By Vic Cox

	Frank Ries, UCSB professor of dance, will play a snobby grand duke in “The Nutcracker” ballet.

When the Santa Barbara Festival Ballet’s 31st annual version of “The Nutcracker” dances across the Arlington Theater stage next month audiences are in for more than the usual holiday delicacy. As part of the party scene before the dream sequence, a “lost” dance—an English gigue (pronounced JEE-ga) written by original composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—has been restored.

While the Arlington’s orchestra performs music created in 1891, Frank Ries, professor of dance at UCSB, will bring that gigue to life for a sequence few American audiences have ever witnessed. Additionally, Ries will dance in front of Russian sets painted by artists of the famed Bolshoi Ballet, according to Denise Rinaldi, artistic director for the ballet company and assistant to the executive director of the Associated Students at UCSB.

This year’s Nutcracker runs for three performances on Dec. 10 and Dec. 11, with matinees on both dates. Tickets, which are discounted for children and seniors, can be purchased online <www.sbnutcracker.com> or by phone (805) 963-4408.

Lead roles in the ballet will be performed by Sayat Asatryan, as the Cavalier, and Olga Tchekachova, as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Both have trained or danced in St. Petersburg, and both currently perform around the United States as guest artists.

Ries created the character (complete with back story) of Grand Duke Lev Ivanovitch Ivanov when he first danced the gigue for a Nutcracker production in the 1970s choreographed by ballet master Nicholas Beriozoff of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.

When Festival Ballet sought his participation, Ries suggested adding this piece of Nutcracker history. As a dance historian, he knew that Tchaikovsky was disappointed that the gigue was cut from the original ballet’s final lineup.

Restoring this dance to a holiday classic also has personal meaning to Ries. He plans to retire next year and move to San Diego, so he said the Nutcracker role would be a farewell to the Santa Barbara dance scene that he has enjoyed and to which he has contributed.

In a signature gesture, Ries will do the gigue in a costume designed originally for a production of Tchaikovsky’s opera “Eugene Onegin.” The jewelry the Grand Duke will wear includes rings from the House of Cartier and a broach of semi-precious stones from Swarovski, he noted.