Rochester City Ballet grows for ‘The Nutcracker’
Seven new Rochester City Ballet dancers will take the stage in ‘The Nutcracker’
It takes nearly 200 dancers for Rochester City Ballet to bring The Nutcracker to life each year, including guest ballet dancers from major companies, the Draper Center ballet school and about 120 little dancers from around the community.
The yearly tradition in the Eastman Theatre, with live music by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, has become a marker for the arrival of the Christmas arts season.
While the production hasn’t changed much over the years, this year’s production does feature seven new dancers hired by the RCB last spring. A rough year for fundraising and grants has forced dance companies nationwide to lay off longtime members, cut salaries and, in the most severe cases, fold. The RCB, however, was in a position to grow because of its small size.
And it was able to grow at a time when many talented dancers were looking for jobs — dancers like Ben Rabe, who will be making his grand entrance in the Chinese dance by jumping out of a giant teapot. Only 19, Rabe came out of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School graduate program.
At a recent rehearsal, Rabe leaps in the air and torques midway with his legs fully extended. Time seems to slow down as gravity pulls him down and he straightens for the landing, only to bounce back into another high-flying move. Finally a tough combination of pirouette spins ends with him abruptly sitting Indian style on the floor.
“The steps he does in this are incredibly hard, technically,” says Jamey Leverett, artistic director of RCB.
Karl Moll, the second new male dancer to join the company, recently trained with the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet.
“Strong is the key word,” Leverett says of her new male dancers. “They can do a lot of high-flying tricks, which is exciting.”
Male ballet dancers are a hot commodity, and one of the major niches RCB needed to fill.
In another scene, a group of 10 dancers performs the treacherous “Waltz of the Flowers.”
“It’s six minutes of really hard pointe work,” says Leverett as she watches. She has comments for some of the ladies, but Kelsey Schneider, a new company apprentice, gets a pass.
Schneider, 20, comes from Houston, where she finished high school through an online correspondence in order to study with the Houston Ballet. She landed in Rochester after 15 auditions that amounted to companies saying, “We’re not really hiring.”
“It was rough,” she says. “I didn’t hear from here until the end of March. From January to March, I was terrified.”
Landing a spot in Rochester is more than she could have hoped for, even though as an apprentice, she is not salaried.
“I get pointe shoes and tights,” she says. “It’s more than I’ve ever gotten anywhere else, so it’s a step up.”
Entering RCB was a little more of a sure thing for Hayley Meier, a former Draper Center student who says she danced the lead role of Clara when she was “12 or 13” and has been a featured dancer since then, returning almost every year from her studies at University of Arizona to perform.
This year, she dances as the Snow Queen in the first act and shares a role in the Spanish dance, a pas des deux (partnered dance) with company member Brandon Alexander.
The other new dancers are Jill Schwartz, a full company member who danced with Festival Ballet in Providence, R.I., and as an apprentice with the Orlando Ballet; and Courtney Catalana and Brenee Michael, both apprentices who trained at the Draper Center.
RCB’s new growth has Leverett remembering the first company dancers signing their contracts with Tim Draper, founder of the company, who died in 2003.
“Tim used to tell us, ‘We’re going to have a professional dance company,’” she says. “I believed him.”
She shed a tear back then. Now she’s simply beaming.
“It’s exciting to sit back and think there are 16 members in our company” — and to think of what the company can now achieve.
AREGUERO@DemocratandChronicle.com
Return engagement
Four American Ballet Theatre dancers will perform the roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier in this year’s Nutcracker. For two of the soloists, it’s a homecoming. Sarah Lane, who joined the ABT in New York City in 2003, and Kristi Boone, who joined ABT in 1999, were both former Draper Center students. Also in the program are ABT’s Isaac Stappas and Luis Ribagorda.
If you go
What: The Rochester City Ballet’s The Nutcracker Ballet, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Where: Eastman Theatre, 60 Gibbs St.
When: Friday through Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. daily.
Tickets: $10 to $75.
For information: (585) 454-2100 or www.rpo.org.
On the cover
Kelsey Schneider, 20, a new company apprentice, comes from Houston, where she finished high school through an online correspondence in order to study with the Houston Ballet.
