Tina Pereira and Keiichi Hirano perform in the National Ballet's 2008 production of The Nutcracker. Kain defends the ballet as artistically challenging. (Bruce Zinger/National Ballet of Canada)

As productions of The Nutcracker roll out across North America, Sarah Kaufman, dance critic for the Washington Post, would love to shelve the holiday tradition.

The Nutcracker is an "over-roasted chestnut," she wrote in a column at the end of November, adding it's a symbol of how ballet companies are becoming "dull and risk averse."

"It's time to call it out," she said Friday in a discussion with CBC's Q, the cultural affairs show. "The received wisdom has come down in the ballet world — it's time to do The Nutcracker every December and I'm just asking why? Why not do something different?"

The Nutcracker, with its story about a toy that leads a little girl through a world of enchantment, has been a fixture of the season for nearly 65 years, she said.

"Ballet gets this image of wholesome, reassuring, pretty — not that those are bad things, but that's a stamp that's been placed on ballet because of the relentlessness of The Nutcracker, " she said, speaking from her home in Maryland.

Nutcracker seen as money-making show

The Nutcracker is about spectacle and special effects, rather than interesting dancing, Kaufman said, adding she fears for the long-term artistic health of ballet.

"My fear is that the field is … going to be winnowed down to only The Nutcracker and that will be the sum total of the art," she said.

Karen Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, said she doesn't disagree that The Nutcracker is overexposed.

But she said it's a hard reality of running a ballet company — that strong box office for The Nutcracker is needed to bring in revenue.

"The thing that has to be faced is that ballet companies have to survive," Kain said from Toronto.

"I can only speak for the National Ballet of Canada, but we do very risky programs during the rest of the year. If we do not make the revenue we need in Nutcracker, we're really in big trouble and we can't keep the company afloat."

Kain defended the National Ballet's production with choreography by James Kudelka, saying it is challenging both artistically and for audiences.

The production's tradition as a family outing may also be developing a new generation of dance fans, she said.

"I'd like to believe that it is often [a child's] very first introduction to dance and that if the production is good enough and wonderful enough that it will make children want to see more dance," she said.

'Stir the pot'

Kain agreed lovers of The Nutcracker are often not the same patrons who embrace the riskier programs scheduled at other times of year.

But for the Toronto-based company, which gets about 48 per cent of its revenue from the box office, a successful Nutcracker can mean the funding to do more new dance.

Kaufman acknowledges ballet companies rely on The Nutcracker to survive, but said too many resources tend to get concentrated in that production.

"To survive into the future, I think the average ballet company would do better to downsize, aim for excitement, stir the pot," she said in her article.

A change of program would open up "all sorts of creative possibilities," she said, including a more diverse company and newer, more exciting work.