Maria Hirsch is excited about this year’s “The Nutcracker.” For the first time, the Columbus Ballet will collaborate with the Youth Orchestra of Greater Columbus, the Columbus State University department of theater and Prodigy Dance Centre. The youth choir, Voices of the Valley, will sing during the snow scene.
The Youth Orchestra will perform the music live. Four CSU students (Matt Medina, Brian Jordan, Jacob Demlow and Trevor Comeau) will dance in the ballet and three Prodigy students (Brian Cadenhead, Calvin Tolbert and Olivia Ring) and its director, Shane Hall, will also dance.
“It will be an all-youth production,” Hirsch said. “I am so looking forward to it.”
Will this be the best production of “The Nutcracker” ever?
“I hope so,” Hirsch said. “I really, really hope it will be. I have a lot of hope with this youth collaboration.”
Hall is playing the Cavalier, pairing with the Sugar Plum Fairy, played by Anna Rodriguez. Besides this pair of dancers, the rest are students.
“It is the first time that we didn’t have to hire anyone from out-of-town for the Cavalier,” Hirsch said.
Hall was already scheduled to dance in the Arabian variation, and agreed to do the Cavalier.
“I’ve been working with both of them,” Hirsch said. “Shane is a perfectionist and so is Anna.”
Hirsch said the dancers are working hard.
“Shane was a Broadway dancer, not a ballet dancer,” Hirsch said. “So I’ve seen the transformation. He goes home and does his ‘homework.’ His confidence is growing every day. Anna is the same way. I don’t have to say the same thing twice.”
Hall, 31, said his dance focus has been musical theater, contemporary dance and hip hop the past few years.
“I haven’t been training classically for years and years,” he said. “I have had to dig deep” to get back into ballet. But he says the pas de deux is “so beautiful” with the music just as pretty that he’s just a little nervous about performing.
Volunteers
Volunteers help make the show a success, Hirsch said.
She highlights Cindy Moss, Pat Beavers, Becky White and Jeanne Hasty in particular.
Rodriguez, 24, is a University of Georgia graduate with a degree in magazine journalism. She’s now working on her master’s degree in secondary education at Columbus State University.
A long-time Columbus Ballet student, Rodriguez is now a part-time instructor.
While at UGA, she took several classes a week and was a member of the ballet ensemble.
“I tried to stay in shape,” Rodriguez said. “I was kind of nervous at first, but I feel a lot better. It’s nice to have Shane.”
Rodriguez laughs as she remembers that it’s her 10th anniversary of the first time she danced with Hall.
“I did Dewdrop with him,” she said. “Exactly a decade later, I’m partnering with him again.”
Hall said Rodriguez “has been amazing.”
Katharine Clark, 14, a Brookstone School eighth grader, is one of the Chinese dancers, She’s been dancing for eight years and in years past, she played Clara, the little girl who gets an enchanted nutcracker on Christmas Eve.
“It’s always exciting this time of year,” she said.
Like many ballerinas, Katharine wants to eventually play Sugar Plum Fairy.
“When they’re little, they all want to play Clara,” Hirsch said. “When they’re older, they want to be Sugar Plum.”
Tricia White, a 13-year-old seventh grader at Richards Middle School, is dancing in the Spanish Variation.
She’s been dancing for 11 years, and started as a soldier in the battle scene in the first act.
“I’m very excited,” she said. “I want to be able to tell the story and be a role model.”
Ashley Moss, 16, is a junior at Northside High School, and will be dancing the role of the Snow Queen.
“I was a Snowflake before,” she said. “That’s tough because we all have to be together. The Snow Queen has to stand out and shine and be elegant.”
She’s so excited that she practices her part at home.
“I’m always going over it at school and in the shower. I think about it hours at a time.”
Like Katharine, Tricia and Ashley hope to be Sugar Plum one day.
