Seasonal enthusiasts are rejoicing that the holiday season is coming around again, with only 12 weeks to go until Christmas. BIG Live is wasting no time getting into the Christmas spirit with their national tour of The Nutcracker kicking off today in Cairns.
After an inaugural sell-out season in 2023, The Nutcracker is returning with a national tour spanning ten cities around Australia plus a stint overseas. More audiences than ever will now be able to enjoy the magic of Tchaikovsky’s iconic Christmas ballet.
BIG Live, also known as Ballet International Gala, will also be presenting a brand new show called the BIG Christmas Spectacular. Held at the Sydney Opera House, forty dazzling dancers will join a live orchestra and choir in a one-show-only Christmas extravaganza that is hoped, like The Nutcracker, to become an annual event.
“I like the way America does Christmas,” says BIG Live’s Associate Director, Joel Burke. “The Rockefeller Centre tree, the Rockette dancers, I want to build something like that in Australia, in every city. The perfect place for our inaugural Christmas Spectacular is the Opera House and hopefully, it will become an annual tradition.”
Since its first performance in 2022, known as BIG I, Burke has built a company of homegrown dancers that perform and train together at their home base in Brisbane. Each of BIG Live’s galas and full-length ballets also feature world-class international guest artists, and joining the Christmas tour will be Ervin Zagidullin, Mariia Zagdullina, Juliet Doherty and Brisbane ballerina returning from overseas, Alicia Townsend.
The dancers on the Christmas tour are a mix of current artists and alumni of prestigious companies including Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre, Turkey’s Ankara State Opera and Ballet, the English National Ballet, the Greek National Opera Ballet, Italy’s Teatro alla Scala Academie, Germany’s Stuttgart Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Queensland Ballet and the Australian Ballet.
The BIG Christmas Spectacular will feature a total of 85 artists, including James Millar, who will be playing Santa and is also writing the script for the brand new show. Millar won a Helpmann Award for his role of Miss Trunchbull in the Australian premiere of Matilda the Musical.
“The show is about a girl called Eve,” says Burke. “She’s upset because it’s her first year without her Mum, so she’s reminiscing. But then she meets Santa who tells her to imagine the most spectacular Christmas ever, and that’s when the dancers come out, the orchestra starts playing and the choir starts singing. It’s basically a two-hour show that celebrates Christmas.”
The BIG Christmas Spectacular is suitable for all-ages, and will feature stunning choreography from ballet, jazz, contemporary, chorus line and tap. With incredible sets, brand new costumes, state-of-the-art technology and all the favourite Christmas songs, it is sure to be a sensory delight and an unforgettable festive experience.
Joel Burke
Joel Burke has been dancing since he was a kid and started with the Queensland Ballet Academy, dancing in their pre-professional program and at the prestigious Prix de Lausanne in 2018. After some time off, Burke met entertainment lawyer Khalid Tarabay, and the two became friends and business partners. That was when BIG Live was born.
Flash forward to 2024 and Burke says that BIG Live will perform to a total of 45,000 people by year’s end, a jump of over 200%. “People don’t realise how fast the company has grown,” he says. “Last year we visited four cities on the Nutcracker tour. This year we have five shows in Melbourne, two in Adelaide, three in Canberra and for the first time we are performing overseas with three shows in Auckland.”
The Nutcracker will also be visiting Perth, Hobart, Newcastle, Port Macquarie, and the Gold Coast. Burke is hoping to expand the tour even more next year.
“Our biggest competition isn’t other companies, it’s people’s phones,” he says. “But it’s about finding something that the whole family can go to and finding a price point that’s affordable. Hopefully, we will be able to continue to create our own full-length productions throughout the year, as we did recently with Romeo and Juliet. Between that, the BIG galas and the Christmas tour, our dancers will be able to work consistently throughout the year.”
The Nutcracker runs from 1st October – 20th December, and the BIG Christmas Spectacular will be held on 1st December at the Sydney Opera House, produced by BIG Live in association with United Airlines.
Bookings and further info: https://www.bigliveco.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balletinternationalgala/
The Christmas tour dates:
Cairns: 1 October, Cairns Performing Arts Centre
Perth: 25 October, Crown Theatre
Auckland: 1 – 2 November, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre
Hobart: 4- 6 November, Theatre Royal
Newcastle: 14 November, Civic Centre Newcastle
Port Macquarie: 20 November, Glasshouse Port Macquarie
Sydney: BIG Christmas Spectacular, 1 December, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
Adelaide: 6-7 December, Her Majesty’s Theatre
Canberra: 13-14 December, Canberra Theatre Centre
Gold Coast: 16 December, HOTA (note: there are two shows, matinee and evening)
Melbourne: 18-20 December, Hamer Hall
Photo credits: En Pointe Productions
