It was Nutcracker versus Rat King, swords clashing as their fans shouted.

“Rat King, Rat King!” “Nutcracker! Nutcracker!”

The chants filled the air as more than 700 Grand Valley schoolchildren bounced in their seats inside Asteria Theatre on Thursday morning for an outreach performance by Colorado West Performing Arts Company.

The children pointed, some directed music with their arms, and heads bobbed and swayed to the melodies of “The Nutcracker.”

On stage, the professional dancers and trainees with Colorado West, along with two auditioned youth dancers in the roles of Nutcracker and Clara, shared the dances from various parts of the famous holiday ballet by Tchaikovsky.

There was the Snow Queen and King, the Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Marzipan, Russian and the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.

Even Mother Ginger made an appearance as Theresa Kahl, Colorado West’s co-artistic director, explained how the character in an oversized costume must be rolled on stage, her skirts hiding number of younger dancers who then come out to dance as bonbons.

“Where are the kids?” one member of the audience wanted to know as the event came to an end and a few questions were taken.

Kahl explained that the younger dancers were at school, but then pointed out a girl in the audience who was set to dance in “The Nutcracker” as an angel.

“Can you make it snow?” asked another child.

“We will do it because you asked nicely,” Kahl replied.

Flakes for the ballet’s snow scene began floating down to delighted “whoooaaa” and “wows.”

“Can anyone do a backflip?”

“What happened to the Rat King and Nutcracker?”

“Bye!”

And then the snow was swept up, a dancer posed for photo with a student and the theater drew quiet again, awaiting the coming performance magic of “The Nutcracker.”