basic movement vocabulary, the final work was enhanced by the expression of their individual styles – much like jazz music.   Photo by Nancy G. Horton

"I’m a big jazz fan and had heard the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker arrangements some time previously" and, frankly, we were tired of presenting the same old "Christmas Carol" and "Nutcracker" programs," explained Silver Center Director Diane Jeffrey. "We wanted something different. I looked into Drika’s background and found out her artistic caliber and the amount of respect she garnered in tap circles. Plus, she had wonderful dancers!" With her research and the NHSCA New Works award recognition as an imprimatur, Jeffrey felt Clara’s Dream was worth the presenting risk. Although Overton, being her own worst critic, was conscious of what she perceived as bugs in the storyline and other areas, Jeffrey saw only a few minor continuity problems and some lighting challenges. She noted that "Drika, I’m sure, was under quite a bit of stress in her dual role as artist and producer." Jeffrey was also quite pleased with the outcome. "The turnout was great; the show sold out a week in advance. The big appeal of Clara’s Dream was that it was a ‘known’ holiday show but one with its own twist. I suspect that there’s a large percussive dance audience out there. These folks took tap lessons as children and liked the experience, and subsequently have a lifelong interest in tap dance."

Jane Forde joined the Portsmouth Music Hall staff in 1997. By then the Music Hall had hosted Overton’s first Percussive Dance Festival, which featured classes, workshops, and performances from notable tappers such as Bufalino, Jimmy Slyde, Savion Glover, Dianne Walker and Keith Terry, and showcased styles such as Irish step dance, flamenco, and body percussion. As a dancer-teacher herself, Forde knew of the great tap festivals of the 1980s epitomized by those which took place in conjunction with the Colorado Dance Festival and was equally aware of Slyde, Walker, Terry and many other notable percussive dancers.

"I started with the Music Hall as education and outreach director and, as I went about making initial contacts in the community, I met Drika," Forde recollected. She and Overton began discussing the possibility of hosting another Percussive Dance Festival (which underwent a hiatus following its successful but draining debut). As plans for its second run started to firm up, Forde became one of its six volunteer advisors. In that capacity, her service resulted in the arrangement of free or reduced class space within or outside of the Music Hall (one venue was a local athletic club) and coordination of dance festival outreach and educational activities apart from her Music Hall duties. "The Portsmouth Percussive Dance Festival in essence spawned Clara’s Dream," Forde declared. "As 1999 rolled into 2000 and the key elements to make the production a reality fell into place, as an advisor and supporter I was committed to the Hall’s engagement of it as a premiere. The Music Hall already had a longtime commitment with Portsmouth’s Ballet New England (BNE) in helping make successful its self-produced annual two-week run of The Nutcracker. "We premiered Clara... the day after BNE’s Nutcracker ended," Forde said. "I had to make a strong case — especially with some major local funding partners — for premiering Clara... at the Hall. Things were a bit delicate even with BNE, which was concerned that Clara... might steal its thunder. I convinced them — and it’s proven to be true — that audiences are as interested, year to year, in The Nutcracker as they are in Clara..."

Innovative marketing and imagery such as this special effects photo helped Clara’s Dream reach new audiences who were intrigued by the hip twist on the classic Nutcracker for which they held nostalgic childhood memories.   Photo by Nancy G. Horton

"There’s more than enough audience for all kinds of holiday programs," added Margaret Lawrence. Lawrence, Hopkins Center Director of Programming at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, engaged Clara’s Dream during its second-year run in December 2001. With the support of a New England States Touring (NEST) grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the ‘Hop’ (as it’s informally called) engaged two performances with the option to add a third. In the end, the Hop had presented three sold-out evening performances along with three daytime matinees for public school students. The Center also produced a study guide for the school performances. "We had three matinees to accommodate young people from primary and secondary schools and felt a study guide was the best way to tie the show to the public school curriculum," Lawrence continued. "It was an opportunity to teach about jazz music and tap dance. We also wanted to share the guide by making it available to the general public through the Hop’s website (www.hop.dartmouth.edu)."

