Nutcracker Surprise Essay

The first experience of watching a ballet, for me or any little girl, can be fascinating and exhilarating. Wondering how a dancer can be so steady on her toes as she spins in circles and leaps through the air. Watching a ballet, there is a feeling of wanting to be graceful, as well as the warm sensation felt by a little girl as she slips into dream land. My mom had taken me to my first ballet when I was 11 years old. When we returned home home, she signed me up for classes at the local dance center. The expectations to become a prima ballerina would involve much hard work and concentration. I knew when I started it would take years of steady practice and commitment. Learning the history of ballet and the famous

In modern times, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker, is a Christmas classic. With memorable songs and beautiful instrumentation, many cannot imagine Christmas without it. Dance companies perform the ballet year after year with spectators coming to watch annually. There have even been LGBT, hip hop, and Jewish adaptations to the popular ballet (Begley). Thousands of musicians and dancers all over the world perform it to add to the excitement and cheer of the holidays.

I am still that little girl who felt freedom as she danced along the floor. I am that little girl who never gave up on herself even if I wanted to do so a billion times. I am that girl who never stopped believing in herself, yet many people told her to stop. I grew, and thanks to “Dance” I survived. I became a strong independent women. Now, I am close to ending my last season in dance as a high school student. One more year and it will all be over, and all that hard work will be worth it when I walk out of that stage on graduation day, and say “I did it , I passed through the pain that stopped me from living, from achieving”. I am now proud of the girl I am today, and no matter what happens next I will always feel love for that dancer and the person I now

My mother once told me I was born to dance. Ballet, jazz, and hip hop nourished me from the time I was three years old. Whether helping my parents clean or walking in the grocery store, my feet sashayed beneath me to an unknown rhythm. Some of my earliest memories occur in a small studio in a converted barn, where I spent hours at the barre. Unlike performance schools depicted on reality television, my dance studio required less excessive makeup and more polished black leotards and pink tights (we did, however, have a fair share of screaming stage moms).

Another one of my passions is dance. Since the age of three I have been dancing. Whether it is on stage, at a competition, or just in front of my family, I found a love for this art. Around the age of thirteen I began student teaching; because of this, I found a liking for helping people become more confident in themselves and their dance technique. Not only did I learn to dance, but I also built confidence, learned great stage presence and to have respect for everyone. These are all lessons that will remain with me for life.

Marie and I had just left her house and were walking to the tryouts. It was a really quick walk because she lives only 2 houses away from the studio. This was back in August 2017, a few days after dance camp ended for the summer. We hurried down the stairs to go inside and kept talking about how nervous and excited we were the whole way down. Once we got inside of Bleker’s, we started talking to the other girls. After just a few minutes we were all taken into the dance room and together we all learned a hip hop, jazz, and tap routine. We only had about 30 minutes to learn all of the routines so we were all feeling a little rushed. Before we knew it, the dance teachers put us into groups of 3-5 girls. These groups were the people we would perform our dance routines with. My group was Meghan S, Grace, and I.

I had to get that audition, if I did I was in. Honor band always had at least one kid from our band in each section. All I had to do was get past Mr. Higgens. I had been stressing that whole week and now it was time. This year the clarinets would go before the saxophones. After everyone had played was when the audition sheets would be handed out. The clarinets played and it was clear who would be given a sheet and who would not. Then it was time for the saxophones, first chair went first as always, that meant I had less time to freak out. Before I knew it, it was my turn. I was just as nervous as I was last year, yes, I had improved but I still had an immense amount of self doubt. I pushed everything out of my mind and began. I got through smoothly, but of course it was hard to determine if I had done well since I was hard on myself. The rest of the saxophones played through and we all waited as our conductor jotted down notes. He picked up the honor sheets and began to pass them out. Only a couple of the clarinets were handed a sheet, he then turned to the saxophone section. He passed one to first chair, then there was a second in between that I swear lasted for hours, my heart seemed to drop but also was under attack at the same time. My mind went to chaos. “This is silly, I'm in sixth grade and stressing out over this?” “ Life will go on if I don't get it.” “ But if I don't I'll always remember.” “This stupid piece of

I was the only one who was fearful for what was about to happen because the humiliation of being unprepared to perform in front of the whole school left me with a sense of angst. Color guard was just called up to perform and as the music started, cheers were ringing through the gym. Everyone seemed excited for the performance, yet I remember everything going in slow motion: students yelling, teachers clapping, and yet my girls looked clueless. This was the moment I was dreading since before the school year started.

Every year, The Williamstown Ballet Theater hosts The Nutcracker and everybody gets in. Casey wanted to wait another year before joining but received a call from her studio asking if she wanted to replace someone. Casey was very excited and accepted. It was a very small part but a part is a part. She was a party mom and would be dancing with a party dad. She also would be all eight shows!!

Then we started to warm up because we had a judge's preview. So basically we just went into a classroom and performed our dance it was really scary at first, but then it got better because I knew they weren’t judging us that

This semester in dance class I have had a wonderful time and learned a lot of things. We’ve had some great times in dance this semester, like when we were doing our show, “How the Grinch Stole the Nutcracker”, I had a lot of fun. I did many things well but, there was a lot I could work on,too. I remember that in our ‘Ice Skaters’ dance, we would do a Jazz split and I was really good at that! Also,we would do a “tabletop stand-up” thing and I was also really good at that, that part was really fun. In our “Samba” dance we had to make up some poses to do at the beginning, and make sure we remembered to use levels, I was pretty good at doing that! Even though there were many good things I did, there were also many things I wish to work on. I really

there was so many people out there seating in their seats clapping cheering it was amazing. When we start dancing there where so much enthusiasm going through my body I felt exuberant! The stage lights on was perfect with music and the people in their seats cheering, clapping, and really, enjoying themselves and I loved every minute of it. It made me feel special that I was part of something great. Finally, my dream came true to dance and to dance in front of a lot of people and I knew right there that this was not going be my last performance. After we were done, my group and I told each other how much we were proud of each other. Then later we all meet up with our parents and went home with smiles on are faces because it was the best moment of my

Cinderella would always eat when she was out, she started to gain a lot of weight. Food became her addiction. One day as Cinderella was doing all of the house chores, she heard a knock at the door, she went to go answer it and it was someone from the Kingdom. He told her that it was very important, so Cinderella brought it into the other room where Elora and the girls were and handed them the letter. Elora opened it and read it out loud. It was an invitation to the ball to meet Prince Jourdian. This ball was taking place in three months.

One evening a knock was heard at our front door, it was a message from the Prince! A royal ball was to be taken place in his castle to find his bride. I just know he'll choose me, I was meant for royalty! I showed mother and Anastasia the invitation, they were just as trilled as i was, and the funny this was, Cinderella was excited too. I don't know why she thought she deserved to go after not even finishing her chores for the week. Mother told her she couldn't go unless everything was finished but to make sure she could not go, mother made the list unbelievably long. Cinderella did not take it well. She was going crazy talking to the mice in the wall, telling them all about how unfair it was.

At the age of three I was finally allowed to start ballet, once a week at three in the afternoon. My little kid dream was granted to me, I was ecstatic! Fast forward from August 2004 to November 2004 and I’m already preparing to dance in my first performance, The Nutcracker. My role was one of the petite snowflakes. The costume was a snowy white fluffy tutu with silver crystal beading stitched into the tool material.