This excerpt is from a 2021 performance of The Nutcracker (from memory). Special thanks to Twinkle Toes Dance Company (Los Angeles, CA) for hosting the event. Click here to read an interview with dance writer Siobhan Burke about the performance.
 

The Nutcracker (from memory) is a vocal performance of Petipa and Tchaikovsky’s eponymous ballet. Without the support of a recording or a written score, I sing the entirety of the show’s music, offering plot details and critical commentary along the way. The piece existed as a personal joke for many years before it became an online performance in December 2020 - a moment when live performance felt largely like a remote possibility. In this and other ways, The Nutcracker (from memory) grapples with what I have learned as an artist, how I have learned it, and how that knowledge continually bursts to the surface of my lived experience.

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created and performed by Ajani Brannum (after P.I. Tchaikovsky)

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Performance documentation by Tom Tsai.