Waiting in the Wings

Dance schools prepared for Nutcracker performances

The Nutcracker ballet is a holiday staple, and Evansvilleโ€™s two dance schools, The School of Ballet Indiana and Childrenโ€™s Center for Dance Education, are planning for this seasonโ€™s performances.

Any Tri-State dancer can audition, and rehearsals start in September for performances staged at the beginning of December. The taleโ€™s familiarity makes rehearsing and putting on a two-act, nearly two-hour ballet easier, but each yearโ€™s performances are a little different.

โ€œWeโ€™ve got it down to a fine art, but itโ€™s never the same,โ€ says Deena Laska-Lewis, who founded CCDE in 1995.

โ€œI would need more time to prepare if it wasnโ€™t (mostly) the same every year,โ€ says Kerri Lambert, artistic director of Ballet Indiana โ€” a nonprofit facilitating performances โ€” and SBI. โ€œA lot of hard work happens before dancers rehearse.โ€

SBI, owned by Danieฬle Greenawalt โ€” who bought and rebranded the dance studio in 2018 โ€” and BI work together to put on each yearโ€™s production with the addition of the Ballet Indiana Symphony Orchestra under conductor Henry Cheng.

Robert Hughes (left) and Emily Craver rehearse at the Childrenโ€™s Center for Dance Education on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, in Evansville, Ind.

SBIโ€™s production features dancers as young as three and professionals Danielle Troyano of San Diego, California, performing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Alex McCleery of New York City dancing as Cavalier. There are 100 performers, plus parents, volunteers, and a 50-person orchestra. Scholarships make sure more dancers can participate, and Ballet Indiana works with the YMCA of Southwestern Indianaโ€™s Community Outreach Program to achieve that goal.

CCDE tours The Childrenโ€™s Nutcracker throughout the Tri-State annually. This yearโ€™s production includes 40 dancers from CCDE, plus dancers from each stop. Evansville performances incorporate students from Highland Elementary School, Lincoln School, and the Joshua Academy charter school.

This year, Laska-Lewis also worked with board member Krysti Hughes, who is a certified orientation and mobility specialist at the Evansville Association for the Blind, and Easterseals Rehabilitation Center on a sensory-friendly show that expands โ€œThe Nutcrackerโ€ through the senses. Children will be able to touch pieces of costumes, and peppermints will be distributed for smell and taste.

โ€œWe have a job to make joy,โ€ Laska-Lewis emphasizes. โ€œWe never stop performing.โ€

โ€œWe have a great time,โ€ Lambert says.

CHILDRENโ€™S CENTER FOR DANCE EDUCATIONโ€™S โ€œTHE CHILDRENโ€™S NUTCRACKERโ€
Jasper Arts Center
951 College Ave.
Jasper, Indiana Dec. 2, 3 p.m.

Thralls Opera House
612 Church St.
New Harmony, Indiana Dec. 3, 3 p.m.

Old National Events Plaza
715 Locust St.
Dec. 8, 4 p.m. (free sensory-friendly performance)
Dec. 8, 7 p.m.
Dec. 9, 2 p.m.

Preston Fine Arts Center
2660 S. Green St. Henderson, Kentucky Dec. 10, 3 p.m.

SCHOOL OF BALLET INDIANA AND BALLET INDIANAโ€™S โ€œTHE NUTCRACKERโ€
Victory Theatre
600 Main St.
Dec. 9, 7 p.m. Dec. 10, 2 p.m.

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