For more than 20 years, local families have donned their festive best and gone to the Southwest Washington Dance Center’s presentation of the Nutcracker ballet. This year, the Corbet Theater lobby will be festooned for the occasion and alive with anticipation. Young and old will find their seats and scan the program bios of the various dancers until the lights dim and the music begins.For many families, the Nutcracker seals the Christmas season with a joyful art form that continues to inspire, to make us laugh, and for some it links the years together in tradition. And don’t forget the fancy cookies and drinks at intermission.
This year’s production of the Nutcracker promises to have some new surprises. According to Artistic Director Danielle Brosco, the opening scene is redesigned with a new set and choreography. Other scenes have been freshly re-imagined, including a new tiger scene.
For Ciara Kimball, 19, a senior dancer and instructor at Southwest Washington Dance Center, the Nutcracker was an ambition. At the tender age of four, when she had just started to take dance classes, she went to see the Nutcracker and she was hooked. Her goal for the next year was to be in the Nutcracker. She started as a tiny dancer who came out from under Mother Ginger’s skirt, and she reckons by now she has danced almost every part in the production.
“From Mother Ginger’s skirt to Sugar Plum,” she said. “A lot of my favorite parts are ones that really challenge and push me. Some of those are the Arabian Queen, Sugar Plum and Bull. They’re not just dancing, but acting. You have to put on a persona and they’re different styles. Like the Arabian queen, I have mostly done ballet in the Nutcracker, but that part is a different style. And it’s hard for me to connect with the character at first, but then by the time the performance comes around it has become my favorite character. Because I have to work so hard at it, I become really connected to the character.”
This year, Ciara’s roles include the Snow Queen, Sugar Plum Fairy, Arabian Queen, Dewdrop, Chinese Tiger and Dancing Nutcracker. While these roles are pretty impressive, sometimes it’s hard to let go of being a corps dancer. “This is my first year not corps dancing.” Ciara reminisced. “I’ve always been in flower corps and snow corps. I have always had the same flower corps dress too, and so this year it’s weird because it’s not my dress anymore.”
Her roles rotate between the A and B cast so thankfully she won’t be dancing all of these parts in one performance, but the preparation that goes into the Nutcracker is grueling. On any given week during Nutcracker season, Ciara spends 20-25 hours at the dance center, coupled with her classes at Centralia College where she is working on an Associate of Science, and her two part time jobs. One starts to wonder, is it worth it?
“Dancing has been my passion,” explains Ciara. “I’m not really good at sports. I like school a lot and learning, but dance is my big passion. That’s something where I can be myself.”
Ciara says that the environment at the Dance Center is really special. She has danced in showcases with other dance schools and participated in master’s classes where she sensed a level of competitiveness amongst the dancers. But at Southwest Washington Dance Center, they are like a big family.
“One of my favorite things is right before performance we do warm-up. Danielle the artistic director puts on a bunch of Christmas music and we all sing together when we are warming up, and it feels so magical right before the performance. That’s what we all look forward to every year. We run stairs and we actually do get warmed up, but it’s really fun and sometimes people who have danced in the past come back, and after five years they have been gone, and they come back and do warm-up. It’s a huge tradition.”
“Another tradition that we all, the company, look forward to is right before the last performance we go out and buy sparkling cider and do a toast,” she adds. “We always look forward to that.”
Even after 14 years of the Nutcracker, Ciara and the other dancers still get nervous, but they have a special way of dealing with that.
“Everyone has these butterflies. Danielle goes around and tells us those butterflies are positive energy,” says Ciara. “Danielle is one of the most inspirational people I know. And one of the main things she hits on for the Nutcracker is that once you’re performing, it’s not performing for yourself anymore. You are giving it as a gift to an audience member. This could be their one Christmas celebration, or this is the one thing they come to every year. At that point you are giving your heart and your passion out to the audience. That’s one of [Danielle’s] big things. I have always found that very inspirational.”
But at the end of the day, it always goes back to relationships for Ciara. “Especially this year, even with the huge age variation, we are so connected, we practically live together because we are here so often. We just all are really encouraging to each other. And what I really love is we aren’t competitive and rude and catty to each other. We are just really close and like a family and we encourage each other right before we go on stage.”
“I can’t think of very many people I was close with at school, but I can think of this huge list of people I am close to at the dance center.”
The Nutcracker is playing December 16 at 7:30 p.m.; December 17 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; December 18 at 1:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at Corbet Theater at Centralia College. Purchase advanced tickets at www.swwdance.org. On December 15 at 6:00 p.m., there is a pay-what-you-can performance; tickets will be available at the door only, starting at 4:30 p.m.
