A LIFETIME OF NUTCRACKERS AND DANCE We're Bringing Children's Ballet to East County
	DECEMBER 2005

by Stephanie Knudson
Photos by Russell Byrne

I performed in my first Nutcracker as a dancing cookie when I was only seven years old.

Some of my earliest memories are about dancing. My mom took me for my initial lesson when I was only five years old. I vividly remember the experience, and especially recall my new pair of tap shoes. Before I reached the age of six, I was tapping out rhythms with all my heart.

I took my first formal ballet classes when I was nine. I only began studying ballet because it was a requirement for the jazz classes that I really wanted to get into. I eventually came to realize what my instructors knew: Ballet is the base upon which all forms of dance are built; it is the doorway into all western dance styles.

Dancing into Life
My hometown dance studio was the Paula Aubrey School of Dance in Kankakee, Illinois, a little town about 50 miles south of Chicago. I have drawn inspiration and knowledge throughout my life from Paula Aubrey, herself. To this day she is available to advise me on dance issues that I call her about.

I danced my way through my K-12 years. Even though I always liked taking lessons and performing in recitals and shows, I didn’t really fall in love with dance as an art until I went to college. I enrolled in U of I (University of Idaho) as a dance major because I wasn’t interested in anything else. I eventually obtained a BA in Dance and an MS in Recreational Therapy.

The U of I turned out to be a fortunate choice. The school’s motto is “From Here You Can Go Anywhere,” and in the Dance Department, at least, we believed that to be true.

I learned a lot from the Director of Dance at U of I, who had, in turn, studied with Martha Graham, one of the major icons of the dance world. I feel that in some artistic sense I’m Martha Graham’s granddaughter.

I also studied dance with instructors from Seattle’s prestigious Ballet West. Those amazing people had formed a small regional dance company they called American Festival Ballet. I was able to dance as part of the Festival’s programs.

I did most of my dancing in the background of those productions — waving like a flower blowing in the wind, perhaps, or weaving like a bird flying through the air. But Ballet West was staging critically noticed dance programs. I was a member of an experienced and professional company. It was great working with those people!

The U of I sent me on a Junior Year Abroad during which I studied dance in the Chelsea School of Human Movement in Brighton, East Sussex, England. My year in English dance classes was more of an experience in life than it was in ballet, but I really did dance a lot.

The people I was studying dance with in England didn’t share the dreams of my fellow students at U of I, and didn’t regard dance as high art. Students in England were planning to do such things as teach dance as part of the Physical Education department in some school. They regarded higher views of dance as too much of an indulgence. They entertained no dreams of becoming famous.

All of those English dancers were seeking for ways to introduce dance to children. I lost some of the romance of the art, and gained a passion to teach dance to others.

While in college I became absolutely caught up in the marvelous world of ballet. Ballet appeals to my head as well as to my heart. I fell in love with the structural organization that lies beneath all ballet performance. I learned that ballet can display great emotion, but within a highly stylized and specific context.

All ballet performances are based upon a common dictionary of movement, as though ballet had its own language. Each movement has a specific name, so that a ballet performance is like a puzzle that the choreographer puts together. The names of the movements are French, which makes the language of the art seem bewildering to an outsider. However, once you learn the meanings, the terms serve to make ballet much easier to describe and to talk about.

Getting Paid to Dance
Following graduation I got a job dancing at Walt Disney World in Orlando. That was great fun! The experience was out-of-the-ordinary because I was dancing as a 9 to 5 job! As with most dancing jobs, Disney didn’t pay very much, but I was getting paid to dance my heart out, while having fun and learning my craft.

My husband moved around a lot so over the next several years I danced for the Miami Heat, while hiring out for parties and bar mitzvahs. (It turns out that Miami has a lot of bar mitzvahs!) When we moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville, I joined a troupe called The Dance Company, which was a local touring group that traveled all over Northern and Central Florida, putting on productions like Cats. When we moved to Arizona, I got a job teaching dance at the Conservatory of Ballet, in Phoenix.

