The Mouse King’s Speech

The Urban Nutcracker takes a legendary and much loved holiday ritual and turns it on its head. Literally.

Imagine the Mouse King, instead of telling his tale through classical ballet, dropping and popping with moves more reminiscent of a hip-hop break dancer. The Sugar Plum Fairy tap dancing, the Arabian Coffee performers belly-dancing and the Nutcracker himself part of a doo-wop group. It’s all part of an effort not just to rearrange the familiar and make it new again, but rather to broaden our perspective of the dance and those doing the dancing.

Urban Nutcracker is the brainchild of Anthony Williams. More multicultural melting pot than holiday confection, it has built a large fan base in and around Boston. One of those fans was filmmaker Gonca Sonmez-Poole.

An immigrant from Turkey, Ms. Sonmez-Poole was a field producer for WCVB-TV’s Chronicle. She holds a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts and is the founder of Mediation Way, an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between class, race, ethnicity and nationality.

Urban Nutcracker, she decided, was a perfect real world example of what she was trying to create with her organization. And what better way to capture this than by creating a documentary of the process and its performers?

The documentary is called Urban Nutcracker: Anatomy of a Ballet. It just finished its second-season run on PBS stations nationwide. And on Sunday, Jan. 16 at 2 p.m. it will screen on the Vineyard at the Capawock Theatre at 43 Main street in Vineyard Haven. But what really makes this a can’t-miss event is that Ms. Sonmez-Poole along with several dancers and performers profiled in the documentary will be available for questions after the screening.

For information, contact info@mediationway.org or call 978-502-8863. And don’t forget to visit mediationway.org to learn more about this important organization. While you’re at it, check out balletrox.org to get a sneak preview of what this performance looks like.