Clara’s Dream shrewdly spotlights tap in a jazz-oriented musical, but contextually in a framework of root forms. "African and Irish dance are really the most fundamental and important elements in the history of tap dance" she explained. "They’re traditional forms that came to this country and were incorporated into American jazz and tap. It’s very important to me to illustrate the traditional — not just from the African and Irish — but from the traditions of American tap dance." And Act II of Clara features several styles from the tradition: the shim sham, buck and wing, and BS chorus. The BS chorus is a traditional tap chorus that includes time steps, wings, over-the-tops and through-the-trenches, usually performed in an uptempo groove. It can be danced together by the entire group but also lend itself to individual improvisation. Other dance styles featured in Clara’s... Act II include the Lindy Hop, as well as swing variations on Middle Eastern dance and Spanish flamenco. Really," added Overton, "the story of Clara... is all of our stories. I think that’s what makes it so universal. It’s every artist trying to find his or her voice, and it’s all based on tradition — and you have to know the language before you can speak it."

"Unlike The Nutcracker — a high-art ballet piece that attracts family members who are coming to see other family members performing in it — Clara... attracts audience members who don’t have that family connection necessarily but feel like the piece is ‘for them,’" Forde explained. "It could be the jazz, or the appeal of tap/popular dance forms versus ballet, or it could be that it’s a change from the usual holiday offerings. Whatever the case, there’s a clear sense that audiences find Clara... accessible, in the same way someone attending a gig at a jazz nightclub might find themselves sitting next to the bass player at the bar between sets. Another facet of Clara’s... accessibility is that it’s a work that involves the community in arts in different ways and at different levels."

For this is also Clara’s Dream: a professionally-produced piece anchored by professional artists in most of the primary roles, but it is also extremely high-quality community theater. For comparison, imagine Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes’ African-American classic holiday theater piece Black Nativity performed by the Negro Ensemble Company as developed in residence at your neighborhood cultural center — not typical community theater but community theater at its artistic finest. "People seem to see themselves in the production in some way, possibly because it consists of professionals and amateurs across the age range, from little ones to elders. One of the beauties of the piece is that it’s easy to get the youngest children to participate (as snowflakes); they can be chosen and rehearsed a week before the production goes onstage.

"The teen talent, however," Forde emphatically stated, "has a much more demanding presence. You’ve got tap dancers, Irish step dancers, etc., who are usually involved with class work in these forms on a year-round basis. This talent is harder to develop. This is why I said earlier that the dance festival in essence spawned Clara... Many of them have attended one or more years of the Portsmouth Percussive Dance Festival (PPDF)."

Indeed, the PPDF has played a significant role in Clara’s... development. Overton, in efforts to recognize the piece’s deficiencies, held another retreat and brought the creative team together at the festival during summer 2001. The role of Clara was performed by Katey Yoder in its second-year run. Yoder is an exceptional young dancer who’d been a multi-year dance festival student-performer and is a talented costume designer as well. But other factors have helped the production evolve to an even higher artistic level.

One was the hiring of director Margaret Mitchell, who has worked extensively in theater throughout the Southwest and garnered critical acclaim in the U.S. and abroad for her work in set and costume design. Another was assistance from Lawrence at the Hopkins Center whose idea it was to develop a Clara’s Dream study guide, which is now a permanent part of the promotional package. Lawrence also signed on as a co-sponsoring presenter in a support request to the NEFA-administered National Dance Project for Production Grant funding. And, instead of requiring a number of workshops or master classes during the company’s six-performances at the Hopkins Center in December 2001, she encouraged the company to use the downtime to shoot quality video and photography publicity materials and work on stagecraft.

