Dancers Get Ready For Nutcracker Performance
You can’t have Christmas without the Nutcracker ballet and going to the performance is tradition for many families. The Dance with Flight studio is putting on their very own performance and featuring dancers from age 4 to age 18.
"Some of them have a little bit of skill, some of them have a great deal of skill, they all want to be the main characters one day so they are in here practicing to one day maybe do that," says Mark Smith the President of East Central Ohio Dance Theatre.
Forty-five local dancers have been practicing for four months gearing up for this performance and they say they are ready to hit the stage.
"Especially when they get into costume it is just a whole different world for them to get on stage and look out and to see a whole audience full of people just watching them have a great time," says Smith.
Katie Fineran, 15, has danced in the Nutcracker ballet for five years. She, like many of the dancers, performs multiple roles during the show.
"Waltz of the flowers which is all the girls are flower petals and the queen is the middle of the flower, so we have to dance around her and Spanish. It is a fast dance but it is a lot of fun," says Fineran.
Parents and grandparents are volunteering to assist with costumes, stage sets and some will even perform. Mark Smith says the dancers take the performance very seriously and the audience is in for a treat.
"You have such a wide variety of characters and casts that all have very specific parts and they are so detailed that to have a little kid that is 4 or 5 years old be able to do some of these moves is, to me, phenomenal," tells Smith.
So if you are looking for some holiday fun these dancers are ready to dazzle. The Nutrcracker will be performed December 19th and 20th at Secrest Auditorium. Tickets can be bought at Secrest for $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
Katie Jeffries
