“Music, dance, a holiday tradition”

Thank you, Teresa Rolfe Kravtin, for this appreciation of ‘The Nutcracker’ Comes to America: How Three Ballet-Loving Brothers Created a Holiday Tradition. It cites a book I adore, but whose connection to my own I had never considered:

Every year, The Nutcracker is staged in communities across America, and with this book, author Chris Barton tells the history behind how it came to be. More than just that, the story unfolds and explores how three brothers made their way through life pursuing their passion of dance, and creatively found ways of making money and becoming entertainers. In some ways, this reminds me of Melissa Sweet’s Balloons Over Broadway, another tale of a creative artist, Tony Sarg, a puppeteer who made something no one had quite ever made before, upside-down helium balloon puppets for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it became a part of our national holiday tradition.