S1.E4 ∙ 104

Every Christmas season, The Nutcracker Ballet is performed in cities all over the world. What does it really take to produce this ballet each year? Our documentary film, Getting to The Nutcracker, takes you inside the Herculean effort involved in gathering the resources, assembling the volunteers, casting the dancers, rehearsing and staging the performances of this classic ballet. Los Angeles-based Marat Daukayev School of Ballet, led by the former Kirov star, takes you behind the curtain from auditions, the rigorous hours of rehearsals, the joy of landing a principal role to the pain of losing one. The dancers (boys and girls ages 3-18) are profiled; passionate people who, with their families, make incredible sacrifices of time and money just so that they may dance.

Pan-African founders of entertainment company Kugali made their dream reality by creating an original animated series with Walt Disney Animation Studios. This special filmed across three continents shares their inspirational journey.

Using spare narration and stunning imagery, Midway focuses on the plight of the Laysan Albatross plagued by the ingestion of our plastic trash. Both elegy and warning, the film explores the interconnectedness of species, with the albatross on Midway as a mirror of our humanity.

The wildlife of the Arctic is explored in this true-life adventure.

Jacques d'Amboise, a noted former American ballet star who had dancing roles in such films as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Carousel (1956), and who later became a New York dancing instructor.