Dancers Ready for ‘Nutcracker’ Return

Ballet can be tough on the feet.

During rehearsals earlier this week at Ballet Ventura School, ballerinas revealed a few secrets to make dancing on the toes bearable: sports tape and gel toe-pads.

And there is one other thing to remember when donning a tutu and toe-shoes.

“Never get pedicures because it wipes off all the dead skin,” Rachel Collinge, 17, suggested. Rachel and five others will be snow dancers in this weekend’s production of “The Nutcracker” at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center.

For the past eight weeks, students at Ballet Ventura School have practiced 15 hours a week in preparation for Saturday’s premiere. Haley Henderson, 16, said her holidays wouldn’t be the same without the performances.

Driving the practices is Clarissa Boeriu, the school’s artistic director, and Kathleen Noblin, its executive director.

“Mrs. B cares that we are striving for perfection,” Haley said. “She has pushed us and taught us to work hard. She’s like a second mother.”

This is the second “Nutcracker” for Boeriu and Noblin’s Ballet Ventura School since it broke away from the Channel Islands Ballet Company in early 1998.

The grace and ease of the dancers’ movements in “Nutcracker” inspired 14-year-old Eric Larson of Somis to break through traditional stereotypes of what a teenage boy might do and become a dancer himself. He said he watched a “Nutcracker” performance at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center when he was 7.

“I guess I got hooked,” Eric said. “I saw this one guy on the stage doing all these big leaps, and I thought it looked like fun.”

Noblin said the audience, especially children, will appreciate the neoclassic production. It runs without an intermission.

“The story just keeps coming; it is much easier to put the story together,” Noblin said.

Monica Galindo, a guest artist starring in the lead role of the Sugarplum Fairy, said the production is a must-see as the holiday season approaches.

“It’s like any other Christmas song. It brings the magic of Christmas and immediately gets you into the Christmas spirit,” she said.