DUBUQUE365ink • How many nuts could a nutcracker crack if a nutcracker could crack nuts? • DUBUQUE365.COM 13
We all know the music of Tchaikovsky’s classic work, The Nutcracker. Waltz of the Flowers, Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy ... but have you ever seen the ballet? You have an opportunity, as it will be staged at the Five Flags Theater in the coming weeks, featuring the performers of the Dubuque City Youth Ballet. The local dance group has performed this ballet for many years in our community to the delight of huge audiences of all ages. The ballet itself was composed sometime around 1891 and 1892, based upon Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation of the original German story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. (We’re not even going to try typing the original German wording of it, because then we’d try to pronounce it, and then our heads would explode. Bad news.) Inability to speak German aside, tickets for The Nutcracker are on sale right now and you can get them by calling the Five Flags Box Office or Ticketmaster at 563557-8497, or get them online at www.ticketmaster.com. Performances are on two different weekends: December 9 & 16 (Saturdays) at 8 p.m., and December 10 & 17 (Sundays).
Bill Brovold’s Strange Farm by Justin Case
Detroit comes to Dubuque in the form of Bill Brovold’s Strange Farm on December 15 at Isabella’s. Most of Dubuque is familiar with Bill Brovold, or at least with his work. Anyone who watched MTV remembers Cyndi Lauper’s video, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Bill built the set. In many ways this is the truth of an artistic reality: The genius at work is behind the scenes holding the hammer,
while the star struts for the camera. Quietly overlooked, the driving forces of art are often the least-recognized or understood. It is in this way that Mr. Brovold was drawn to Iowa. Following a desire to learn more about the native state of his close friend Arthur Russell, Brovold swings thorough Dubuque on a short tour of the Midwest that includes Detroit, Toledo, Chicago and Indianapolis. His music promises to be lush in arrangement with Gregg Courtney on guitar, James Ilgenfritz on upright bass and Kurt Zimmerman on violin.