Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Dancing to tradition

Who: Nevada Ballet Theatre

What: "The Nutcracker"

Where: UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre

When: 8 p.m. today and Thursday; 2 and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 1 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday; 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday

Tickets: $39-$69; 895-2787

Oops, too much gunpowder.

It's true that Bruce Steivel, artistic director for Nevada Ballet Theatre, had asked for more of a wallop during the Act I explosion in "The Nutcracker."

But this was an atomic rumble, a boom that could be heard by dancers coming up the stairwell on the other side of a cinder block wall. Would the stagehands scale it down a notch for the next day's show? Sure they would, just as soon as they were done laughing at an incident sure to go down in local "Nutcracker" lore.

This being the worst thing to happen is actually good, given that the entire company - including dozens of academy children - works in cramped backstage quarters.

"It's a big show," wardrobe mistress Christine McInnis says while stitching a crushed velvet top in the green room an hour before the performance. "A big, big show."

McInnis is surprisingly calm. In fact, everybody backstage is calm. This is old hat. A ballet they're used to - a seasonal production that is many things: cash cow, crowd pleaser and reunion of sorts for dancers and stagehands of various generations.

Mouse heads are labeled, wigs are primped and everyone is working. In her makeshift dressing area, Stephanie Myers, aka Mother Ginger, hangs years of drawings and thank-you cards made for her by Bon Bons of Christmases past.

She has been part of Nevada Ballet Theatre's "Nutcracker" since 1983. Dancing with the ballet company is a secret life, one that she doesn't talk about in her other profession.

"This is like a totally separate existence for me," says the Mount Charleston resident, who is a trial consultant the rest of the year.

Stage manager Lisa Weinshrott walks by the dressing rooms to give the half-hour call and Racheal Hummel-Nole, one of two dancers on standby, walks in. Hummel-Nole knows every part in the ballet and fits into all of the costumes. Like many of the professional dancers, who take on extra work, she has had to put her side job on hold. Hummel-Nole works in wardrobe for Cirque du Soleil's "Love."

" 'The Nutcracker' is the most long-running show of any that we do," she says. "We get a lot of opportunity for experience onstage. By the end of the run we want to spice it up a little. Some companies do something called the 'Nutty Nutcracker' - a satire. The dancers would love to do a 'Nutty Nutcracker.' "

A Mouse nearby is listening and adds, "That will never happen."

"Everyone has a different sense of humor," Hummel-Nole says. "People take 'The Nutcracker' really seriously. Artistic directors have been fired for doing 'Nutty Nutcrackers.' "

At 10 minutes to showtime, dancers move onto the stage. The red curtain separates them from the murmur of a near-capacity audience. Children arrive stage left and by 7:59 p.m., a crowd in period costume has gathered onstage as if it were any other Sunday afternoon in a 19th-century town.

Moms line the wings. The music starts and it's showtime. Within minutes the party is under way. Myers, who doubles as Grandmother for the party scene, is getting tanked from empty champagne flutes.

And then there's the boom.

Dancer Jeremy Bannon-Neches heard it from the hallway as he was nearing the wings. Stagehands are still laughing.

But Bannon-Neches is bored. To him, "The Nutcracker" is an artistic nuisance, too mundane for his tastes.

"This is how I feel about 'The Nutcracker,' " he says as he wraps his mouse tail around his neck like a noose then ties it to a light boom.

"It's my least favorite ballet. I like 'Giselle.' It doesn't change my performance though."

When he later shoots onto stage like a firecracker in a rapid-fire performance of the Russian, bedazzled audience members hurl applause and bravos his way and remember him when he returns for his final bow. For as much as he doesn't like "The Nutcracker," audiences love it, including starry-eyed children, who will someday say that it was "The Nutcracker" that drew them to dance.

"I wanted to be a snowflake," says 10-year-old dancer Darya Bondar, who saw her first "Nutcracker" performance in Russia, where she was born. With Nevada Ballet Theatre, where her mother is a dancer, he has since been a Bon Bon, a Mouse, and this year, a character in the party scene.

At 8:40 p.m. Mother Ginger arrives stage left to watch the Snow King and Queen dance. In the warm glow of the stage light, she's completely enchanted as if seeing it for the first time.

Snow Flakes gather around her and stretch. They take to the stage and snow begins to fall. They dance perfectly en pointe, miraculously not slipping in the synthetic drift.

Act I ends to lengthy applause and the audience pours into the lobby, where little girls from the audience are spinning like dancers, clumsily throwing themselves into the floor and each other.

They return for the second half, absorbing every minute of this fantasy, and wave goodbye to Clara (Penelope Borg) and Fritz (Kerry Sandhu), who eventually depart by sled, knowing that they'll be back again and again. And again.

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