The Roanoker - November/December 2020 - 67

CHRISTINA NIFONG

HEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, there were few
outings more magical than a trip to see the
Nutcracker ballet.
My sisters and I dressed in our Sunday best
and climbed the narrow staircases of the posh
theater. We held our breath when the lights went
out and the notes of the familiar music wafted into the
audience.
By the time the curtain rose on Clara and Fritz
peeking through the keyhole of their Victorian home,
I was completely captured. I don't think I blinked until
intermission, trying as I was to take in every costume
and prop and pas de chat.
My two sisters and I were ballet students ourselves. We
had read E.T.A. Hoffman's story and committed every
hummable tune to memory - the cheery opening when
guests arrive at the Christmas Eve party, the fantastical
score to the snow scene, the delicate bells of the Sugar
Plum Fairy's dance. Yet there were always new delights,
a funny moment from Mother Ginger, a spectacular
pattern in the Waltz of the Flowers, a stunning lift or
squeal-worthy set of turns by the Fairy and her Cavalier.
Then, my sister grew up to be a ballerina. One
December when I was in college, I drove an hour to see
her stretch and balance as the exotic Arabian princess. I
snuck backstage afterward to laugh with her at how she
had been a young fan and now was one of the ballet's
stars.
So of course, when I had children of my own, I
stitched the Nutcracker into our Christmas traditions.
As each child turned four, he or she was invited to
a matinee at the theater. One year, my son became
transfixed by the harpist playing in the lobby. Another,
my tiny girl cowered in her seat for the entire battle
between Nutcracker and Mouse King, barely daring to
peek through the fingers she cupped over her eyes. Night
was always falling by the time we exited into the chilly
air, bidding adieu to our enchanted afternoon.
What is it about the stage, the score, the steps that
draw us in? I think it's the act of dropping our worries at
the door, escaping the limits of our everyday, embracing
our imagination. We enter the theater and anything is
possible.
So it shouldn't have surprised me that a few years after
spying the sparkling scenery, my own daughter followed
her aunt's lead into the wings.
As many girls do, she first appeared as one of Mother
Ginger's children and an angel. Then she became a girl at
the party, rocking her doll and ducking away from Fritz's

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naughty friends. As she grew, she leapt from
mint-clad pipe player to saucy Spaniard
to whimsical wind-up toy.
At the end of last December,
she and I huddled around the
kitchen table after her final
performance, too adrenalinecharged to do anything but
won d e r w h a t n e x t ye a r 's
Nu t c r ac k e r wo u l d b r i n g.
Would my dancer play the part
of a hummingbird? Share the
stage with a cavorting dragon?
Could my girl hope to one day
dance the most prized role of
all, Sugar Plum Fairy?
Because that's what dancers do.
They strive always to reach the next
milestone, to meet the next challenge.
The calendar hadn't marched far into 2020 before
every dancer I knew worried that, like school and
sports seasons, summer camps and vacations, Broadway
plays and the New York City Ballet's performances,
Nutcrackers around the world would be canceled.
Without them, there'd be no magic, no break from the
mundane. Shuttered Nutcrackers would be one more way
that loss and sadness triumphed over celebration and joy.
It turns out, though, that there was time enough,
creativity enough to construct a way to bring the beloved
fairy tale to life despite a very real global pandemic.
At least in Roanoke, the stage would not stay dark.
And my dancer? The one who wakes early to rehearse
for two hours, heads home for virtual school, then drives
back to the studio for four more hours of class? The one
who burns through a pair of pointe shoes a month? The
one who says "no" to outings with friends because she
must stay healthy to dance?
In this most heartbreaking of years, she will become
the Sugar Plum Fairy, tapping into her talent, her grace,
her heart to delight theater fans across Southwest
Virginia and beyond.
Sugar Plum is always a big role, but this December,
every bourree, every jete holds a flicker of hope.
If the Nutcracker can go on, maybe our lives can, too.
Southwest Virginia Ballet, in partnership with Blue
Ridge PBS, the Berglund Center, and other corporate
sponsors, will offer a filmed version of the Nutcracker ballet
in December as a gift to the Roanoke Valley. Find details and
ways to support this performance at svballet.org. I

ABOVE:
This year's Sugar Plum
Fairy for Southwest
Virginia Ballet's
production danced
her first Nutcracker as
one of Mother Ginger's
naughty children.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

67
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The Roanoker - November/December 2020

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