"I’m cognizant of how intensely difficult it is for an artist to produce a show mixing local and nationally-known talent," Lawrence said. "Beyond the benefits of education, connecting the community to the work, etc., there’s a heavy demand on the resources of such an expensive program. Presenters have expressed this concern to me in terms of its cost."

The traditional Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies in the original Nutcracker was transformed into a beautiful tango in Clara’s Dream.   Photo by Nancy G. Horton

Overton has been shouldering the management responsibilities associated with production and administration. She noted that, although presenters can easily promote Clara... as an interpretative variation on The Nutcracker, landing engagements is proving very difficult. "Many programmers turn it down because The Nutcracker is already a holiday staple," she said. "Its place of origin (the Seacoast area of Maine/New Hampshire versus New York City) is also questionable in their minds. Add to that the negative perception of the cast’s size (which numbers approximately 24 members)."

Jeffrey at the Silver Cultural Arts Center has indicated an interest in bringing Clara... back to Plymouth. "Marketing Clara’s Dream," she declared, "was relatively easy — especially since it’s subtitled A Jazz Nutcracker! Its poster provided us with a strong marketing image, which we used in postcards, posters and ad slicks. The image as well had a nice mix of the traditional Nutcracker visual elements blended with newer elements more specific to the work (such as a saxophone and Ellington’s visage as the moon’s face). It was easy to market since Plymouth State has a good jazz program and the Silver has built a jazz audience by featuring it every season. Student jazz ensembles perform throughout the school year. And, because there’s a ‘homegrown’ aspect to the work, it received good press statewide.

"We tend not to repeat engagements but this one is a possibility," she went on. "I’m sure the quality has gone up now that it’s had another year of touring experience. "However," Jeffrey added on a cautious note, "we booked during its first year and got Clara’s Dream at a much lower price than it costs now."

And there’s the rub once again. Clara’s Dream has become a new classic. It has, from at least two key presenting organizations for the time being, gained an annual commitment to its presentation. Their appreciation and support has had a pronounced impact on its growth and development. Clara’s Dream is an exemplar of work that actively sustains the legacy of two of our truly American artforms: jazz music and tap dance which are Old World evolutionary hybrids born into forms that are uniquely American. In turn, audiences served by these presenters have expressed great enjoyment of Clara... in the most bottom-line manner possible: by making every show to date in its history a sellout. But it still has to overcome the significant hobbles that are tied to it as a result of its perception as ‘community theater.’

"It’s a project caught between two worlds," Lawrence said. "That of the slimmed-down professional cast and that of the community-representation world. Drika at one point was moving towards contracting with professional management but decided against it when weighing the demands and other effects of touring an all-professional cast."

Overton stated that "I’d love for Clara... to have a resident host theater..." but acknowledged that, for now, such a possibility is a remote one.

"The young people," Forde explained regarding some of the work’s most prominent secondary roles, "have enormous talent and, in their Clara... roles, an enormous responsibility. In many ways, it’s their presence that might make such noteworthy work as Clara... a work to be franchised and distributed across many communities in the U.S."

Lawrence aptly summed up the dilemma. "A project like Clara’s Dream is extremely fragile. So many elements need to be lined up to bring it off successfully. Each time it happens, it’s almost like a miracle. I think it’s the most uniquely fragile production I’ve engaged! I usually don’t book community productions but I’m committed to this particularly ambitious work. Although I may not be able to book it every holiday season ad infinitum, the Hop is very supportive of Clara’s Dream in terms of our professional relationship — whatever resources we can provide to it as well as our advocacy of it."

(Wayne Self is Creation and Presentation Fund Manager at the New England Foundation for the Arts. Contributors to this article include Maine choreographer Drika Overton; Jane Forde, Artistic Director of the Portsmouth Music Hall in New Hampshire; Margaret Lawrence, Director of Programming at the Hopkins Center of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; and Diane Jeffrey, Director of the Plymouth State College Silver Cultural Arts Center in New Hamphire.)

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