An Unusual Night at the Ballet

Mina Grinville was on her way to the theatre just like she had been every night for the past three weeks. With her bag over her shoulder, she walked through the frigid streets of New York City on Christmas Eve. Mina was a principal soloist with the New York City ballet and they had been in full fledged Nutcracker season since December 1st. Her body, being as tired and broken as it was, was ready to dance the closing show of the season.

Mina arrived at the theatre at precisely 4:30pm for the show starting at 8. Before every performance the company would warm up together during company class and then they would have about an hour and a half to get ready for the show. After class, she began to twist her hair back into her perfect French twist and apply her makeup. Mina had danced her role so many times that she could do it in her sleep, but she began to go through the choreography in her head anyways.

Mina plays the part of "adult Clara." In the ballet, a young girl named Clara is given a nutcracker by her Uncle Drosselmeyer. During the night after she goes to sleep she suddenly wakes up to giant mice trying to attack her and finds that she is no longer in the safety of her home. As an act of heroism, her toy suddenly transforms into a real soldier and battles the Evil Mouse King all while Clara stands back and watches. Clara eventually brings defeat upon the Mouse King by hitting him over the head with her shoe. The Nutcracker thanks her and tells her that he will take her to his magic kingdom as his queen. However, before the second half of the ballet starts, Clara "grows up" and this is when Mina comes onto the stage and dances the rest of the ballet as the adult version of Clara.

The "switch" between young Clara and adult Clara is always a crowd favorite. After the battle scene, the background changes into a cool blue and a giant mirror makes it way onto the stage where young Clara is looking at herself. From the audience's point of view you are able to see Clara in the mirror with the Nutcracker in the background. The mirror and Clara begin to rotate in a circle and when the mirror makes its way back around to the audience, young Clara is no longer there, and instead adult Clara reveals herself.

After warming up, getting dressed and watching the first half of the show on the monitor from her dressing room, Mina made her way to backstage. As the battle scene ended, she climbed into the mirror where she would eventually climb out of on stage. At the music cue the mirror began to roll onstage and her breath picked up as she prepared to dance her big pas de deux with the Nutcracker. The mirror began to spin and as it faced the back the girl playing young Clara got in and Mina got out going up onto her toes bourreing around finishing the rotation with the mirror. Usually, as she makes her appearance she can hear a slight murmur from the audience but this time it was dead quiet. "Great," she thought to herself, "tough crowd tonight." Mina examined her now "grown-up self" in the mirror for a few seconds longer before turning around to face the audience and face her Nutcracker Prince. However, what she saw when she turned around nearly took her breath away. Mina was no longer on stage dancing the Nutracker, because instead of standing on stage in the three-story theatre filled with people and lights, she was standing in front of a real-life castle.

Author's note: My inspiration for my storybook is "The Nutcracker" by E.T.A. Hoffman which is most commonly told through a ballet. Growing up, I danced in the Nutcracker for seven years and it has always been a tradition to go see the ballet every year around Christmas. This classic tale is so near and dear to me and I wanted to put my own personal spin on it.

I created the character of Mina and decided to make the story from her perspective as a dancer in the ballet. In the original story, it is just a narrator telling the story of Clara and her Nutcracker. After the battle scene, the Nutcracker takes "grown up" Clara to his palace where dancers from all around the world dance for them and celebrate their new found love. At the end of the ballet the dancers slowly fade away into the wings and the cast members perform another famous "switch" where young Clara is again brought onto the stage. She wakes up sitting in the same chair that she fell asleep in and the audience is left wondering- was it only just a dream?

Maybe Mina will end up wondering the same thing at the end of my retelling.