Community: Dancers add the frosting to ballet premiere

To hear Aerin Holt reveal details about her contemporary ballet this season, one feels like a child listening to a bedtime story. Her eyes dance at revealing some of the mystical creatures and elements in the show — there’s a frozen dragon, fairies who create frost and an icicle is used for transportation.

California Contemporary Ballet — the nonprofit, resident company of La Cañada-based California DanceArts — is departing from its 16-year run of “The Snow Queen” and premiering instead its original “The Legend of Jack Frost” at 2 p.m. Dec. 20 and 21 at Glendale College Performing Arts Theatre. Dancers range in age from 4 to late 20s.

There is a connection between Jack Frost and Old Father Winter, artistic director/choreographer Holt whispers to her guest, and the ballet illustrates how this transformation occurred.

“We researched the folklore legend of Jack Frost,” she said. “He’s considered mischievous, sometimes kind of evil and other times jealous and mean — he nips at your toes and your nose. Then you have Old Father Winter, who is also Old St. Nick — how does one relate to the other?”

Story creators found a common thread that made it sort of a prequel to the company’s first original holiday ballet about the Snow Queen, which is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

“She is still very much alive in this ballet, but we see a whole different side of her,” Holt said.

The storyline for the Jack Frost ballet was developed as a collaboration between Holt and Dwight B. Mikkelsen, the ballet company’s composer. In the spring of 2013, Mikkelsen composed the music for the company’s original ballet “Thumbelina.”

Holt called his music for the Jack Frost ballet “fabulous.”

“He really composes the emotion the way I try to bring out the emotions in my ballet,” she said. “I always tell my dancers that emotion creates the motion, so for me it’s more of the dancers acting and creating their character and then the motion comes from that. And it’s the same way for Dwight’s music. He writes emotionally and I pick up on that emotion. People said the music and choreography for ‘Thumbelina’ was very hand-in-glove and I feel the same way with this ballet.”

Holt and Mikkelsen started writing the ballet in September and it continues to go through changes, but the dancers are rising to the challenge and the long hours of rehearsal, Holt said.

“They are dedicated to creating something new and I just love that. They want to bring something new to life,” Holt said. “That is the mission of California Contemporary Ballet. Opposed to doing traditional ballets, we try to come up with new ideas, use new composers and new music. When you turn on the TV, you don’t want to see the same movie over and over.”

In the role as Jack Frost, Nicholas Zerman, 22, who has been dancing with California Contemporary Ballet since he was 10. Now an engineer by trade, he continues to dance. He is aiming to show that Jack Frost is a person of many emotions.

“He’s an emotionally lost teenager that wants something simple in life, like love and happiness, but he’s got all this power and he’s kind of immature and angry,” Zerman said. “He can’t be seen by people, so he feels lonely. I see a progression of emotion from a dark place to a struggle and resolution and accepting what his issues are.”

Zerman has danced the male supporting lead before but this is the first time he is dancing as the main character.

“I’m kind of going through the same emotions as Jack Frost,” he said. “It started out as difficult and a lot of work and as we are working on it, it’s changing. I’m calmer now and feeling more confident.”

Performing as Elisa, Jack Frost’s love interest, will be Jaclyn Striker of Tujunga.

“We’ve worked together before with this company,” he said. “Jaclyn is very professional. She’s a good partner and pushes me to work hard.”

Striker, 28, started with the company at 10 years old as well, but left to attend college. She dances professionally and continues to perform with California Contemporary Ballet.

“It’s fun to have a brand new character to play,” she said. “This character is really fun because she is very cheerful, she’s happy and she’s not super complicated and so it’s nice just to be able to dance and smile and have a good time doing it.”

Advance reserved seating tickets are $20 and $25 at www.CalBallet.com. Tickets at the door are $25 and $30. Tickets can be purchased by calling (818) 583-7406.
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JOYCE RUDOLPH can be contacted at rudolphjoyce10@gmail.com.