The Christmas Eve Toy Ballet

Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy is one of the most enchanting pieces from Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet The Nutcracker. Its soft, twinkling sound comes from a special instrument called the celesta, which makes the music feel sparkly and delicate.

 

We imagined the composer and his beloved sister as young children in this story, being paid a visit by the Sugarplum Fairy, and experiencing a magical Christmas Eve that would stay with them forever.

Emi and the Winter Pond

This is a famous and joyful piece of music, written in a dance style called a waltz. When we listen, we can imagine people twirling around in a grand ballroom.

 

We may not be dancers ourselves, but we are ice skaters! And so, we created this story about a little girl dancing not in a ballroom, but across the ice.

 

With so many of our chosen pieces evoking images of Europe, where a lot of famous and beloved composers are from, we decided to let our story wander far away from the Danube River and named the character of Emi after Emi Watanabe. She was the first Japanese woman to win a medal in the World Figure Skating Championships.

Tiptoe Trouble

In the Hall of the Mountain King is one of Edvard Grieg’s most exciting and mischievous pieces of music. It was written for a play called Peer Gynt and tells the story of the character Peer as he sneaks into the dark, echoing cave of the Troll King.

 

Just like in Peer’s adventure, our story follows a sneaking character, but he is soon joined by several other children, and they have a very different mission to achieve!