Magic, Stories and a Missing Head

This week has been filled with Nutcracker-inspired ballet classes! My adult dancers have been dancing the snowflake waltz from the Nutcracker for weeks (and I must say they are looking fabulous) but this week I introduced the Nutcracker to the children I teach too. The Nutcrackers is one of my favourite ballet stories and re-telling the story to my students is always great fun. We told different elements of the story through movement whilst adding sparkle and magic.

The classes started with us pretending to be a growing Christmas tree. Although this happens in the Nutcracker, the tree is a prop and not a dancer! Having now created this new part, I think that pretending to be a sparkly growing tree is underrated… it provided fabulous exercise as we went up and down through plié and we all enjoyed imagining what decorations would be on our branches.

Next up, we pretended to dance with the Nutcracker doll and have an argument with our sibling, just like Clara does in the story. We have a Nutcracker doll at the studio which ‘breaks’ and then with a bit of magic sticks back together. The dancers were amazed by the Nutcrackers head “coming off” and wanted to dance this part over and over again!

The last character we talked about was the Sugar plumb fairy. The Sugar plum fairy hasn’t got a wand in the Nutcracker but the children were keen to make magic in this dance so we made an exception!! Towards the end of the dance the children lifted their wand towards the studio Christmas tree and as if by magic, on came all of the lights. ‘That was real magic’ one of them said excitedly. ‘I think you’re right’ I smiled.