I seemed to commemorate every change of address by having another baby. We ended up with four little girls, which of course added some speed bumps to my dance career.

When we moved to East County a few years ago, I really felt like I had come home. I gave up a choice position as a professor of dance instruction at Diablo Valley Community College to teach dance at Nina Koch’s Dance Dynamics.

My commute is marvelous, of course, but the greatest satisfaction comes from teaching these little people to know and love the world of dance that is so important in my own life. I’m delighted when they come to appreciate dance for the sake of the art itself, and not simply as a way to impress their parents or to show off for their friends.

Bringing Home the Nutcracker
Dance Dynamics has given rise to a group of little girls who don’t know what to do with their emerging ballet skills. They participate in the school’s recitals, but the experience of dance should be much more than that. Appreciation for ballet, in particular, only reaches maturity, as young dancers are able to actually perform ballet as pure dance.

We believe that our children here in East County ought to have equal opportunities in the arts as children who are growing up in San Francisco. If that is to be so, then we know that we ourselves have to take responsibility to make this happen.

When I was a young dancer, the Paula Aubrey Dance School staged The Nutcracker each December. From year to year, as my dancing skills grew, I progressed through various roles — from my initial role as an animated cookie, to a flower, and to a snowflake. As I developed my abilities, I began to enjoy the more physically demanding roles, such as those in the Russian and the Chinese Tea dances.

Now we’re creating a venue to provide our budding East County artists with the same opportunity to show off their emerging skills as my teachers gave me to show off mine. We’re developing the Brentwood Children’s Ballet Theater, which will be Brentwood’s first children’s ballet company.

The main task of the ballet company, at least during these early years, will be to stage an East County production of The Nutcracker. Another Dance Instructor, Lauren Blanco, and I are Co-artistic Directors of the production.

Lauren began ballet training at age three and began doing Nutcracker performances with the San Jose Dance Theatre. She went on to perform with ballet companies in San Jose, Boston, Cleveland, and Missouri. After graduating from Dance at UC Irvine, she taught at South Bay Dance Center before moving to East County, seeking a simpler life.

Besides giving our dancers an opportunity to perform, the production will introduce our children to the marvelous Nutcracker Ballet. We believe this to be one of the few shows that every child should see. It is a perfect way to get children on both sides of the footlights interested in performance, as well as introducing them to symphony, ballet, and theater.

The Nutcracker, like Mary Poppins, is “Practically perfect in every way” for our purposes. The story is compelling, but is easy enough for a child to follow. The production provides a romantic and magical context for the holiday season, often creating an effective counterpoint to the sometimes banal materialism of Santa with his bag of toys.

Most of the dancers and staff for this initial production are part of Dance Dynamics, but we want the ballet company to involve all of the East County’s dance programs. We intend to develop the company as a self-sustaining, 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a board of directors that is completely separate from Dance Dynamics.

Our goal is to eventually involve all of the studios in Brentwood, Oakley, Antioch, and Discovery Bay in providing a venue for children to become part of a professional type dance show and increase their opportunities for performance.

Working for a Marvelous Show
Producing an East County Nutcracker has certainly turned into a team effort. Creating a full-blown production like this requires a huge amount of planning and work. Our first discussion was Christmas last year. We held auditions in August and began serious work on the weekend following Labor Day. We developed the choreography, handed out assignments to the kids, began putting the scenes together, and started to develop the production flow.

We didn’t realize how hard this was going to be. “Whose idea was this?” Nina would sometimes ask. In spite of the hard work, I’m glad to be involved in this production. When I wake up every Saturday morning and think about the day’s practices and preparations, I’m always raring to go.

Lauren especially has been incredibly committed during these months of preparation. She is in charge of choreography for the two largest numbers and is working tirelessly for the success of the production. Her hard work is even more amazing given that she’s in the second trimester of her pregnancy. She’s in the bathroom throwing up sometimes between classes and rehearsals. She’s unstoppable and I admire her.

