My Nutcracker Memory

Dec 24, 2023

From the age of around 3, I’m told that my mother used to take me, and sometimes my brother too, to local theatre productions (high schools and community theatre). She would sit in the absolute back row on the aisle, to make it easy to pop out without distracting other audience members. She tells me one memory where she took me to see Cinderella (R&H) at Brockport High School and I wore a poofy dress and just danced and danced in the back corner of the theatre during the entire show. After this she knew I just adored the theatre - the orchestra, costumes, set… everything. When I was 5 years old, my mom and I went to see my first big show - The Nutcracker, performed by a touring Russian company, in the beautiful Kodak Hall in Rochester. We sat towards the front of the center orchestra, with people on all sides. The largest room I had been in till then was the hockey rink where my dad and brother practiced. It was such an exciting experience to be around all of the theatregoers it brings a tear to my eye to write this and recall that evening of excitement. Before the show, she took me to the front of the stage and I looked down into the orchestra and was just so amazed. It was such a special night with my mom. I can’t describe the feeling as anything other than awe.

Prepared to feel, little Claire was set up and determined to make this performance the most incredible thing she had ever experienced. The orchestra tuned, and the iconic opening lines start up. I was immediately hypnotized (before the dancing even began) following right along to the score, which I had quasi-memorized. My ear has always been tight. The kids in the ensemble made me so excited! I thought they were so talented and I was inspired watching them dance in act I. I felt a connection to Clara/Marie (in the Barbie rendition her name is Clara, so she is forever Clara to me). When the tree grew indicating that Clara is shrinking - I felt just like her. And the passage during that scene had me floored. Suddenly the Nutcracker comes out to fight the rats, and I can’t help to laugh because it is my first time seeing a man wearing tights. The fight ends, the Nutcracker proudly claims the crown, and the Waltz Through the Pine Forest begins, which I still consider to be one of the loveliest and romantic pieces of music that I know. We were then nearing the end of act I, and the Waltz of the Snowflakes was welcoming us into the fantasy world. This scene is so iconic. With the first few flute notions, snow began to fall onstage and the dancers entered one by one. Before this day I had only seen people dressed like that and props like fake snow on the TV. I just had so many questions. Like, were those the same ladies who were just wearing big dresses and playing mommies in the first scene? They must be. This is the first point in the show where we get some real colorful pancake tutus and heavy fantasy stage makeup, which of course was giving me inspo for next year’s Halloween. My brain was on fire in the best way possible. I was totally captivated, and felt love and support for the dancers onstage.

I was experiencing everything for myself. Clara experiences a lot of dynamic emotions early in the first act - she is gifted a beloved toy, the toy is broken, she carefully mends it, the tree grows/she shrinks, and she is caught in the midst of a battle. The emotions are all over the place, cumulating with fear and anxiety, that I felt right along her with the help of Tchaikovsky. That anxiety is released as they enter the imaginary world in act I scene II, just letting the fear melt away with each bow stroke. This leads into a nice transition into the Waltz of the Snowflakes, where there can be a new creation. The snowflakes are young, they are fresh, they woke up to their creator’s calling. Like real snowflakes, they joyously dance around and are beautiful and unique! This sets Act I up to suspend into the intermission with a delightful mood and appetite for more, and you know it’s coming. More tutus. More creative, fantasy costumes. More traditional ballet scenes, like the pas de deux and the candy dances - since there was so much exposition in the first act and it is clear where we are heading. But little Claire didn’t know it was nearing the end of act I. The only thing I knew was what my senses were experiencing that set my brain afire. NOTHING could prepare me for what was about to happen.

The fake snow was building up. The exuberant motion of Ballanchine’s choreography was building in beauty and in skill. Suddenly… and I have no other way to describe this memory - that I see so well in my head:

The dancers split, and the Nutcracker himself comes from upstage to downstage center. He preps, and jumps, turning many times in a tight twist. The snow moves beneath him. The perpetual motion is off from what his body is prepared for like. What is supposed to be muscle memory is now incontrollable as he has now jumped up and out and the momentum carries him. There is nothing beneath him. This man jumped right off of the stage into the orchestra. And I was right there in the center once looking up at him, now looking down and confused, waiting to see him. The audience had a collective gasp. The orchestra continues, but it is less full, The dancers carry on. Like any child would do, I looked at my mom to know how to react. Was that on purpose? Is he okay? There’s no way this guy just got hurt in front of all of us! I didn’t know how to react. I looked to my mom and had a concerned look on her face at what she was watching. Within 10 seconds, a barely-dressed understudy comes out and takes the place of the Nutcracker.

