Just Wind Her Up and Watch Her Take the Plum Roles

The contracts are drawn up, read once and reread, and visions of dollar bills dance in her head.

San Francisco Ballet principal Tina LeBlanc will have conquered three different “Nutcrackers” in Southern California by Christmas. She danced her home troupe’s version two weeks ago in Orange County and has guest-star stints with the Pasadena Dance Theatre (through this weekend at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium) and Joffrey Ballet of Chicago (at the Music Center starting Wednesday).

“It’s always nice to do guesting at Christmastime because it’s a little extra money in your pocket,” LeBlanc said in a recent backstage interview, “and it’s kind of fun going elsewhere and meeting new people.”

But being Southern California’s hardest-working Sugar Plum Fairy has at least one big drawback, the ballerina says.

Is it enduring 16 performances--plus umpteen rehearsals--to Tchaikovsky’s all-too-familiar score?

“A lot of dancers kind of dread this time of year,” said LeBlanc, who has been dancing the yuletide ballet since childhood, “but I couldn’t actually think of a Christmas without ‘Nutcracker’ music. It’s so ingrained.”

What about the aching muscles, tiring air travel, hotel food, the partner changes or the need to know multiple versions of the role?

LeBlanc said none of the above are overwhelming challenges. As it happens, the changes in choreography and partners aren’t that big a deal. LeBlanc will complete her Pasadena Dance Theatre engagement with her San Francisco Ballet partner David Palmer, dancing essentially the same choreography she’s been doing with her home company. And because she was a member of the Joffrey for 8 1/2 years (she left in 1992 seeking, she says, artistic growth), LeBlanc is equally familiar with its “Nutcracker,” and her former partner in it and other ballets, Tom Mossbrucker.

“I haven’t danced with Tom since I left, but hopefully it will all come back quickly,” she said.

So what is the biggest drawback in a triple-tiara Christmas?

“Just being away from my husband that much,” says LeBlanc, who is married to Marco Jerkunica, a former dancer and stagehand currently with the San Francisco Opera. Already “for the past couple of months, I haven’t spent a lot of time with him because he’s been working very long hours.”

LeBlanc’s been doing the same. In addition to her three Southern California Sugar Plum turns, she’s also dancing in the “Nutcracker” in San Francisco. And she performed in two mixed-bill programs during the troupe’s recent Orange County appearance, as well as leading the “Nutcracker” “Waltz of the Flowers” there. Still, she isn’t whining and she doesn’t appear to be wilting.

Relaxed but reserved, and looking none the worse for the wear, the petite 29-year-old explained that it’s the dancing itself that keeps her focused--even though she’s danced in Candyland for so many years.

“You can’t become stagnant with anything that difficult,” she said, “because you never have to stop worrying about how you’re going to do the steps. It’s always going to be hard, it’s always going to be something you have to concentrate on.”

The Joffrey’s Ivanov-based Sugar Plum Fairy choreography is the most challenging of the versions she is performing, she said.

“It’s very pure, classical ballet with a lot of hard steps. You need a lot of stamina and a lot of control.” Also, the Joffrey and Pasadena versions leave her solo at the end of Act 2, immediately following the rigorous Sugar Plum Fairy grand pas de deux and preceding its coda--as Tchaikovsky intended. (In the San Francisco Ballet staging, the solo comes at the beginning of Act 2.)

“It’s so difficult that you get offstage and die. You have to lay down, drink water, breathe, you just die. [But] there’s a certain satisfaction if you feel you’ve done it well. It’s like a challenge overcome.”

The grand pas she dances with Pasadena Dance Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet, created by Lew and Willam Christensen and the ballet’s artistic director Helgi Tomasson, has its challenges too, LeBlanc said.

“There are some particular steps that aren’t necessarily my forte. Jumping and turning come naturally, but balancing and hopping on pointe don’t.”

Does she have a preference? No. “They are just so different you can’t really compare them.” She sees the two Sugar Plum Fairies’ characters, however, as one.

“She’s the Queen of Candyland, and I personally try to approach that with a warmth, because it’s for the kids, and as much regalness as someone my size [5-foot-1] can portray.”

LeBlanc said she has strived to develop her dramatic ability in such ballets as “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Green Table.” Before she left the Joffrey in 1992, she said, former ballet master Scott Bernard helped her develop rubato, the interpretive ability to play with phrasing rather than sticking strictly to the beat.

“I tended to be so flat, so square on the music, that it would become too boring,” said the Pennsylvania native, her brown hair cascading over one shoulder. “There weren’t enough accents.”

Such work has definitely paid off. LeBlanc is widely praised for her sensitive interpretations of classical and contemporary ballet. Her “memorable” Sugar Plum Fairy physicalized “the overwhelming sense of yearning in the score,” wrote The Times’ Lewis Segal of her Orange County performance.

She is also praised for her technical excellence as well; in fact, her colleagues call her “the technician,” a nickname that makes her wince.

“That’s not what dancing is about,” she said. “Dancing is from the soul. It’s not that important if you miss a pirouette. What’s important is what the audience receives from it, what sort of feeling. I mean you can watch someone who is technically wonderful, and say, ‘Wow, that was really amazing,’ but it doesn’t take your breath away. Dancing should somehow move you.”

Once LeBlanc finally finishes moving audiences in the “Nutcracker” this year, she says she’ll take a bit of a break. Her plans? Putting her hard-earned Sugar Plum-Fairy-times-three paychecks to good use.

“We do have two weeks off,” she said, “and I have a feeling I’m going to spend them house hunting.”

* Tina LeBlanc dances the Sugar Plum Fairy role in “The Nutcracker” with Pasadena Dance Theatre today at 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m., San Gabriel Civic Auditorium, 320 S. Mission Drive, San Gabriel. $10-$30. (818) 308-2868. (Pasadena Dance Theatre’s “Nutcracker” continues Dec. 22-24, with different casting.) LeBlanc appears in the role with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago Thursday at 2 p.m., Friday, Dec. 23 and Dec. 26 at 8 p.m. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave. $15-$60. (213) 365-3500 or (213) 972-7211.