As the last strains of the overture sing through the auditorium, Ailee Almog (10) peeks through the wings, waiting for what seems like years of music to end before “The Nutcracker” begins. Just before the world of “The Nutcracker” comes alive, in that brief moment, she is suspended between real and imagined, the celesta blends with the violin, and she steps onto stage. At last, the West Coast Dance Company’s annual nutcracker — held on Dec. 8 at the California Center for the Arts — began.
“Right before the show, when you’re just with all your friends, and you’re waiting for it to start, you hear the music that you’ve danced to before,” Almog said. “[The overture] is probably like three minutes or five minutes, but it feels like a million, and it just makes you so nervous … It just keeps going, and you’re just standing there, like, trying to shake out your nerves, and this music will never end.”
The story begins as the Stahlbaum family hosts a Christmas party. At the party, Uncle Drosselmeyer gifts Clara — who was played by Almog — a nutcracker. Afterwards, Clara falls asleep and shrinks to the size of the toys. She wakes up to find the dolls have come alive, and aids the nutcracker in defeating an army of mice. The plot follows Clara and her adventures through the land of sweets with the nutcracker before being returned to her world by Ava Nguyen (11), who played the Sugar Plum Fairy.
At the end of Act I, Clara finds herself between her world and the land of sweets, passing through “Waltz of the Snowflakes.” This scene is one of the two major corps dances, where a group of dancers backdropped lead dancers. Annie Feng (10) played Lead Snow, or Snow Queen.
“For Snow, you have to hit the positions,” Feng said. “It’s kind of sharp. It’s really fast. You kind of have to keep up your energy the whole time … It’s a lot of stamina, basically.”
Act II opens with Clara and the nutcracker, who has now transformed into Prince Charming. They are welcomed to the land of sweets by a performance of divert dances: Spanish, Arabian, dance of the reed pipes, Ukrainian, as well as Mother Ginger and Her Polichinelles. Diverts, compared to scenes, are shorter dances.
“Arabian is the longest divert,” Feng, who also played Lead Arabian said. “Arabian was more technique focused … The imagery my instructor likes to give me is incense, like, incense is slow. It’s quite acrobatic.”
Following the diverts, the Sugar Plum Fairy returns Clara home. She passes through the “Waltz of the Flowers,” a corps dance.
“Flower is more focused on getting the whole group together well, because for corps, it’s hard … to be doing everything at the exact same time in the same way, because you’re all doing the same stuff together,” Feng, who also had a role as flower corps said. “So a lot of it is like coordinating as a group. Snow and flowers are the two, like, big corps pieces in ‘The Nutcracker’ … For flowers, you kind of have to linger a second.”
“The Nutcracker” ends after a three part Sugar Plum Fairy dance: pas de deux, variation and coda. Pas de deux, which translates to “step of two,” is a duet between the Sugar Plum Fairy, Nguyen, and the Cavalier Prince. In variation, Nguyen dances a solo to “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” which is a delicate, magical piece that is also one of the most well-known songs from “The Nutcracker.” It features light woodwinds and harps that evokes whimsical magic. Finally, it’s ended by coda, which means closing.
“Pas de deux is very slow, the variations like mid pace, then the coda is fast,” Ngyuen said. “[In previous years,] I played dew drop fairy, which is also a lead part. It’s the lead of the flowers … This year, I improved a lot, and I got Sugar Plum Fairy, which is the hardest role to get, so that was really important and special for me.”
Beyond the spotlight, the students also found that their experience was more than dancing on stage. For Almog, she saw Nguyen through the lens of Clara after an epiphany while watching the Sugar Plum Fairy’s dances.
“Ava’s really good, I never get to see her dance super full out,” Almog said. “She’s just my friend, but I’m, like, sitting there watching her dance, and she did all these shoulder lifts.”
Outside of the show, Nguyen also commented on the audition process.
“The audition process … helps us prepare for Summer Intensive auditions or going to audition for companies in the future,” Nguyen said. “Then overall, for rehearsals we get to really practice our acting and artistry of ‘The Nutcracker,’ while also doing full day rehearsals. So we had to maintain our stamina and technique. And then, it for sure helps me persevere or, like, try harder and like a lot of other things because my mental strength is stronger.”
Nguyen, Almog, and Feng have all practiced ballet for over a decade. Each year, their participation in “The Nutcracker” serves as a benchmark for their growth and development in the art of ballet. For Almog, starting as a baby mouse and working her way towards the lead role as Clara, she feels as if this year was a “full circle moment.”
“I think just how hard she worked for so many years doing all sorts of roles that were more supportive roles, and then finally getting a lead role after putting in all that work and showing commitment, she showed that she was worthy to get this type of role after so many years, and that she’s become a very mature dancer,” Almog’s mother, Rebecca Almog said. “I think it just made me feel so proud of her, and then all her hard work paid off, and this will be a memory she’ll have for the rest of her life, and then it was a really big highlight of her ballet journey.”
