Stretching their muscles as they waited

Stretching their muscles as they waited for angel practice to start, Nadine Daley and Rachael Rosengrant considered the question: Would people outside the ballet studio consider them angelic? • After a moment, the two girls decided their grandmothers definitely would. And, siblings? Yes, brothers and sisters probably would, too.

“I read a lot, and I’m quiet,” explained Nadine, 11, of Tunkhannock.

Quiet though they may be, Rachael and Nadine are excited to be among 80 local dance students who will be part of the Moscow Ballet’s “Great Russian Nutcracker,” set for Saturday evening at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre.

Sharing the stage with the Russian cast, 16 area girls will appear as angels, another 16 as snowflakes, 10 as mice and 16 as party guests. Smaller contingents will dance as butterflies or in the character of various cultures – Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian and French.

While they represent seven regional dance schools, all the local dancers are preparing for the big day under the guidance of Elisabeth Harris at the Joan Harris Centre for the Gifted and Talented.

“It’s a great learning experience for them,” Harris said. “They really have to know the choreography. They have to understand they need to be in the right spot at the right time. The Russian cast expects them to be very precise.”

During a recent Friday-afternoon rehearsal, the angels practiced their entrance and their steps and turns, keeping their hands devoutly folded at the appropriate times and flanking the butterflies who soared into the middle.

Afterward, Harris made a few corrections. “Show me a pas de chat. It has to be a little higher. … Really stretch those feet as much as you can.”

“They’re ready,” she said with confidence. “They’re doing a great job.”

More than 4,200 young dancers – an average of 60 in each of 70 cities -- perform each year with the “Great Russian Nutcracker,” producer Akiva Talmi said in a telephone interview.

It’s an opportunity to rub shoulders with the Russian performers, who grew up in a culture where ballet is “the national aspiration of the people, the national pastime, akin to Hollywood.

“The aspiration for a beautiful girl is to be in the ballet,” Talmi said. “They are not motivated by money, but by upward mobility and because ballet is a national treasure.”

Perhaps ironically, while “The Nutcracker” is the most well-attended ballet in the United States, it’s a minor production in Russia.

More popular in Russia, Talmi said, are “Swan Lake” and “The Sleeping Beauty” as well as “Spartacus,” which tells of a slave revolt against ancient Rome, and “La Bayadere,” the love story of a warrior and a temple dancer in long-ago India.

Because the Moscow Ballet wants to promote reading, Talmi said, it has published two illustrated books that explain ballet storylines. “Tales of Classical Ballet” includes “10 great Russian story ballets,” he said, while the other is devoted purely to “The Great Russian Nutcracker.”

If you understand the tale behind a ballet – such as the Russian vision of a girl named Masha who receives a nutcracker doll as a Christmas gift and visits a magical Land of Peace and Harmony – you’ll likely enjoy a performance more, Talmi said.

He promises the Nutcracker production will be quite a spectacle, complete with a new-this-year Russian Father Christmas, a large magical clock and Snegurochka, the Russian Snow Maiden of folklore.

Audiences also will see a bull in the Spanish-style dance, elephants in the Arabian portion, bears in the Russian portion, a unicorn in the French scene and a dragon with four people under it in the Chinese scene.

“The puppets are world-class,” Talmi said, indicating some are 12 feet tall.

Dancing the lead role of Masha will be Cristina Terentieva, who won a gold medal at the prestigious Varna Bulgaria International Ballet Competition in 2008.

This is the American premiere for Terentieva and her husband, Alexei, who was honored at that same international competition as “best partner.”

“It’s a really pretty performance,” said Jessica Elston, 16, of Wilkes-Barre, who will appear as a butterfly.

“It’s a good story,” said another butterfly, Alexis Schutz, 13, of Wilkes-Barre.

Even better than entertainment value and pretty costumes, Katelyn Reinert said, is the chance to interact with the Russian dancers, whom she described as “very sharp in everything they do.”

Katelyn, 18, of Trucksville, has danced in several past Moscow Ballet shows and remembers a piece of helpful advice she received years ago from a visiting dancer.

“I had to do a double pirouette – two turns – and I was having trouble getting around the second time,” Katelyn said.

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