Updating a Dancer’s Dream

Photograph by Morris Weintraub

It is a dream a lot of 12-year-old girls share — to dance the part of Clara in “The Nutcracker.” Forty years ago, when LaVerne Reed was that age, she was already a talented dancer, but the chances that a young black girl in Philadelphia would perform the lead role in the classic Tchaikovsky ballet were not very high. Instead, she was cast as a mouse and as a toy soldier.

Ms. Reed never forgot that dream, even after she had grown up and become a choreographer. Eleven years ago, she wrote her own version of the story and called it “The Chocolate Nutcracker.” The updated version has a multicultural cast — including a lead dancer, Claire, whose role is always performed by a non-Caucasian — and music and dance that incorporates jazz, hip-hop, tap, break dancing, and West African tribal rhythms, among other influences. The story begins in Harlem and travels through lands both real and imagined, from Egypt to Cuba to the Land of Funk.

Since it was first performed in 1993, the show has been staged in cities across the country. Performances in each city all have 100 to 250 local youngsters in the cast, and are directed by a local artist as well as Ms. Reed. The goal is to make sure that the work has local flavor, but is performed consistent with Ms. Reed’s vision. Ms. Reed insists that all youngsters who try out for roles be accepted into the cast, but not everyone makes it through all three months’ worth of rehearsals to perform before an audience. Sometimes so many youngsters want to participate that cast members have to alternate performances so everyone gets a chance to be onstage.

The nonprofit Chocolate Nutcracker Community Project, in New York, raises $100,000 to $125,000 each year to support the show and to pay the professional directors, choreographers, and instructors who make it happen.

Here, Brette Mead, who dances the role of an Egyptian princess, prepares to go onstage at Lincoln Theatre, in Washington.