The magic of “The Nutcracker” ballet becomes an intimate experience for families that attend the Sugar Plum Party, an annual event that follows the Salt Creek Ballet’s final Sunday afternoon performance of the holiday classic at Hinsdale Central High School.
It is an enchanting adventure for children, said George Faulstich, a Hinsdale village trustee and former president of the ballet’s board of directors.
“They actually go on the stage and see the sets up close. They talk to the dancers and get their autographs. They mingle with all the people involved and get a much more personal involvement in the production. All the kids find it fun and many find it quite exciting.
“It’s a terrific idea.”
The concept was borrowed from the New York City Ballet, said Patricia Sigurdson, the ballet’s founder and artistic director emeritus.
“It’s a natural thing,” Sigurdson said. “You have your audience there and you let them share in the magic of being on the stage. The dancers stay on stage in costume so they can be seen up close. There are refreshments and pictures can be taken with the Nutcracker. It is something very special for children.”
In the last half-century, “The Nutcracker” has become the quintessential Christmas holiday arts performance throughout the United States. For many children, it also is their introduction to classical ballet.
The fairy tale is about the magical Christmas of a girl named Clara. Clara’s godfather visits a Christmas Eve party, bringing her a nutcracker shaped like a toy soldier. That night, the toys near the Christmas tree come alive. Mice led by the Mouse King attempt to steal the presents but are vanquished. The Nutcracker turns into a handsome prince and sends Clara on a dazzling journey. Later she awakes to find it was all a dream.
Based on a grim story by German writer E.T.A. Hoffman, it was revised into a softer version by French writer Alexandre Dumas. In 1891, Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky began setting the story to music. The show debuted Dec. 17, 1892, in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theater, the home of the Kirov Ballet.
In the 1930s, “The Nutcracker” was performed outside Russia for the first time, and in 1940, a shortened version debuted in the U.S. A full-length restaging, created by Kirov-trained George Balanchine for the New York City Ballet in 1954, is the version most familiar to American audiences.
The Salt Creek production is linked to the earliest days of the ballet company, which was an outgrowth of the Sigurdson School of Ballet, started by Sigurdson 25 years ago.
Sigurdson, who lives in Western Springs, trained at the Royal Ballet School in London as well as with Robert Joffrey at the Joffrey School of Ballet and Frederick Franklin at Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, both in New York City.
She was a member of the American Ballet Theater and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
“When we first started the school, the belief was anyone who was serious about ballet thought they had to go into Chicago for lessons,” Sigurdson said. “There didn’t seem to be places where they could study out here and get the type of training they wanted in serious dance. So, No. 1, we had to convince them training could be offered in the suburbs, and No. 2, we had to clarify the idea of what it takes to be a serious dancer.”
She added: “Everybody seems to realize that with things like gymnastics and swimming you have to do it every day, but with ballet a lot of people didn’t think it required that much time. But serious dancers dance every day, except Sunday, basically just like an athlete. And it was a challenge to educate parents as to what kind of commitment being a dancer was going to take.”
After 10 years, she felt she had dancers ready for a greater challenge.
“They were ready to perform above recital level,” she said. “They were ready to be at a professional level, and to be in first-class productions.”
In 1985, Sigurdson and her husband, Gary, a former musician who handled the business side of the enterprise, formed the Salt Creek Ballet.
“When we first started, Gary said, `Let’s do “The Nutcracker”‘” Sigurdson said. “I was maybe a little hesitant, but we had a year to pull it together.”
The first performance in 1986, in the Hinsdale Central High School auditorium, consisted only of the ballet’s snow scene and second act. “But we actually did it and sold out the two performances,” Sigurdson said.
“With his music connections, my husband had been able to pull together an orchestra, and with some good luck, we got our costumes and sets.
“Through various connections, we found that the Indianapolis Ballet Theater was not going to be doing `The Nutcracker’ that year and said they would rent their costumes and sets to us very reasonably. They even sent some dancers in to do some of the parts.
