SARAH WROTH’S NUTCRACKER DIARY

Dancer Sarah Wroth has begun a Nutcracker diary detailing her experiences during rehearsals and performances of the ballet. The diary will be periodically updated throughout November and December.

October 24, 2006

Well, the leaves have changed color and fallen to the pavement, marking not only the beginning of the long Boston winter but the earliest stages of Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker season. Today, while in the midst of Don Q performances, dancers watched with eager anticipation as casting for The Nutcracker was posted on the board in the dancers’ lounge. An immediate swarm of buzzing dancers formed, all internally flooded with an astounding array of emotions. You see, casting in any ballet company is hardly ever a totally pleasant experience because you can't please everyone. Dancers are very greedy, with an unquenchable thirst for their profession. We want to experience and perform as much as we can in this short dancer’s life of ours. We always want to do everything we have done in the past and more in the future.

After a dancer runs a slender finger down that cast list of names, a thousand questions begin to form, echoing like a broken record, nagging and unnecessary: “Am I going to be able to perform that?” “Are my abs good enough to wear that costume?” “I was in this last year...learning this last year...and where is my name now?” “I got it! I finally got it! Am I going to screw it up?” “I hope I have a lot of chances with this one.” “NO! Not that again” . . . and so many other thoughts. We are never satisfied. I suppose we’re always striving for greater things. That is why onstage our passion is so infectious and why, in real life, we are mostly crazy.

 

November 3, 2006

Nutcracker rehearsals are successfully underway, which means the holiday season is just around the corner. For dancers, The Nutcracker is kind of like a house that we move into each year. If you have performed it before you already know where the couch should go and which rooms are warmest in the morning and how it should be decorated. This will be my fourth Nutcracker with Boston Ballet. The choreography still poses a technical challenge, but each passing year gives the dancer a touch more refinement, comfort and experience. It is such a wonderful feeling when you are truly at home with a particular version of Nutcracker. We have spent the past few weeks of rehearsals teaching this Nutcracker to the new dancers of Boston Ballet. The fact that almost every dancer can breathe Tchaikovsky's score helps the learning process. During rehearsals, artistic staff and dancers work jointly to put together the details of Clara's Crazy Christmas. The other day I was trying to remember what it was like when I was new, wondering if I grasped choreography quickly or if I was one of those people that needed an extra bit of help. Either way, each new Nutcracker is a new home. The newbies must feel out the space, find their own feng shui, and try to create a home for themselves.

November 10

For those of you who are new to the Nutcracker scene, there are two major acts in the show. In a nutshell (pardon the pun): The first act tells the story of Clara's holiday party, the Nutcracker and the perils of falling in love with a little wooden soldier while mice are on the scene. The second act is the happy ending in which Clara and her prince travel to a land of classical dances and choreographic surprises to inspire the mind of any boy or girl.

Many of these divertissements – second act variations – are filled with technically challenging steps to keep the dancers on their toes (so punny) during the long 40-show run. Everyone has something to work on. It is our way of keeping our mind stimulated and our technique growing in times of total body fatigue. My personal project is Marzipan. It is one of those dances that seem easy enough when broken down, but when it comes time to execute the entire dance it is hard to keep your cool. There are two very difficult turns in Marzipan: for the audience they exist for a few fleeting moments, but for the dancers they are the benchmark for the overall execution of the dance. I have often heard dancers say, "It was all good except that second turn."

I have found a comfortable pattern to my personal rehearsals of Marzipan that I hope will help me to embrace the joy of the role while performing on stage. Before I begin, my mind tells me, "Enjoy every moment and those turns won't even matter. Luxuriate in the entire dance and it will be a breeze. It is just those two turns...nothing." I dance; some stuff goes well, other stuff goes poorly. Then a running dialogue of turn corrections floods my brain, "Stomach, Sarah, stomach, pull up, drop your tail, lift your leg, chest forward, arms faster, eyes up, arm pits open..." My next move is to practice the turns until they feel as natural as they can in a given day. I then go home, a spring in my step, excited to try the variation again and start the whole process over from scratch the next day.