Hard work isn’t confined to the production staff. Some of the kids and parents have developed a huge passion for the project. We found 30 children who were willing to give up every Saturday for 12 weeks, which is a big sacrifice both for the children and for their parents. The kids are responding like the budding professionals that some of them seem to be.

I had to laugh when Tami, one of our moms, said, “When I first started Macy in dance, I didn’t want to become one of those moms who have their child dancing all the time.” Tami wasn’t to have much to say about this, however. Even though Macy started out with one class per week, she is now up to eight classes, plus the Saturday rehearsal.

Macy has no sense of sacrificing for her art. She always walks into the studio with a big smile on her face. She’s in her happy place; she’s where she wants to be. Her attitude is great, because she just loves to be on a dance floor working on her skills! A number of our young dancers have this kind of attitude.

Some of the dancers had no idea what the ballet is about so we all got together one afternoon and watched a tape of the NYC Ballet version of The Nutcracker, produced by George Balanchine and starring Macaulay Culkin as the little boy. The kids loved it! They kept crying out things like “Is that me?” and “Did my part come on yet?”

Since the Brentwood Children’s Ballet Theater is staging this first production with a limited budget, we’ve been using creativity in keeping costs low without sacrificing production value. We’re going to make some of our own props, like the Mother Ginger, et cetera so we will be able to keep our costs down.

Creating costumes was a big challenge. Nina Koch, the owner of Dance Dynamics, was in charge of ordering materials. She has played the role of Organizer of Seamstresses.

Since the other co-director, Lauren, was formerly a ballet instructor at South Bay Dance Center, which produces The Nutcracker every other year, and since this is one of the “off years,” Lauren is able to borrow scenery from them.

Getting Ready for Showtime
We’ve been drawing upon our experience from productions that we worked on in the past, as well as shamelessly mining other productions for ideas and even for props. The San Francisco Ballet Company, for example, completely revamped their Nutcracker a few years ago. We’ve picked up some great ideas from their revised production.

The principal roles of Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier will be danced by two talented guest artists from the South Bay Dance Center under the direction of choreographer Kit Ashleigh Dean.

Our first production of The Nutcracker is an exciting work-in-progress with some trial and error that is leading to a lot of learning. We have something to prove. A lot of people are watching to see what we are going to do before they decide to jump on board.

This first year is turning into a real adventure! We’re buying some of the basic supplies and equipment that we will use in future productions, and are already in a process of embellishing the stage and sets, which will become a continually more elaborate affair from year-to-year. I’m already excited about next year! We’ll get more studios involved, more dancers, more everything….

The Nutcracker will be performed this year to accompaniment on a CD. However, our ultimate vision is to be able one day to perform the piece to music being played by a children’s symphony. In the meantime, we have already had preliminary conversations with an adult symphony orchestra, through the California State Music Association who would reportedly love to come play for us next year.

Join us for Brentwood’s first homegrown Nutcracker, on Dec. 17, at Liberty High School, at 1 p.m. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to become one of a select group of people who will be able to say, “I saw the Brentwood Children’s Ballet Theater Nutcracker the first year it was put on.” I predict that comment will impress your listeners more with every year that passes.

We’re trying to make a star out of each of our little dancers. Nina comes by sometimes and sees the children performing some little bit of the choreography we are developing and it moves her to tears because it’s so beautiful.

I’m glad for all of the children who will have this opportunity to perform. Best of all perhaps, my own seven-year-old, following in her mom’s footsteps, is going to be up there on the stage that night as a dancing cookie. I imagine some people in the audience will be laughing; but others, I expect, will be crying tears of joy and delight along with Nina, Lauren, and me. I can’t wait!

For ticket information or more information on the Brentwood Children’s Ballet Theater call 925-240-5556.