`NUTCRACKER' WITH A MESSAGE : HOLIDAY FAVE GOES TO HARLEM WITH VISION OF DONALD BYRD.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

At Club Sweets, the hottest nightspot in Harlem, the floor is shaking to a jitterbug beat.

While Clara, a venerable uptown matriarch, looks on, a hip-twitching cutie falls in step with a zoot-suited city slicker. Minutes later, a trio of studly bodybuilders puts on an r&b-syncopated display of muscle guaranteed to elicit delighted gasps from the front rows.

Plainly, this isn't your grandma's idea of the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairies.

Or is it? There have been ``Nutcrackers'' on dirt bikes, ``Nutcrackers'' on skateboards, ``Nutcrackers'' decked out like bell-bottomed Barbie dolls.

More than a century after Tchaikovsky penned his classic ballet, why do we need yet another ``Nutcracker''?

``You don't,'' Donald Byrd agrees pleasantly. ``You need `The Harlem Nutcracker.' ''

On first impression, the 47-year-old choreographer seems less like a graying enfant terrible than the proverbial kid in the candy store. If so, perhaps it's because he's been spending so much time revisiting a chapter of his childhood.

Known for modern-dance works that combine multicultural, multiperiod style with razor-edged social commentary, Byrd embraces tradition - sort of - with ``The Harlem Nutcracker,'' an African-Americanized spin on Tchaikovsky's beloved adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale.

Arriving Friday at the Wiltern Theatre for the first of five performances, the high-concept $1 million production already has visited Tempe, Ariz.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Minneapolis; suburban Washington, D.C.; and the experimental Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Reviewing the show for The New York Times, dance critic Anna Kisselgoff described it as ``an exuberant, stylish entertainment ... realized with wicked wit and a warm heart.''

Conceived and performed by Donald Byrd/The Group, the company that Byrd founded in Los Angeles in 1978 and moved to New York City five years later, ``The Harlem Nutcracker'' represents many things to the artist.

Primarily, it's an affirmation of the African-American family, a tribute to the resiliency and supportiveness of a domestic culture that's often equated with despair and dysfunction.

``There's a stereotype that the African-American family is not an intact family,'' says Byrd, exhaling cigarette smoke and passionate opinion into a Westwood hotel lounge.

``So one of the objectives of `The Harlem Nutcracker' is to inform the public'' that loving, cohesive African-American families do exist.

Furthermore, Byrd felt compelled to counter a perception that white Christian fundamentalists have a monopoly on ``family values.''

``I thought that what was needed was something that would contribute to (eradicating) the divisiveness that was eating at this country,'' he says, making the matter sound more like one of common civility than hardened ideology.

Secondly, Byrd intended his zoot-suited ballet as a celebration of the Harlem renaissance of the 1930s, a period of unique creativity and hope for many African-Americans.

Inspired by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's swing-jazz arrangement of Tchaikovsky's well-worn score, ``The Harlem Nutcracker'' takes place in the home and the mind of a widowed Harlem grandmother named Clara (Eleanor McCoy).

As a 19-piece jazz band and gospel chorus kick into gear, Clara is visited by the Angel of Death, reunites with her late husband (a k a the Nutcracker Prince), and is spirited into a soulful odyssey that includes a stop at Club Sweets, standing in for the legendary Cotton Club.

Just as the real Harlem of the '30s mediated between European and African-American cultural traditions, the mythic Harlem of Byrd's piece bridges the ballet's original swanlike choreography with the Duke's hip-twitching jazz rhythms.

Byrd's design also nods to George Balanchine's revisionist ``Nutcracker'' of 1954, which Byrd credits with bringing to light the story's psychological underpinnings.

When he first saw Balanchine's production, Byrd was particularly struck by an early scene in which Clara and the other children waltz with their elders. This transgenerational coupling, Byrd says, conveyed the idea that Clara soon will be compelled to enter the adult world, ``which I think is what `The Nutcracker' is about: clinging to one's childhood.''

Byrd also confesses to a youthful crush on Gelsey Kirkland, who played Clara opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov's Nutcracker in Balanchine's famously sensual American Ballet Theatre production for television.

``I just had a thing about Gelsey Kirkland. I was in love with this person, this defiant teen-ager.''

But beyond these associations, ``The Harlem Nutcracker'' holds a deeper, personal meaning for its author. The grown-up Clara bears more than a passing likeness to Byrd's own grandmother, a spiritual mentor and emotional force to be reckoned with.

``She was like - you know how Jessica Tandy got, the older she got? She had this thing about her. She was just the most exquisite-looking woman.''

As a child, Byrd says, he used to feel he wouldn't be able to bear life without his grandmother. But three days before she passed away, the old woman sensed her death and was able to reassure her grandson that life would go on.

That promise of generational continuity finds its way into ``The Harlem Nutcracker,'' underscoring a traditional African-American belief that ``the ancestors are always with you,'' Byrd says.

``I would say at the end of my `Nutcracker,' she (Clara) has spiritual harmony. Life goes on. Which I think is what people with children and grandchildren want.''

It probably would be a mistake to deduce that Byrd has abandoned the biting observation of such past works as ``The Minstrel Show,'' a blistering critique of racism, or ``The Beast,'' which dealt with domestic violence.

Yet tampering with a 104-year-old tradition can be risky, Byrd concedes, especially in a still-young country like ours.

`` `Do not be cynical with my `Nutcracker!' '' Byrd summarizes. ``That's how Americans feel - that it has to be sincere.''

``I think `The Nutcracker,' given the piece it is generally, can't take too much heavy stuff. But I think it can make suggestions that you're, like, `I'll think about that later.' ''

THE FACTS

What: ``The Harlem Nutcracker.''

Where: Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd. at Western Avenue.

When: 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: $11 to $35. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

6 Photos

Photo: (1--2--Cover--Color) NOT JUST ANOTHER NUTCRACKER

Choreographer Donald Byrd puts a decidedly African-American spin on this jazzy reinvention of the classic Russian ballet

(3) In ``The Harlem Nutcracker,'' choreographer Donald Byrd wants to counter the perception that white Christian fundamentalists have a monopoly on family values.

(4) Eleanor McCoy stars as Clara and Gus Solomons Jr. is the Nutcracker Prince in the production.

(5) Subbing for the Cotton Club in ``The Harlem Nutcracker'' is Club Sweets. The production, a celebration of the 1930s Harlem renaissance, is inspired by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's swing-jazz arrangement of Tchaikovsky's well-worn score.

(6) The Donald Byrd-choreographed production bridges the ballet's original swanlike movements with the hip-twitching rhythms of jazz, with nods to George Balanchine's revisionist ``Nutcracker'' of 1954.