The bunheads took the elevator in shifts, one giggling gaggle at a time, bound for the second-floor auditorium of Provincetown Town Hall. It was Saturday, Nov. 16, and the HeartStrings Dance Company, with 30 students ranging from nine-year-olds to high school seniors, were preparing to perform excerpts from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.
The members of the company, all of whom study at the Reaching Heart School of Ballet in Harwich, love to perform, said director Melissa Heart, and elect to attend extra rehearsals and put on extra shows. They will be among the 75 students from Reaching Heart who will perform The Nutcracker in full at Monomoy Regional High School on Dec. 7 and 8. They’ll be joined by Sara Adams and Harrison Coll, two soloists from the New York City Ballet.
Backstage in Provincetown, ensemble member Clara Bradford, 12, was getting ready near the costume rack, where colorful party dresses hung in a row. Clara lives in Wellfleet and goes to Nauset Middle School. Her favorite thing about performing is the giddiness of backstage antics. “There are more dances that we’re not in than we are in,” she said. When she’s backstage, she’s “doing hair, doing makeup, and hanging out with friends.”
Ten-year-old Mila Tackett, from Orleans, wasn’t wearing a dress that night — she was dancing the part of Fritz, the annoying little brother of Clara (not Bradford, but the character in the ballet who is whisked away to the Land of Sweets by the Nutcracker-turned-prince-of-her-dreams).
She didn’t mind playing a boy. “It’s fun,” she said. As Fritz, “I get to steal presents and break the Nutcracker.” In real life, said Mila, “I would never do that to anybody.”
The company was warming up: hands on the walls for balance, feet planted and pointed, knees bent, and arms reaching. Back muscles rippled; hamstrings flexed; everywhere, dancers dropped into splits.
Soon it was time to get into costumes, and the dancers tumbled lightly over the floor to don tiaras and leotards and skirts. Jackie deRuyter, from Brewster, made many of the costumes. Her twin daughters, Lauren and Marley, are seniors at Nauset High School. This was their 14th Nutcracker. Lauren was dancing as the Snow Queen, Marley as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
There was one boy in the company: 11-year-old Roy Goodwin-Wright, from Chatham. “He’s studied with me since he was six,” said Heart. “He dances six days a week.” This past summer, Roy participated in a one-week program called the New York Junior Session at the School of American Ballet. In Provincetown, he would be dancing, toes effortlessly pointed and bowtie a little askew, as the Prince.
At 6 p.m., Heart took the stage. This was her 22nd season of producing The Nutcracker, she announced to the attentive crowd, but that evening’s performance, the first ever in Provincetown, was a dream come true. “Provincetown is right down the street from Harwich,” she said, “but somehow it feels so far away.”
With that, the party scene commenced: the younger, smaller girls danced as party boys, and the older, taller girls were party girls. Together, they twirled and bowed. Two dancers performing as wind-up toys enraptured the audience with stiff-legged grace.
Julie Clark, a five-year-old student from Eastham, ran from her seat in the audience. Wearing a white leotard with fairy wings strapped to her back, she danced a solo around Clara. Tiny and cherubic, Julie acted as a fairy guide into The Nutcracker’s fantasy land.
Heart’s comments to the audience before the show included an announcement: “If you’re a child of any age, there will be an opportunity to dance.” The opportunity came right before the character Clara entered the Land of Sweets.
At the director’s invitation, 9 or 10 very young children were urged from the audience and took seats in a line on the stage. When Clara touched their heads, they stood up and danced miniature improvised solos: a jump, a spin, a flap of the arms.
Next there was the Spanish Dance, the Arabian Dance, the Russian Dance. The dancers were spritely, strong, and flexible — Lakotah Bassett, who performed the solo in the Arabian Dance, might well have been a contortionist, with her effortless backbends and splits.
Heart spent the evening observing her dancers with unmistakable pride: the older girls carefully securing bobby pins for younger girls; Lauren, backstage, practicing for her role as the Snow Queen — serene and royal even as she casually gestured in her turns and leaps.
Alumni of the Reaching Heart School, founded in 2001, have gone on to be professional dancers. But Heart said her teaching philosophy is about fostering a love for the art. “A joyful experience for the kids” accompanies rigorous training.
In the three upcoming performances at Monomoy High, both the set design and choreography will be stepped up. Snow will fall from the ceiling, Heart said. In the party scene, the wind-up toy dancers will emerge from person-sized boxes. A Christmas tree will grow from 8 to 15 feet over the course of the show.
The New York City Ballet’s Harrison Coll will perform a pas de deux — a duet that involves an impressive lift — with Clara. In the finale, 20 students will dance in unison with Coll and Adams. “That’s something they’ll remember forever,” said Heart.
Adams was born in Dennis and began her ballet training at six at the Mid-Cape Ballet Academy. “She was a little Cape Cod girl with a very big dream,” said Heart. She confirmed that getting the two New York professionals to perform with her students was expensive. “Am I a nutty lady?” said Heart. “Yes, I am.”
“I do it because it’s an amazing thing for the kids,” she added. “It makes it real for my dancers. If you really, truly want this, the sky’s the limit.”
What’s Crackin’
The event: The Nutcracker, performed by students from the Reaching Heart School of Ballet and two soloists from the New York City Ballet
The time: Saturday, Dec. 7, 1 and 6 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 8, 1 p.m.
The place: Monomoy Regional High School, 75 Oak St., Harwich
The cost: $25 to $45 at buy.tututix.com/reachingheart
