On the evenings of Saturday, Dec. 1 and Sunday, Dec. 2, the Marin Civic Center was packed to full capacity with excited audience members eagerly sitting in their seats and waiting for the lights to dim to signify the Stapleton School of Performing Arts’ annual Nutcracker ballet was commencing.
The curtains opened to reveal a cheery scene with young boys dancing around to the familiar, upbeat holiday-themed music of a classic performance. From the first note to the final bow, the audience was transfixed by a beautiful and captivating performance.
According to senior Delilah Mittermaier, who was the lead role in the Arabian dance, putting a performance together of that length and caliber took upwards of two months, starting with auditions in September.
“There’s a week at the end of the summer where we can learn the variations for the auditions. Then we go into rehearsals for about two months, where each piece is choreographed and rehearsed separately,” Mittermaier said. “At the beginning of November, we put the whole thing together and started to run each act by itself. Then the last two weeks are "run-throughs everyday.”
For Mittermaier and her fellow senior dancers, this production of the Nutcracker was especially bittersweet as it was their last time performing the ballet with Stapleton. There is a special tradition to honor the senior ballerinas after the Nutcracker where the junior dancers put together “secret” gifts for their elders.
“The juniors do senior gifts for us and we pretend that we don’t know it’s going to happen, even though we did it for the seniors last year,” Mittermaier said. “That was when it really hit me and I started getting emotional about it being our last Nutcracker.”
Senior Kaitlin McGrath, who starred in the production in the iconic role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, had a similar moment of realization regarding her time at Stapleton coming to an end.
“The whole weekend I was focused on my performance and my role and making sure I was ready and not stressing out too much. So then it finally started sinking in when we did senior gifts on the last day,” McGrath said.
Apart from the emotional side of the weekend, the dancers were laser-focused on putting on the performance of a lifetime. Despite looking graceful and at ease on stage, there is an immense amount of hard work and training that ballerinas must put into making ballet look as fluid and natural as it does for the audience, according to McGrath.
Senior Kathleen Gao, who danced in the role of Rose Queen, has experienced frustration at a perceived lack of appreciation for the effort the dancers put into getting ready for their performances.Though not always regarded as a sport by some, ballet requires intense skill, dedication and physical exertion to look as beautiful as it does, according to Gao.
“It annoys me a little bit when people say stuff like ‘Oh ballet is not a sport,’ because it’s so difficult. Every little detail matters more than you would think,” Gao said. “The amount of work people put in and the soreness, bruises, blisters and broken toenails make it really hard. It is a serious athletic sport.”
According to Mittermaier, one of the most challenges parts of ballet is making it look effortless. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make the visuals as appealing for the audience as possible.
“The hardest part is making it look easy. They always tell us we have to hold everything tight and together, but at the same time you’re also supposed to look relaxed. It’s really hard to find that in-between,” Mittermaier said.
Despite the commitment and effort that ballet requires, these dancers have plans to continue their careers as ballerinas as they move on to college. With the end of her time at Stapleton on the horizon, McGrath looks to the future for new opportunities.
“I hope I end up in a place with a really strong dance program because I would like to keep taking classes. I’ve been doing ballet for so long, and I definitely want to continue those classes but I’d also like to take contemporary classes,” McGrath said.
Mittermaier also plans to branch out as a dancer in college, citing a specific student-run company at University of Pennsylvania called Arts House Dance Company that she hopes to have the opportunity to get involved with.
“I could never just cut dance out of my life completely,” Mittermaier said. “It’s been so much for so long.”