The Nutcracker is back in NYC for 2024 and here's where to see it

Balanchine's magical 1954 production, set to Tchaikovsky's timeless score, includes the full New York City Ballet company, two casts of School of American Ballet students, scenery by Rouben Ter-Arutunian, costumes by Karinska and lighting by Mark Stanley, after Ronald Bates's original concept. The show is a magical occasion: Along with a one-ton Christmas tree that grows from 12 to 40 feet, there's a snowstorm of blizzard proportions and a Mother Ginger with a nine-foot-wide skirt. In the end, however, Balanchine's choreography is what holds it all together. It's enchanting, and it never grows old.

You’ll get a kick out of this holiday stalwart, which still features Santa, wooden soldiers, live animals, a tribute to The Nutcracker and the dazzling Rockettes. In the signature kick line that finds its way into most of the big dance numbers, the Rockettes’ 36 pairs of legs rise and fall like the batting of an eyelash, their perfect unison a testament to the disciplined human form. This is precision dancing on a massive scale—a Busby Berkeley number come to glorious life—and it takes your breath away.

Austin McCormick and his risqué neo-Baroque dance-theater group Company XIV present a lavish erotic reimagining of the classic holiday tale, complete with circus performers, operatic singers and partial nudity. The word nutcracker has customarily conjured innocent wonder; now be ready to add glitter pasties, stripper poles and comically large stuffed penises to the toys in wonderland. Definitely leave the kids at home. RECOMMENDED: Company XIV’s Nutcracker Rouge will make you blush

The captivating Michelle Dorrance, who won a 2015 MacArthur "genius" grant for her innovative tap work, returns to City Center with a version of The Nutcracker set to Duke Ellington and Bill Strayhorn's 1960 jazz reimagining of Tchaikovsky's ballet score. This evening of holiday entertainment—choreographed by Dorrance and Josette Wiggan, with an assist from five other dancemakers plus improvisions by members of the company—also includes yuletide standards performed by live musicians and singer Aaron Marcellus. 

Pavol Liška and Kelly Copper's Nature Theater of Oklahoma, which enthralled audiences with the 10-hour musical anti-epic Life and Times: Episodes 1–4, makes its long-awaited return to New York City with the North American premiere of a wild new dance-theatr piece—described as "over-the-top, tightly choreographed political-grotesque work"—about a security company staffed by former actors that must defend itself against a rival company of former ballet dancers. The entire thing is set against the score from The Nutcracker, and is sure to be plenty nutty.

Now in its 21th iteration, Charles Rice-González's holiday play, which subverts both The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol, imagines a queer Latino couple caught in a journey through time one trippy Christmas eve. Witness ’80s flashbacks, Martha Stewart dinner parties and plenty of angelic divas to light the way. Chris Rivera directs this year's edition, which features cabaret performer Michael Michelle Lynch.

Nimbus Dance’s annual twist on The Nutcracker guides audiences through the streets, parks and sewers of Jersey City in a production that pairs 15 professional dancers with more than 80 young perfomers. Nimbus leader Samuel Pott directs and choreographs the show, which is set to a jazzy variation on Tchaikovsky's score and includes animated projections by Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger. 

This production interprets the classic with hip-hop choreography and an updated version of the holiday story; directed and choreographed by Jennifer Weber and adapted by Mike Fitelson, the production features onstage DJs, an amped-up version of the Tchaikovsky score and a short opening act by rap pioneer Kurtis Blow. (The show also plays twice at NJPAC on December 8 before hitting Brooklyn's Kings Theater on December 23.)

Brooklyn Ballet's take on The Nutcracker, choreographed by artistic director Lynn Parkerson, emphasizes cultural and artistic diversity. Alongside sequences that hew to the classic 19th-century tradition are interludes featuring street dance, flamenco, belly dancing, Chinese dance, hoop dance, hip-hop and the Hopak, a traditional Ukrainian dance. The 2024 edition features Kamala Saara and Jonathan Hart in the pas de deux and krump specialist Brian "HallowDreamz" Henry as the Rat King, along with Aliesha Bryan, the Eva Dance Studio, Sira Melikian, ShanDien LaRance and Michael “Big Mike” Fields. Live music is proviced by beatboxer Baba Israel, violinist Zafir Tawil, accordionist Mikhail Smirnoff and dizi floutist Yimin Miao.

With its 1960s setting, comic-book–style art design and cross-dressing lyrical dancers, this is one of the kookiest productions of The Nutcracker. Using the entirety of Tchaikovsky’s composition and including a section of the original E.T.A. Hoffmann story that even the original version of the ballet omitted, Mark Morris Dance Group’s take—which returns to BAM this yeat for the first time since 2018—is still fresh and very, very fun, especially after a few boozy hot cocoas during intermission.

Choreographer David Parker and his Bang Group reprise their neovaudevillian version of The Nutcracker, a comedic deconstruction of the holiday classic that mixes tap, ballet, contemporary dance, disco and bubble-wrap syomping. The cast for this year's edition includes students from the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center; the matinee on December 14 and the evening show on December 19 are followed by a Winter Wonderland Afterparty that includes hot chocolate, sweets, photo ops and a tap-dancing station.

Dances Patrelle offers its annual performance of Francis Patrelle's The Yorkville Nutcracker, set in 1895 New York and featuring adorable child dancers alongside the professionals. This year's edition stars New York City Ballet soloist Miriam Miller as the Sugar Plum Fairy, joined again by NYCB principal Jared Angle as her Cavalier.

As part of its Once Upon a Ballet series, which is aimed at young children, NYTB presents its annual hour-long Art Nouveau version of the holiday ballet, complete with clockwork elves and an owl that flies over the audience. The set design is by Gillian Bradshaw-Smith and the costumes by Sylvia Taalsohn Nolan. (In addition to its annual run at the Florence Gould Theater, the company is also performing a 3pm matinee on December 1 at Queens College's Kupferberg Center.)