For Littlest Dancers, It’s a Big Job to Play Dolls : ‘The Nutcracker’: About 80 local youngsters learn their steps for the Joffrey production of the popular holiday season ballet.

At the first rehearsal for a group of West Coast dancers in the Joffrey production of “The Nutcracker,” ballet mistress Anita Mitchell called out the dance steps in rapid-fire manner.

“You count three sets of eight, then shuffle on stage on the fourth count, get to your positions, step forward in two counts, back in two, then repeat the forward and back steps,” she said to the eight dancers, who were standing in two rows along one wall of the rehearsal room.

“Is anyone confused?” she asked.

None of the dancers spoke up.

“OK, let’s go!” she called out and then counted off a fast beat.

The dancers sprang to life on the fourth count of eight and, although hesitant at times, all got into position on the correct counts, and the forward-back steps were almost in sync. Not bad for the first time through.

Extraordinary, considering that the average age of the dancers is 10.

“These kids are all very focused,” Mitchell said during a break in the rehearsals. “They concentrate, and they listen. They are kids, and we keep that very much in mind at all times, but they can also do the job.”

About 80 local youngsters, including several alternates, were chosen through auditions to play a variety of roles in the Joffrey’s “The Nutcracker,” which will play the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Dec. 19-30.

This particular group of dancers, rehearsing on a Sunday morning, will play dolls in the production, choreographed to Tchaikovsky’s famed score by the late Robert Joffrey, company founder, and Gerald Arpino. Later that same day will come children dancing the role of toy soldiers, trees and mice.

For each performance, the children will each receive a stipend of $10.

None of the dancers just came in out of the blue and got roles. “They all have had training,” Mitchell said. “They all know what it is to follow choreography.”

Two of the girls rehearsing that day were trained at the Art of the Dance Academy, a ballet, jazz and tap school established in North Hollywood eight years ago. Linda Ferguson, 10, of Burbank will play a Chinese doll, and Jessica Boyle, 9, of North Hollywood will play a tree.

“These girls have a real dedication to dance,” said Maureen Samuels, founder of the school. “For them, it is far more than just a recreational sport. I knew they could handle the audition and the rejection if they did not get picked. And if they did get chosen, I knew they would be able to do the work.”

Linda was in the first rehearsal group. Mitchell started it off by taking attendance--a missed rehearsal without a dramatic excuse is usually cause for dismissal. Attendance is especially critical this year because Mitchell, who lives in Irvine and is dance director for the Orange County High School of the Arts, had to cancel the first rehearsal in what is normally a six-week schedule. Just two days before that rehearsal would have taken place, she gave birth to a daughter, her second.

“I feel great,” she assured several parents who knew about the happy event. Then she politely chased them out of the room.

“Last year, I made the mistake of letting the parents in a bit, and it was a disaster,” Mitchell said with a laugh. “There were some real stage mothers out there who wanted to know why their child was not up front.”

She arranged her dancers in lines marked by tape in the rehearsal room, one of several used by the Joffrey at Cal State Los Angeles. Then she addressed them.

“Being a doll is not all that easy,” Mitchell said. “You are the littlest people on stage, and there are about a million other people up there, all dancing and moving around.”

She paused to make sure that her words sink in.

“You are all little sweethearts, but your lives are in danger if you get off your marks. One wrong move and you’re oatmeal.”

Linda, wearing a black leotard, white tights and with her brown hair up in a bun, listened intently to Mitchell’s cautions and carefully followed her directions. The little dancer--a fifth-grader at Edison School in Burbank who has been taking dance lessons three years--did not crack a smile the entire rehearsal. Erect and chin tilted up just so, she already had the haughty look of a seasoned ballerina.

During a later telephone conversation, however, she sounded like an average 10-year-old, giggles and all.

“I used to want to work in a zoo nursery when I grow up,” Linda said. “But now I think I would like to be a principal dancer in a ballet company. At least, I think that is what I want to be.”

Her only dance performances, so far, have been before a small audience at the academy or in front of family and friends in her living room. But Linda said she does not expect that she will be nervous when she gets out on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage.

“It’s fun to be on stage,” she said. “When I get in front of people to dance, I get really excited. I have to calm down and think, ‘You are just going to go out and do what you have to do, and then it will be over with.’ ”

Jessica, who is in fourth grade at St. Charles School in North Hollywood, comes by her ability naturally. Both her parents were musical comedy dancers and, in fact, met when they were in a national touring production of “No, No, Nanette.”

Jessica, who one day would like to be a choreographer, is a Joffrey “Nutcracker” veteran. She was a doll last year.

“It was kind of scary at first,” she said. “But then I would get kind of used to it and then I would be OK.”

This year, as a tree, her part will be more complicated. And to make matters worse, during one of the most complicated scenes for the trees, the stage will be covered with fog.

“Sometimes you will not be able to see the floor,” Mitchell told her 15 trees. “So you have to make sure you know where you are and what you are doing at all times. You will be stepping out into the environment of a forest, and you have to be prepared. It’s a blizzard out there.”

Mitchell later explained that “I have to impress them with just how dangerous it is if they get distracted or forget what they are doing up on stage. I’ve seen a lot of ‘Nutcrackers,’ and I’ve never seen one as action-filled as the Joffrey’s. In some scenes, every inch of the stage is taken up with dancers.

“The little ones can’t help but be distracted just a little when they get out there for the first time. But I have to prepare them for what they are up against.”

Jessica, who is also quite serious and attentive during rehearsal, heads out to the hallway to her waiting mother when it is over. As they gathered her gear, Denise Boyle, who is an office manager for a Hollywood talent agency, said she did not urge her daughter to follow her dancing footsteps.

“As long as she wants to pursue it and it is fun for her, it’s OK with me,” Boyle said. “But we didn’t push her to dance, that’s for sure. She wanted it herself.”

Boyle knows that a dancer’s life is not an easy one. Competition for roles is cutthroat; injuries are common, and the working life span is relatively short. But she is not distressed that her daughter is serious about dance, at least for now.

“It gives you priorities,” Boyle said. “I think my mother was less concerned about me because I was so involved in it. She didn’t have to worry that I was running around with the wrong crowd or spending all my time hanging around the street corner or at the mall. I just didn’t have time for that.

“Dance is hard, but even at that age, it gives you something to do with your life.”