November 27

It’s the last Sunday in November, marking the end of the first weekend of excellent Nutcracker performances for Boston Ballet and the first “Saturday night” for dancers. As I have alluded to in other journal entries, ballet dancers are a strange bunch: as the rest of the world watches 60 Minutes and prepares for the long Monday just around the corner, dancers run from the theater trying to figure out what to do to release their minds on this, their personal Saturday night. Occasionally, a dancer will donate his or her apartment to the Boston Ballet Sunday night party fund. If the party is good enough the donation is usually accompanied by late-night landlord phone calls regarding Sunday evening noise complaints. The Nutcracker schedule has an effect on every aspect of our lives. We are often tired for the whole month of December trying frantically to perform, do laundry, dishes, clean the apartment, Christmas shop, ice body parts, and rest as many of our muscles as possible during any free time we may have. We work Tuesday through Sunday, often performing two runs of the Nutcracker each day with a three-hour break in between. Our bodies hurt and we are tired, but when the music starts everything disappears except Mr. Tchaikovsky and the steps at hand. Relationships feel the pains of Nutcracker as well. After a solid weekend of shows, some dancers choose to go home and unwind, seizing this uncommon opportunity to visit with loved ones not often seen during the week. Forging new relationships during Nutcracker is basically the hardest thing in the whole world (an exaggeration but it's still up there). I remember when I was single and trying to find a nice young man to date in this city during Nutcracker, I would often be set up on blind dates that would have to happen between performances on a Saturday. Neither fun, nor successful. I was too tired to look pretty and definitely too tired to tell my life story to a complete stranger. So I decided it was better to wait on the personal life pursuits until after Nutcracker season and channel all my emotions into my performances. The Governess was REALLY emotional that year, let me tell you! It is a hard run for the dancers, the dressers and everyone committed to bring The Nutcracker to life in Boston. Hard – but so worthwhile in the spreading of the holiday spirit. So the next time you are watching 60 Minutes on a Sunday and you hear your upstairs ballet neighbors having a good old, Sunday night time, give them an extra hour to cut loose before you pick up that phone and dial the landlord.

 

December 2

Sometimes there is a lot more magic in The Nutcracker than meets the eye. There is the planned magic such as Drosselmeier’s party tricks, dolls that come to life, a tree that grows, mice that have human qualities and even a balloon that soars above the stage. And then there is the hidden magic that occurs when the dancers have to cover any onstage mishaps using their own mystical grace and sleight of hand. This ability to smile and adjust to whatever may go wrong onstage is what makes Boston Ballet dancers true professionals.

Every dancer gets his or her turn to prove this form of professionalism, and in an intricate story ballet like The Nutcracker, it often times it happens to more than one dancer. Tonight the test fell into the capable hands of Robby Kretz, a Boston Ballet II member. Anyone who has seen The Nutcracker remembers Mother Ginger and her larger than life dress. Well, for Robby, this evening's show was a particularly memorable experience. Shortly after sliding sideways onto the stage, he realized that one of his stilt straps had come undone. These straps are what enable Mother Ginger to walk around the stage with feminine grace; without them, she is simply balancing on three-foot posts with a big pink dress on. Robby did not miss a beat. He continued to perform, smiling for the audience as he quietly signaled to those of us offstage that he was in BIG trouble. He waved his scarf and artistically faked his way through his pas de deux with Drosselmeier. He even blew a sweet kiss to the audience as the curtain fell and the stage crew rushed onto the stage to mend the strap and clear the way for the Russian dance to follow. We all clapped as Robby moved off the stage and marveled at the true professionalism he demonstrated. The ever-entertaining Drosselmeier (Boyko Dossev) and the lovely Clara all held the entertainment together in spite of the technical difficulties.