I asked her, “Who is that?”

My mom told me that he was the understudy and that it is his job to come out in case of an emergency, and that he was only wearing just tights because he was not expecting to have to go on like this.

Two men came out from the stage right audience exit/vom with an old school gurney, just two rods with fabric connecting them. They came out, disappeared down into the pit, and came out the other side on stage left, and my poor Nutcracker’s body was hanging off it. They quickly exited stage left and that was my last time seeing that guy. Lights came up on intermission and the room was not brimming with joy and wonder like I think Tchaikovsky intended. Everyone was concerned. I was finally able to let my questions go.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked. I genuinely did not know what to expect. I needed a parent to guide me through this new situation.

“He is on his way to the hospital, and its just around the corner so he is getting the help he needs and he will be okay.”

“Will he be back for the next part?” I thought this was possible.

“No, remember when we looked at the orchestra earlier? He fell pretty far, like falling from the second floor of a building. He might have broken some bones, if he was not able to get up after the fall. They knew he needed to be carried out.”

The older ladies sitting near us had the tea. Word got around that he broke his leg, and possibly some other bones. It was circulating in the lobby. The news spread throughout the theatre.

“What is going to happen to him?”

I was concerned! I just spent an hour connecting to this guy. Experiencing a new type of masculinity. A prince in white tights with his package (and muscle definition) clear as day, skillfully dancing to the most beautiful music I had ever heard live. Oh yeah, and he is super nice to the main girl who has (almost) the same name as me. Yea… In just an hour, 5 year old me had grown attached! I had some concerns!

She explained to me what would most likely happen.

“When people break their bones, first, the bones need to heal, which takes a long time of resting and not using your broken leg. So first he will need to heal. Once he heals he will need to practice dancing again to get back to the level he is at to be the lead dancer. It will probably be a year. He will probably go back to Russia within a few days, if they can arrange for that.”

It’s like those memes making fun of children who suddenly gain consciousness. All in one fleeting second, I understood art. I understood dedication to the craft. Any craft. I understood the agreement we humans have with the universe - you can be an artist but it can be taken away from you by the universe at any time. You can be a dancer who breaks a leg. You can be a singer whose tender voice becomes destroyed. You can be a virtuoso pianist or string player and lose a finger! My train of thought just spiraled. I felt the gravity of this event in that man’s life and I empathized so badly. I empathize to this day. I always wonder about him - an accomplished Russian dancer who unfortunately slipped on fake snow while touring in Rochester NY of all places. Oh dear.

I have tried and failed many times to find some evidence of this online. I have seen archived newspaper clips online that advertise the event (which occurred on Nov 21, 2005), but I have never seen a review or an account of that night detailing the need for an understudy. I think of that man all of the time and he serves as inspiration to me. The exact memory of him falling off the stage is burned into my mind. And don’t ask me about Act II because I have absolutely no flipping idea what happened after the intermission. I remember nothing of the day except for everything leading up to the very moment when he fell hard. I can’t help but to draw comparisons to the lesson A Chorus Line teaches.

I have made many Nutcracker memories since, but this remains THE Nutcracker Memory, as I refer to it. Although it remains one of my clearest early memories, and one of my first theatre experiences, it did not tarnish my continued love of the show, or my growth. Maybe it did make me into the person I am in some way, but I wouldn’t know, I’m just existing and experiences happen. And I knock-on-wood saying this, but to this day I have never seen anything like what I saw that day happen in a theatre. I have never even heard of someone I know seeing something like this. Sometimes this story comes up with friends and they are bewildered and sometimes even tease me with shit like “oh THATS why you are the way you are.” Its not!

Now, while Andrew plays his copy of Tchaikovsky’s own orchestra reduction, I recall this memory in an instant. Every emotion, every question, everything. In a split second. And it serves me - to connect me to my bounds, and to the threshold of artists everywhere. Not a single person - artist or anyone - can ascend the limits that God set for us. In our bodies, there is only so much we can experience and express. I still make it my goal to explore these boundaries, but I have deep respect and understanding that first started when I experienced this event firsthand.