“We ended up using their costumes and sets for two years and that enabled us to start saving and getting together some money for our own production.”
In 1987 the full ballet was mounted. The following year the company’s new sets and costumes debuted. In 1989 the Aurora Paramount Arts Centre was added to the performance schedule. The ballet company began performing at the Performing Arts Center at Governors State University in south suburban University Park in 1997.”The Nutcracker” was a wise choice, Faulstich said.
” `The Nutcracker’ is a successful ballet for virtually all ballet companies, not just the Salt Creek,” he said. “Many ballet companies depend on it from a financial point of view to support themselves.”
The Salt Creek production is “extremely well done,” he said. “Like everything Patti Sigurdson is associated with, it started with a very high sense of quality. They started out using a full orchestra, which they still do for many of the performances. They built their own sets and have their own costumes, which are beautiful. It’s essentially an excellent production and essentially sells out every year.”
As the ballet company moved forward, it gathered community support.
“We began getting some really interesting people on our board of directors,” said Sigurdson, who is on the board.
Faulstich, who ended up as board president for several years, was among them.
“George loves dance, which is important, but it is his business skills that we benefited from,” Sigurdson said. “George really was instrumental in bringing this up to another level. He understood how to govern an arts organization, and he kept pushing a little bit here and a little bit there–not too hard, but just enough to keep us always wanting to improve.”
“The Salt Creek Ballet got started out strictly as a volunteer organization, and no one got paid anything,” Faulstich said.
“At the time George took over, I was still running the school but I was not making any salary at the company at all,” Sigurdson said. “The only staff I had was one parent who helped out in the office. It really was run on a shoestring.”
“We wanted to make it a more professional company, and part of that was making sure everyone got paid something so they knew what they were doing was worth something,” Faulstich said.
A staff was hired, including a business manager, and Sigurdson and others began to draw a salary.
“We also began paying all the dancers a small amount of money, and all the staff and most of the other people involved get paid now as well,” Faulstich said.
“The pay is only a token amount for each performance,” Sigurdson said. “But it lets them know they are a valued part of a professional company.”
The growing sense of professionalism has benefited the company.
“Funding is always an issue, not just for the Salt Creek Ballet, but for essentially every arts organization,” Faulstich said. “But as time has gone by, it’s gotten better and better for Salt Creek because the quality of the organization has attracted funds to it.”
One substantial boost came when Alice Mansell of Hinsdale started the Salt Creek Guild in 1990. The guild is a support organization that holds benefit events to raise money.
“This lady is really `Miss Hinsdale,’ in my estimation,” said Sigurdson, speaking of Mansell. “She really is just the most incredible woman. She loves the ballet and has built the guild to about 100 members. And the money they raise is really helpful because ticket sales don’t pay for too much of what we do–we can’t charge a fortune in the suburbs.”
The ballet company has benefited from many talented people over the years, Sigurdson said.
“There are many, many volunteers working with us,” she said. “Kay Johnson, for example, is just one of the ones who do such fabulous work on the costumes and give just unbelievable effort. These are the unsung heroes behind the scenes.”
In the early ’90s, Sigurdson turned the ballet school over to the Salt Creek Dance Co. “Gary and I thought it was time for the school to have a life of its own,” she said.
A few years later she also felt ready to turn the director’s reins over to someone else.
Sergey Kozadayev and Zhanna Dubrovskaya came as a team: They’re married. They started their third year with Salt Creek in August.
“Both of their backgrounds are so incredible,” Sigurdson said.
They were born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and both trained at the Vaganova Institute there, graduating in 1968. The Kozadayevs danced for 20 years with the St. Petersburg State Ballet and performed worldwide in leading roles of classic ballets. For seven years, they were the ballet master and assistant ballet mistress for the Colorado Ballet in Denver.
“With their backgrounds they know the classics like the backs of their hands, but Sergey also is an excellent choreographer, so we have that double benefit there,” Sigurdson said.
