San Francisco Ballet Launches User-Generated Video Contest for "The Nutcracker"

The San Francisco Ballet--which claims, in addition to being the oldest professional ballet company in the US, to have been the first to perform "The Nutcracker"--on Monday launched a "Magical Memories Nutcracker Video Contest." The contest invites ballet enthusiasts to create a video that reenacts or reimagines a magical scene from "The Nutcracker" or that depicts a favorite memory of the ballet, and then post it on YouTube. Because the San Francisco Ballet is this year celebrating the 65th anniversary of its first performance of "The Nutcracker," it is stipulating that video submissions must be 65 seconds in length.

According to the San Francisco Ballet, five semi-finalists will be announced on December 2nd, and will be chosen according to such criteria as creativity, relevance, and the number of YouTube views garnered by their videos. The semi-finalists' videos will then be made available on the Ballet's contest page (http://www.sfballet.org/contest) as well as on Comcast's San Francisco Bay Area VOD platform. All the semi-finalists will receive prizes, and three who are chosen as finalists by a popular vote will receive additional prize packages. The deadline for submissions is November 29th; public voting takes place from December 2nd through 13th; and the finalists will be announced December 14th.