The Nutcracker
MARCH 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
POINT! BOW!
MARCH 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
POINT! BOW!
Chassé, chassé, chassé, chassé, chassé, chassé,
POINT! BOW!
Camille Hess
“Party Scene” from The Nutcracker
I was cast at age seven in a role that made me the very first body on the stage, a little “party girl” on her way to Clara’s house. I learned this at my first ever Nutcracker rehearsal. When the steps were shown to me by Mrs. Hess and another little girl, I got nervous and said that I wasn’t sure I could do it. Mrs. Hess was disgusted. She raised her eyebrows through the roof and sarcastically said, “Oh, so you don’t want to do it? Fine then. Why don’t you just sit down if this is all too hard for you.” I had no idea what to do. Clearly this was a trap. To sit would be wrong, but to keep trying felt impossible. I froze and said nothing until she screamed, “Just get out of the way!”
My mother rescued me by calling Mr. Hess to complain about the unfair treatment. Mrs. Hess had essentially kicked me out of the production for that moment of childish nerves. I went to the next rehearsal and was re-taught the steps that had frightened me. I never complained again and learned that I could indeed do hard things. I also learned that expressing fear was a huge mistake, and I decided that I should keep my fears to myself through the remainder of my time at the Hess School of Dance.
That same Christmas, Mrs. Hess screamed at my mother for wanting to help with our class Christmas party. Mom was terribly upset and offended, and I dreaded the possibility that I’d be taken out of the school. I pulled out my brand new diary, the present I had taken from the pile in the gift exchange at the party. I drew the very best picture I could. It was a close-up of a little girl’s face with a giant tear falling down the cheek. I wrote an entry about how trapped I felt between pleasing Mrs. Hess and protecting my family. It’s no wonder that I downplayed to my mom the screaming and pinching I experienced at the Hess School of Dance. I needed both women so badly, needed their approval to feel right in my own skin.
After months of rehearsals, we finally went to the theater. It was only the Amarillo Civic Center Auditorium but may as well have been Radio City. I walked into the house for the first big cast meeting. The audience seats seemed to go on forever. I saw real scenery for the first time. The beauty and magnitude were overwhelming. I could never have pictured it if anyone had tried to explain it. And, oh, that smell! The theater set for a ballet smells like curling iron and painted canvas, and it’s the best smell in the world after french fries. The older girls acted like it was perfectly normal and were trying to be cool. But I gawked endlessly. We sat in the house seats, and Mr. Hess used a microphone to talk to us. He said “People” to us a lot. I felt the magic and seriousness of work in the theater. The first day in a theater for every show I did after that held the same buzz of joy, an anticipatory energy.
For The Nutcracker, kids and parents endured the spikey parts of Mrs. Hess. Our Lone Star Ballet production boasted incredible sets, costumes, special effects, and even real professional dancers who came to dance Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier. Most students, but not everyone, danced at least something in the show. There was a hierarchy. To be Clara was the best, party girl next, then soldier, then mouse. Many of us did more than one part, sometimes many more.
The Nutcracker is training tool, civic holiday treasure, and cash cow all in one. Think about it: How might we get more people to come to the ballet? Put their kids in it! Make it a holiday tradition! Most major ballet companies do twenty or more performances of it. That’s a lot of income and minimal new expense. Outside of The Nutcracker and a few other beloved ballets, companies attract audiences with new work or with refurbishments. New Scenery! New Effects! New Choreography! New! New! New! The arts in the United States are as subject to consumerism as every other industry.
Little ballet students know nothing of those facts of life. They only know that The Nutcracker gets them into real costumes, real moments on stage, and real applause. It also conveniently supplies a visible ladder to climb. Students can go from Mother Ginger Buffoon, to Party Girl, to Fairy, to Chinese, to Flower, to Snowflake, to Mirliton, to Arabian, to Dew Drop, to Snow Queen, to Sugar Plum Friggin’ Fairy. Human Resource Managers will tell you about factors of job satisfaction: meaningful work, adequate compensation, and room for advancement. The Nutcracker supplies all these things for the smallest of ballet schools and world-renowned companies.
I would have given up sugar and gifts for the rest of my life just to dance The Nutcracker each year. I once received a snow globe with a Clara teddy bear in it from my on-stage Party Scene “mother.” I would hide between my lit Christmas tree and the wall of our living room and wish as hard as I could that with the flip of the snow globe I would become the real Clara and be taken away to a world where I could dance forever. I never was cast as Clara, but I danced every other part I could ever want. The Lone Star Ballet satisfied with chances to dance Dew Drop Fairy, Snow Queen, and even the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Real ballerinas came from New York to dance with us. Before I even understood what I was doing, I found myself in lines with all my little friends asking for autographs from the stars on my ballet slippers. We would ask the visiting Sugar Plum if we could please have a pointe shoe. I don’t think I ever received one, but I treasured the signatures on the soles of my shoes from New Yorkers like Alexia herself and Peter Boal.
Our time together backstage was precious. All the friends and moms settled in for the week, creating a type of tent city that consisted of makeup mirrors, Caboodles, and costume racks. We spread blankets and coats to play on while we waited. I can still remember the soft, warm feeling of my mother’s fingertips patting and smoothing makeup onto my face. She was the perfect “stage mom” because she never got sucked into any drama and was in no way after her own glory. It was a bonus that she was great at makeup, hair, and whatever crafting or sewing was required.
I was sixteen when I danced one show of Sugar Plum before our guest artists arrived. The week before a high fever and strep throat ravaged my overtired body, and I was barely recovered for theater week. I remember rasping to Jerry, my partner, halfway through the pas de deux, “think happy thoughts for me.” He gave me a squeeze on my hand; we rallied together and finished strong. There is nothing, NOTHING like the second wind that comes with powerful music or audience applause. My physician came the next day to opening night to see my Snow Queen. He said, “I don’t think you should dance, but if you’re going to do it anyway, I’d like to see” and sat in the front row. It went perfectly.
The Nutcracker became as essential to Christmas as the tree, lights, cookies, everything. I knew what Christmas was all about, Charlie Brown, but a nutcracker lurked just outside that stable door, clacking those wooden teeth.
Jessica Ribera
from The Almost Dancer, available November from White Blackbird Books