“It turned out we were really needing both of them. Because the school had grown so tremendously, we needed somebody to run the school as well as somebody to run the company. So Zhanna is the director of the school and, of course, works for the company, too, and Sergey is the artistic director of the company.
“They are both hard workers and very dedicated people. The more I know them, the more I respect and love them.”
Sigurdson added, “I think the students are happy as well. Sergey and Zhanna are taskmasters and they make the students work hard, but they just keep wanting more and more.”
“They are, like, the best teachers–the Kozadayevs are the very best,” said student Katherine Bruno, 16. “I wouldn’t want to be going anywhere else.”
Bruno is one of the 60 dancers in “The Nutcracker.” In past years she has played the role of Clara as a young girl. This year she will portray the role of Clara as a young lady.
Bruno thinks the hour and a half round-trip she drives from her home in Aurora to practice and rehearse is well worth it. Before she got her driver’s license her mother was a willing chauffeur, she said. The school, located since 1994 at 98 E. Naperville Rd. in Westmont, has four large studios for the approximately 600 students.
Next year, when she is a high school senior, Bruno will begin auditioning for larger dance companies.
“I’m hoping to get into one,” she said.
She will not be the first.
“Many Salt Creek dancers have gone on to dance with major companies, such as the Joffrey, San Francisco and Boston, to name a few,” Sigurdson said.
Others have gone on to the Houston Ballet, Ballet Arizona, Ballet Iowa, Ballet South and Lexington Ballet. “When Salt Creek was launched, I don’t think anyone really had a clear view of where it was going to end up–although, quite frankly, it has turned out to be much more than anyone dreamed,” Faulstich said.
CURTAIN GOING UP
Following is the schedule for the Salt Creek Ballet’s holiday production of “The Nutcracker” and its spring production of the “Carnival of the Animals and More.”
“The Nutcracker”
– Nov. 25 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the Hinsdale Central High School Auditorium, 55th and Grant Streets, Hinsdale. Tickets: $20 for adults and $18 for children 12 and younger or senior citizens 65 and older. For tickets, call 630-769-1199.
– Nov. 26 at 1 p.m. in the Hinsdale Central High School Auditorium, 55th and Grant Streets, Hinsdale. The Sugar Plum Party will be held after the performance. Tickets: $28 for adults and $22 for children 12 and younger and senior citizens 65 and older. For tickets, call 630-769-1199.
– Dec. 2 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. at the Paramount Arts Centre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora. Tickets: $20.50 for adults, $16.50 for children 16 and younger and $18.50 for senior citizens 55 years and older. For tickets, call 630-896-6666.
– Dec. 9 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. at the Governors State University Performing Arts Center, 1 University Pkwy., University Park. Tickets: $25 for adults, $22 for children 16 and younger and $22.50 for senior citizens 55 and older. For tickets, call 708-235-2222.
“Carnival of the Animals and More”
– April 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 425 22nd St., Glen Ellyn. For ticket information, call 630-942-4000.
– April 29 at 2 p.m. at the McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 425 22nd St., Glen Ellyn. For ticket information, call 630-942-4000.
– May 6 at 3 p.m. at the Governors State University Performing Arts Center, 1 University Pkwy., University Park. For ticket information, call 708-235-2222.
BALLET CLASSES
The Salt Creek Ballet Dance School has a year-round schedule of classes: Four terms that coincide with the typical academic year plus an eight-week summer course.
There are extensive class offerings for beginners through advanced and pre-professional dancers for all ages. The curriculum is fully integrated from beginning through advanced levels, teaching both technical and interpretive skills.
Instruction in basic ballet is available for preschool children through the Small Steps classes, which are designed for 3-year-olds, and Dance for Young Children, which has a curriculum for 4- and 5-year-olds.
Programs for older students include ballet and jazz techniques.
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For more information, visit the Salt Creek Ballet Dance School, 98 E. Naperville Rd., Westmont, or call 630-769-1199.
The Salt Creek Ballet’s Web site is www.saltcreekballet.org.
