A holiday classic comes alive in Charm City Ballet’s presentation of “A Christmas Carol,” an original full-length ballet that will be staged at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts in Owings Mills on Dec. 16 and 17.
This eighth annual performance of “A Christmas Carol” features original scoring, choreography and sets. The production evokes emotion and brings the story to life with a joyful sense of musicality and commanding character performances.
With a cast of 64 ranging in age from 5 to 61, this production truly showcases the talents of our local ballet community, drawing both professional and amateur performers from all across the greater Baltimore area.
Charm City Ballet is a Cockeysville-based performance company and academy under the direction of husband-and-wife duo, Peter Commander and Rebecca Friedman. Pete and Becca, as they are informally known, have worked to bring high-level performance and dance education opportunities — not often found in a local ballet company — to the community.
Both Pete and Becca are 2009 graduates of Goucher College, and together they founded Charm City Ballet in 2015 with the inaugural performance of “A Christmas Carol.” They note that one of the best parts of running a studio like Charm City Ballet is watching dancers grow over time.
For example, some of the youngest dancers in the company at the start have now risen to the level of taking on lead roles. According to Pete and Becca, seeing that kind of commitment and growth is one of the most fulfilling aspects of what they do.
Charm City Ballet stages two productions each year, featuring “A Christmas Carol” in December and another full-length story ballet that changes each spring. Past performances of “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin” and “Beauty and the Beast” have all earned critical acclaim, and next year’s spring show will be announced at the conclusion of “A Christmas Carol.”
Pete and Becca explain “the foremost intent of our productions is to bring stories to life that we feel are important to tell. Storytelling is the foundation of human understanding, and bringing joy and satisfaction to an audience through narrative is a privilege of the highest order.”
They were originally inspired to tackle “A Christmas Carol” as the annual holiday production by Pete’s former teacher, David Kloss, who originally set his version of the show in the late 1980s. While Charm City Ballet’s production does not resemble Kloss’s work, there are moments that pay homage to it throughout the ballet.
However, the production — ranging from the haunting visits of Marley and the spirits to the merriment of Fezziwig’s party to the final celebration of Christmas — showcases the vision of Pete and Becca throughout.
The full-length story ballet format allows Pete and Becca to express their artistic freedom in every aspect of each production. They note that “one of our favorite aspects about creating any show is the chance to interpret and tell the story. Choices on how to embody a story without words in a way the audience can understand and that is optimally meaningful is like solving the most difficult puzzle there is: that of people as such, and it is a puzzle with near infinite solutions.”
For tickets and more information about “A Christmas Carol,” visit charmcityballet.com.