Boys Will Be Boys--Even Dancing in ‘Nutcracker’ : Joffrey’s Ballet, in Costa Mesa This Week, Has No Barriers for 2 Local Youths

Like scores of children before them, Russell Bartel and Allen Jang Woo Kim have been busy this fall rehearsing for “The Nutcracker.”

Tchaikovsky’s score blaring, the two boys recently tooted pretend horns, saluted like toy soldiers and swayed to the music to help reenact the famous Christmas Eve party scene, one of ballet’s best-known vignettes.

Russell and Allen, both 12, also bring something entirely new to this century-old classic. They’re joining the festivities from wheelchairs, which hasn’t kept their spirits from soaring as high as any child’s at the chance to bask in the holly-decked spotlight.

“It’s exciting and wonderful” said Allen, 12, with a huge smile.

Ditto, said Russell, 12, who also loves the expressive art of dance. “It’s fun.”

The boys will appear with 77 other local children in the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago’s “The Nutcracker,” opening Wednesday for a short run at Costa Mesa’s Orange County Performing Arts Center.

It was Gerald Arpino, the Joffrey’s artistic director, who last year added the role Russell and Allen will share for the production’s double cast. His inspiration--what the Chicago Tribune called a “tasteful, touching reminder of the ballet’s generous holiday spirit”--came from Stephen Hiatt-Leonard.

Then 8, Stephen had boldly shown up for a “Nutcracker” audition after watching the Joffrey perform a piece featuring three people, like him, in wheelchairs, Arpino said.

“I thought to myself, if this child has the courage to come and audition, then I’m going to have the courage and take him in,” he said. “He truly inspired me to show that we can all get out of our [mental] wheelchairs.”

Like Stephen, Allen has cerebral palsy. The Cypress boy uses a wheelchair almost all the time. Russell, who lives in Santa Ana, has spina bifida. He uses braces to walk. Neither seventh-grader is new to the limelight.

Best friends, they’ve worked for several years with Zina Bethune, who teaches dance to 1,000 disabled children around Southern California through Dance Outreach, a part of her Bethune Theatredanse troupe in Los Angeles.

Bethune said she helps Russell abandon his crutches to spin, break-dance style, on his back on the floor. Allen likes to pirouette madly in his wheelchair, among other things.

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The boys’ resumes include shows Bethune stages each year at their school, Anaheim’s Dale Junior High, and gigs in the arts center’s annual Imagination Celebration festival. Bethune--a member of New York City Ballet during the 1960s who as a child danced in that troupe’s “Nutcracker”--volunteered the boys’ names when the Joffrey called for casting assistance.

“The essence of dance isn’t about perfection,” she said, “it’s about creativity; it’s about a voice with which to speak and express your soul.”

The boys’ mothers, Robyn Bartel and Annie Choi, didn’t hesitate to get their sons involved with “The Nutcracker.”

“I think it’s great for [Allen] for the memories,” said Choi after a recent rehearsal at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. “I try to make a lot of memories” for Allen.

Bartel said it was Russell who wanted to be in “The Nutcracker.” “We’ve never held him back from anything he wanted to do.”

Working with the boys has been an enlightening experience for local ballet teacher Lori Eckenweiler, who’s been running the “Nutcracker” rehearsals. Initially, she had doubts, particularly about Allen, who uses tutors to keep up in school and whose condition is more physically limiting than Russell’s.

Party-scene children are on stage for 45 minutes, “a long time” for any child, Eckenweiler said. And each one’s part involves a great variety of pantomime as well as dance. To memorize their routines, the kids have been rehearsing every Saturday and Sunday--plus practicing at home--since October.

Allen, who as part of his role vivaciously beats a toy drum, blows kisses to a pretty dancing “doll” and hides his eyes before beholding the ballet’s wondrous Christmas tree, is ready.

Although the boys haven’t found their two-hour rehearsals to be any big challenge, they agree that Eckenweiler is strict.

“I’ve learned a lot because I didn’t know if [the boys] could be a part of this,” said Eckenweiler, who never let anybody forget that this was a professional production staged by one of the world’s top ballet companies.

“Mr. Arpino will scream if you come out too early--and if you come out too late,” she admonished during a recent rehearsal.

Giving up weekends hasn’t been a picnic either. Russell made an even greater sacrifice: He lopped off his thin, strawberry-blond ponytail because the ‘90s-style hairdo didn’t jibe with the 1850s, Currier and Ives setting of this “Nutcracker.”

It’s all been worth it to the boys, though.

“I just like the ballet, and I enjoy dancing,” Allen said.

“I’ve liked meeting all the different children and getting to know them,” Russell added.

The feeling is mutual. Other children in the cast say they’ve learned a lot this winter about things that have nothing to do with waltzing flowers or marauding mice.

Lauren Ziminsky, 15, of Coto de Caza no longer takes her unrestricted mobility for granted. Observing the boys’ consistently positive attitudes--”they’re so happy!” she said--she’s become aware that her own could use adjustment.

“It makes me realize that if my nails aren’t done, it’s not so big a deal,” Lauren said.

* Joffrey Ballet of Chicago will dance “The Nutcracker” Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $20-$65. (714) 556-2787.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Janet Wilson.