There are just some things you can count on this time of year.
Christmas music before Thanksgiving, extra people in every store you go to and the St. Paul’s School Ballet Co. putting on its annual performance of The Nutcracker.
The school has been dazzling audiences with its production since the 1970s and that includes when Jennifer Howard, who is now in her fourth year of directing the ballet company, was a student at St. Paul’s.
Every year, Memorial Hall is home to three performances a few weeks before Christmas and while the dancing is sure to impress the pants off of you (figuratively not literally) one of the best parts is that it’s free.
So you can choose any of the three renditions this weekend, either Friday or Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. or Sunday at 2 p.m. to check out this year’s version of the holiday classic. And they’re all the same price as you’d pay for a sip of water from a water fountain.
Now, the ballet company does it a little different from the traditional version. Instead of doing the full two acts, they do a shortened piece from the opening act and make the second act the bulk of the almost hour-long program.
“The first act has a lot of young children and adults and the St. Paul’s student body doesn’t represent either of those,” Howard said. “And the second act is where the bulk of the dancing takes place.”
The majority of the dances consist of one to three dancers on stage, and Concord’s own Andy Dienes has two pretty important roles in this year’s production. In Arabian, one of the dozen or so dances in the performance, he partners with Eliza Davenport. In year’s past, Arabian has been a solo dance for a female, but Howard thought it would be good to change things up.
“Partnering is my favorite part of ballet,” Dienes said. “My main goal is to make my partner look good and you have to be so much in rhythm with them. To make it look good you have to dance very much together.”
Having worked with Dienes for a couple years, she knew how strong his partnering skills were and transforming Arabian into a dance featuring a male and female was something Howard thought would not only benefit the show, but help Dienes grow as a dancer. Arabian is one of the longest dances in the performance.
“When I’m looking at casting, I look at what’s best for the development of the dancer,” Howard said. “And this is a great role for Andy.”
It starts with Dienes carrying Davenport on to the stage over his head and for the next four minutes they will be the center of attention with rhythmic dancing, lifts and twists. We could try to explain it all, but it would be much easier and better if you just checked it out for yourselves.
“Andy is a very strong dancer and a particularly strong partner,” Howard said. “He’s just naturally gifted in that area. He has a lot of strength.”
In Marzipan, Dienes will dance with Phoebe Lummis and Lucy Rickerich in a dance that is less partnering and more of one where they just dance alongside each other.
“It’s very classical,” Dienes said. “ I haven’t been in either one of these roles, but I learned Marzipan as an understudy.”
And Dienes really hasn’t been dancing all that long. He didn’t pick it up until he moved to Concord in 2008. His sister danced, but he was more of a competitive swimmer as a kid. Then he decided to try it out at Capital City Dancer Center. He tried a little bit of everything – tap, jazz and ballet – but seemed to be more drawn to ballet. In the two years before going to St. Paul’s, Dienes kicked up a notch and entered a ballet intensive routine. He studied at Eastern Ballet Institute in Concord as well as a few other places before entering the ballet company at St. Paul’s as a freshman.
One of his first experiences with ballet was a partnering class and it’s safe to say he’s kept up with his homework. But it’s not that hard at St. Paul’s. The 16 members of the ballet company (three males and 13 females) dance about 15 to 20 hours a week and will have spent the better part of six weeks getting ready for this weekend’s performances.
“We spend a lot of time on it,” Howard said. “This is high level dance.”
They rehearse anywhere from two to four hours a day, six days a week and that’s on top of the class work they’re doing. But as you’ll see this weekend, all that time and effort makes for one enjoyable evening on the stage.
“We’re in rehearsal so much,” Dienes said. “In the weeks before a show, there’s a lot of time spent in the studio.”
So like we said before, the shows are free and open to the public. The Friday and Saturday night shows will be at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s is at 2 p.m. in Memorial Hall. The house opens 30 minutes before curtain and seats are on a first-come, first served basis.
But if you’d like to do something, the ballet company invites guests to bring toy donations for local children. Donated toys should not exceed $25 in value and should be unwrapped.
“The dancers wanted to do something charitable on top of the performance,” Howard said.
For more info, visit sps.edu/dance.
