Royal Winnipeg Ballet cancelling The Nutcracker this Christmas due to COVID-19

A Christmas traditionfor nearly 20 years, The Nutcracker will not be gracing the stage of the Centennial Concert Hall thisDecember due to COVID-19.

The annual Royal Winnipeg Ballet production was scheduled to run from Dec. 22 to Dec. 28.

Artistic director Andre Lewis saidit would have been difficult to impossible to stage safelygiven the large scale of the production.

"The Nutcracker is such a large show with children, with teenagers, with of course the dancers, backstage crew, our staff mingling all into a fairly small space made us really concerned," he said.

There was also just too much uncertainty around the pandemic and what might happen in the coming months, he said.

"Work like The Nutcracker, you have to plan this months in advance. You can't just suddenly say, 'OK, let's do it.' It's not that kind of work that you can do that with," he said.

Still, the ballet company has some new, and COVID-friendly, ideas in the works.

Lewis said they are creating some smaller and/or solo works that can be presented to smaller, socially-distanced audiences in their Founder's Studio.

"We're going to try to do everything to continue having our footprint, if you will, or our delicate pointe shoe print on the grounds of Winnipeg," he said.