We’ve got northern lights dancing in the night sky, snowflakes dancing as they fall, and walkers dancing around icy spots so they don’t fall. And humans everywhere have always done that foot-stomping, arm-flapping dance, to stay warm on cold days.
And there’s more! We’ve all been entertained by Clement C. Moore’s 1822 poem, A Visit From St. Nicholas (a.k.a. ’Twas the Night Before Christmas). It was written as a Christmas gift to his children who, I’m sure, wriggled with glee at the line, “The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.”
Choose your role. Dance your part!
Seventy years later, when Peter Illich Tchaikovsky wrote the music for The Nutcracker ballet, I’m guessing he was inspired by Moore’s words to create the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” (cue the music in your head … Ba-da dum dum, dum dum, dee-dee-dum, dee-dee-dum, deedle deedle dum).
A little more than a century after that, and a continent and an ocean away, Whitehorse dancers continue to add warmth to the winter scene with new interpretations of stories and music that are perennial favourites the world over. In the past 30 years, winter dance magic in the Yukon has grown and grown—just like the enchanted Christmas tree in the first act of The Nutcracker ballet.
Ballet instruction has been ongoing in our small capital city since the 1970s. Then, the first iteration of Northern Lights School of Dance (NLSD) was founded on Black Street, thanks to the efforts of Stella Martin. Jazz, tap and modern were part of the curriculum, as well. The demand for classes soon outgrew that small space, so the school moved to the Guild Hall in 1995.
There was a keen group of adult dancers in those years, and Dancers With Latitude (DWL) was formed to give them opportunities to do more-challenging and sophisticated classes and performances. The four founders and directors (including yours truly) taught in a variety of locations, around town, until the early 2000s.
When Andrea Simpson-Fowler finished her dance degree, and after having taught for NLSD and DWL, she started her own studio called Leaping Feats, in Riverdale, in 1999. It has since been absorbed into the larger community project, The Heart of Riverdale. From one end of the city to the other, there has been an ongoing explosion of creativity and dance opportunities.
Back then, in the 90s, you might have heard that familiar Sugarplum Fairy refrain coming from small performance spaces around the Yukon—school gyms and community centres, mostly. Deborah Lemaire, former dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and then artistic director at NLSD, was including snippets from The Nutcracker in seasonal shows. (The complete ballet was first presented at the Yukon Arts Centre in 2002—a very big deal in our very small city.)
Meanwhile, Dancers With Latitude took Tchaikovsky’s music in another direction. I made up a new story called Nutcrackin’: A Hibernation Story, and our team choreographed the dances. I used only the music that suited this northern story, so the Sugarplum Fairy music and the “Waltz of the Flowers” were not included. Our cast included Swedish kitchen elves called tomten, King Frost and his frost soldiers, as the bad guys; and a Ptarmigan Fairy instead of a Sugarplum Fairy. Dancing northern lights and dancing snowflakes and snow flurries played important parts.
If you were around in 1996, maybe you saw it. I wish we could have performed it over and over. It was such great fun.
Audiences are in luck, as the great fun continues. The Nutcracker this year features 150 NLSD dancers, many of whom have been serious about doing their RAD exams for the past four years, and many of whom are involved in the intensive program at the school. (There is also a recreational dance program for those who are otherwise busy or otherwise focused.) Seeing this ballet is a Christmas tradition for many in the Yukon and around the world, and local audiences rave that the show just gets better and better. You can catch it at YAC from Dec. 12 to 14.
Meanwhile, a new community of adult dancers has sprung up (many of them alumni from NLSD, DWL, and the Heart.) Velvet Antler Productions offers quality classes (for those who want to dance in heels) and adds some shimmy-shimmy to the season, through their shows. Christmas Kickoff (their professional can-can style show) takes the stage at YAC over the last weekend of November, and their yearly Naughty Nutcracker (a student showcase for a 19+ audience) plays at the Guild Hall from Dec. 18 to 20.
The Heart of Riverdale is a very busy place with classes in traditional forms of dance, plus lots of Broadway, theatrical and street dance. The building has an arts-focused daycare and after-school arts programs. The ballet program has included RAD exams for the past three years, and they look forward to being able to offer post-secondary degrees in dance and a professional performance company in the future. Their third-annual winter show, called Polar Night, will be held from Jan. 22 to 24, in the new year. They’ve created this new story “ballet,” and the choreography gets changed up every year, so students from a variety of classes and styles get to dance different roles each time around. And audiences get to enjoy a fresh take on the Polar Night magic, every time they see it.
Whew, it’s a busy time of year! I love the sense of community that forms within the world of dance. I run into people I danced with 30 years ago, and it’s like we’ve had a continuous connection, all along. I loved a comment made by Glenda Koh, the new executive director at NLSD, about how kids grow up in a dance school. The big kids take care of the little kids, and the little kids look forward to someday learning the big-kid roles.
The dance school is the third learning environment after home and school, she says, and we all, no matter how old, learn so well when we are active and happy and moving—dancing like northern lights and snowflakes and sugarplums and ptarmigan fairies. Choose your role. Dance your part!
