Art and About

A Nutcracker Feud: Team Sugar or Team Snow? Inside Houston Ballet's 24-yearholiday tradition

When CultureBro Joel Luks and I visited Houston Ballet's Center for Dance to tackle The Nutcracker season for our Art & About video, we had one question: Team Snow Queen or Team Sugar Plum?

Ben Stevenson's The Nutcracker, which opens Friday and runs through Dec. 27 at the Wortham Center, has been enchanting audiences (one million people so far) for 24 years ago. In what story do you get a prince who gets two ballerina babes, the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy, plus a growing Christmas tree and dancing rodents.

And, there's more, say 200 pounds of snow.

Curious. Could Stanton Welch secretly be on Team Snow?

The big deal, of course are the roles. The Sugar Plum Fairy will be danced by principals Amy Fote, Melody Mennite, Danielle Rowe and Sara Webb; first soloist Kelly Myernick; soloists Karina Gonzalez, Nao Kusuzaki and Katharine Precourt; demi soloist Lauren Strongin; and corps de ballet member Hitomi Takeda. Snow Queen will be danced by Gonzalez, Melissa Hough, Kusuzaki, Myernick, Precourt, Rowe, Jessica Collado, Nozomi Iijima and Allison Miller.

The Prince, who gets to dance with both Snow and Sugar, will be played by Simon Ball, Ian Casady, Jun Shuang Huang and Connor Walsh; soloists Christopher Coomer, Oliver Halkowich, Linnar Looris and Joseph Walsh; demi soloist Luke Ingham; and corps de ballet member Charles-Louis Yoshiyama.

To get to the snow/sugar question we visited with future Snow Queen Allison Miller, who is always a joy to speak with and watch dance. No wonder she was named "one of 25 to watch" by Dance Magazine in 2011. The jubilant Miller fills us the nuances of the role.

Although she never admitted to being Team Snow, her enthusiasm proved obvious.

When it comes to Desmond Heeley's magnificent sets and costumes, Houston Ballet's production director Tom Boyd fills us in. But get this, he mostly talks about snow. No, not the queen, the actual stuff. According to Boyd, it's the best snow in all of planet Nutcracker.

Wardrobe manager Laura Lynch did not hide her feelings. Naming Snow's tiara as the most beautiful costume piece, we know where she stands. Lynch also helped us understand what a monumental task it is to costume the Nut.

I ran into the chief, Stanton Welch, as I was leaving the building and I could not resist asking the question. "Sugar," says Welch, but I'm responding from my dancer self. All the women want to do sugar over snow. But snow has the best music in the ballet." Welch went on to talk snow for another five minutes.

Curious. Could he secretly be on Team Snow?

Dance lovers, it's up to you now. Team Sugar or Team Snow?

Let's Dance

Houstonians can dance all day and night at 2 EDM festivals in June

Meow Wolf Houston DJ stage

Photo by Aaron Wharton

DJs will take the stage at Meow Wolf for an all-night festival.

We don’t know what it is about Saturday, June 20, but it’ll be a day when local EDM fans will have the time of their lives.

Meow Wolf Houston’s Radio Tave will host a full-building electronic music takeover. The interactive art/funhouse will debut Monstercat Danceportation, an immersive, late-night music festival bringing together internationally-recognized electronic artists with Houston’s rising local scene. Attendees can move through the exhibition and discover performances woven throughout the space, from high-energy DJ sets broadcasting from the exhibition station’s radio booth to bass-heavy moments echoing through hidden worlds and large-scale headline performances inside the venue's Theta Theater.

Born from the successful Danceportation series at Meow Wolf Denver, which has sold out multiple editions since launching in 2022, Danceportation arrives in collaboration with the Vancouver-based Monstercat, one of electronic music’s most influential indie labels. The lineup includes Trivecta, SMOAKLAND, Nostalgix, SPORTMODE, DLOW, GRIN, BÜRDTE b2b COACH HART, DEGEN, and SWADED SOUNDS.

“This is the first event of its kind we’ve ever created at Meow Wolf Houston,” said operations manager Miranda Allmon. “Danceportation transforms every corner of Radio Tave into an active music environment. Each space inside the exhibition takes on its own energy throughout the night.”

On the same day, AHC Productions will present Space City Wubfest, billed as “Houston’s first-ever bass music festival,” over at Raven Tower. According to the website (where you can find a coloring contest where the winner receives two VIP tickets), the 12-hour event will be “a four-stage takeover featuring two main bass stages, a riddim stage inside the tower (with the promise to deliver "filth and high-energy madness), and a rooftop stage bringing house and techno vibes under the sky.”

In fitting festival fashion, Wubfest will also include a vendor village, food trucks, face painters, massage tables, and tie-dye bars. Live flow performances will take place throughout the day, along with a flow arts workshop where attendees can learn, spin, and level up their skills.

You can spend the day hanging at Wubfest, which starts at 11 am, and later head over to Meow Wolf, which will open its doors at 10 pm. Both events will be 21+ only. Wubfest tickets are here, and Danceportation tickets are over here.

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