Nutcracker 2025: A Message from the Artistic Director

Dear Friends,

My journey in ballet began in a stairwell. I was standing there next to my mother when she told me John Whitehead had cast me as Nicholas in Carolina Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Township Auditorium. There are only a handful of moments in life you remember with total clarity. This is one of mine. I was just a kid, one of dozens about to step onto that stage beside Russian guest artists. But in that stairwell, something shifted. I’d been given a chance to step into something bigger than myself, something that felt like it mattered.

That small role ended up opening doors I never could’ve imagined, all the way from Columbia to the Mariinsky Theatre, where I’d eventually dance as a principal in the birthplace of classical ballet. And now, through the vision of our Board Chairman, Lee Lumpkin, I’m home again as Artistic Director of Columbia Classical Ballet. Lee has been a pillar in this community for decades, and when she invited me back, she said something simple and direct: build something that doesn’t fit in neat categories. Build something Columbia actually needs.

This Nutcracker is the beginning of that vision. Not the end point. Just the first steps on a path we’re taking together.

The Ballet Is the Tree

In 1954, George Balanchine, who began his own training at the Mariinsky before reimagining ballet in America, put more than 100 children onstage alongside New York City Ballet’s top professionals in his new Nutcracker. He’d learned something years earlier when he choreographed for the teenagers who became known as the “Baby Ballerinas.” Irina Baronova at 13. Tamara Toumanova at 14. Tatiana Riabouchinska at 15. They didn’t become stars in spite of their youth. They became stars because of it. They carried fearlessness, curiosity, and that innate belief that the impossible isn’t actually impossible.

When City Center’s chairman saw Balanchine had spent $25,000 on a single Christmas tree and demanded it be cut, Balanchine answered with four words that changed everything:

“Ballet is the tree.”

It wasn’t decoration. It was the whole point. That tree represented aspiration. Every dancer an ornament with their own light, their own story, all reaching upward toward the angel at the top. None of us ever touch the angel. But that’s why we keep reaching.

And here’s the part Balanchine understood: a tree needs both the ornaments and the people gathered around it. The dancers shine from the branches. The audience gathers below. Together, they create the magic. The ballet is the tree because it’s the place where individual spark becomes shared wonder.

I see that same truth when Irene and I watch our daughter, Summer, light up as dancers fly across our studio. That instinct, recognizing beauty before you even know how to name it, is how humans connect to dance. Not because it’s “accessible” or “educational,” but because it hits something deeper and older inside us.

Our Company Today

Look at our stage. Our dancers, artists from right here in this community who’ve chosen to help build something new, perform alongside Mariinsky-trained artists who’ve left Russia and made Columbia their permanent home. This includes dancers who now perform with us full-time and our rehearsal director, who stood next to me at the Mariinsky for years. They moved here because they believe in what we’re building. Add to that our guest artists from American Ballet Theatre, and you get something Columbia has never seen before: world-class artists choosing this city, committing to it, and helping shape a company that didn’t exist in this form until now.

And this is how ballet actually grows. Not from marketing plans or outreach slogans. From young people feeling that spark in their chest and realizing they can reach for something bigger. Their passion pulls their parents along. Their parents share that awe with other families. The circle widens because energy spreads.

The Space Between

Some people like their categories tidy. Professional companies here, student companies there. But I learned as Nicholas at the Township Auditorium that the real transformation happens in the space between. In that moment when a young dancer realizes they’re capable of more than they believed. That’s the territory Columbia Classical Ballet claims.

We’re not strictly a professional company or a student one. We’re something more essential. We’re what ballet looks like when it’s taking root in a community. We honor that middle ground Balanchine discovered, where young dancers and seasoned professionals share the same space and create something neither could do alone.

My own path proves what’s possible. A boy playing Nicholas in Columbia can grow into a principal dancer at the Mariinsky. But the more important truth is this: that same dancer can come home and make sure the next generation gets the same chance.

Our Promise

We don’t drag ballet down to meet people. We invite people to rise to meet ballet. We don’t water down the art so it feels easier. We ask our community to reach with us. Joy doesn’t come from achieving perfection. None of us ever will. It comes from the reach itself.

Every young dancer performing tonight will carry this moment with them forever. Many in this audience once stood exactly where these children stand now. Some of these young dancers may one day travel the world, as I did, following their own paths.

This is Columbia Classical Ballet’s promise: to be the tree Balanchine envisioned. A place where every dancer is both an ornament and an aspiration, where our whole community learns what it means to reach upward. We bring together the deep traditions of the Mariinsky and the limitless potential of Columbia’s young artists.

Welcome to our Nutcracker. Every performance is both an ending and a beginning. Students become professionals. Families become audiences. Columbia discovers what it means to reach toward something timeless together.

This isn’t just a ballet. It’s a revolution disguised as tradition.

This is Columbia Classical Ballet.

Thank you for reaching with us.

With gratitude and joy,

Joseph Phillips

Artistic Director