 

December 8

There are several different types of therapy floating around this crazy world. Some people like to talk about their problems; some people choose to paint; some like the soothing rhythm of their sneakers on pavement; some folks even scream at the top of their lungs. Ballet dancers perform. We step out onto that stage and look out into the massive blackness of the theater framed by the heavenly glow of the spotlight and it is the ultimate release.

Yesterday I was a prime candidate for ballet therapy. Every woman – or man, for that matter – occasionally has that day, that one special day of the season, where crying is just what you HAVE to do. You will cry for any and every reason imaginable. You get your coat stuck in the door on the way out of the house; you cry. You keep putting your tights on backwards; you cry. You get a correction in class that you would welcome on any other day, but on this day it suddenly becomes a blow to your very existence as a person, and – you guessed it – you curl into the fetal position and cry. This is the mess I was yesterday. I slipped three or four times in class, even going so far as to almost sprain an ankle as I fell to the floor during a turn combination. I cried about that too.

After a difficult class, an hour of rehearsal, and more compulsive crying – thank you CVS greeting card reading! – I decided to head over to the theater for some good old-fashioned ballet therapy. I went upstairs at the Opera House and onto the stage. I looked out at all the empty seats and danced around for a good 15 minutes. I went through Marzipan, the role I was dancing that evening, and even took an extra bow for the thousands of imaginary adoring fans. I was five again and dancing around my living room just for fun. Everything was easy and there was never any reason to be really upset.

Whenever I speak on the phone to my mother during these often stressful holiday times, there is one thing she says in closing the conversation that always makes me stop and think. “Spread the joy,” she tells me. That is what the therapy of dance and art is all about. Ballet gives me joy and makes me forget my troubles so that I, in turn, with a talented company of passionate dancers, can make an audience of faces forget their troubles too.

 

December 21

There is a freckle-faced girl with little blonde curls in a red scarf standing outside a toy store window. A light Boston snow is falling, and her eyes twinkle as she looks at the newest porcelain ballerina doll, pretty in pink, in the display window. It was the first thing on her holiday wish list and she could dream of nothing more glorious than making it dance for her. I'll bet she was so taken with its beauty, its hand-painted face, and its batting eyelashes, but she never gave a thought to the hundreds of workers who take part in the production of that carefully crafted ballerina doll. This is the case with most theatrical productions: few people stop to consider all the workers that make it happen. When you go to see The Nutcracker, you are only seeing one-eighth of the people responsible for its success. You don’t see the people who design and create the wonderful costumes, or the people who design and create the sets that take performers and audience members alike to the Land of the Sweets, or the techies who tell us to “move out” as the scenes change, or the ladies who dress Mother Ginger in all her glory and make sure Clara changes from party dress to nightgown in 18 seconds flat. We form a special bond with these dressers who hook our costumes, show after show. When we come downstairs tired and panting from the snow scene, they are there with smiles to find out how it went. They are such an important part of what we do, but I know that I often forget that their thanks comes from us, not from applause. My dad was most proud of his behind-the-scenes job at the little Nutcracker in Maryland where I grew up. He made the snow fall, and I was always so proud of the job he did. Even now I gaze up into the theater rafters and pretend he is there, ready to pull the snow bags that release the magic, mood-setting flakes into the snow scene. We have a crew of snowmakers here in Boston as well. Everyone backstage at the Opera House has an important role in the production’s success, whether it be working the remote control mouse or making sure the angels are standing in the right place on the stage. There are even more unsung Nutcracker participants who don't work backstage. The trustees and board members, marketing and development departments, volunteers, teachers, student coordinators, and artistic staff all start preparing the Nutcracker magic long before the holiday season. So the next time you’re at The Nutcracker, take a minute to read through the program and think about all the people, all the different holiday spirits, that came together to spread the 2006 Nutcracker joy.

 

Stay tuned for more entries of Sarah's diary...