By Claire Gunning
Opinion Editor
Transforming into fairies, sprites and magical mice is a dancers main job while performing on the Nutcracker stage for Mira Costa sophomores Brynn Eichenlaub, Hillary Rosenfeld and Zehra Topbas.
Eichenlaub, Rosenfeld and Topbas will be participating in the Nutcracker dance performance on Dec. 17 and 18 directed by South Bay Ballet dance company to showcase their dancing skills. All three of the girls dance with the company South Bay Ballet.
“The dance is a lot of work, but in the end it’s so worth it,” Eichenlaub said. “The bonds we share with the other dancers in the company and the opportunity we get to perform all of the fun roles in Nutcracker is so cool.”
The three girls dance at least 15 hours a week to meet the requirements for independent physical education, allowing them to have more time during the week to balance school work and dancing, Eichenlaub said. To prepare for the Nutcracker performance, the girls take normal dance classes not linked to the Nutcracker through the company and also take specific dance lessons related to learning and practicing the dances for the show.
“You form a really close bond with the people you dance with due to spending so many long hours with them,” Rosenfeld said. “It is a really fun and rewarding experience that I enjoy every year.”
he performance varies widely between age groups with dancers under ten cast for the small dance scenes and the older girls cast in more advanced dancing scenes, Rosenfeld said. Eichenlaub is performing in the show as snow falling, a fairy doll, will dance in a waltzing scene and will dance in a Spanish scene, Rosenfeld performs as snow falling and portrays a sprite and Topbas performs as an Arabian maiden, snow falling and a party guest.
“Dancing is really fun and something I love to do every single day,” Eichenlaub said. “I really want to pursue dancing in college and it is an extremely prevalent passion of mine I hope to continue to have.”
The three students are required to dance in the Nutcracker performance by their dance studio. Along with the Nutcracker, there are two other required performances a year that the girls perform in to prepare for future competitions that the studio travels to taking place around the country.
“Traveling has been my favorite part of dancing at this studio because we go to summer intensives where we stay usually in a different state for around five weeks and you meet so many different people from different places,” Eichenlaub said. “I have made so many friends in different areas of the country which is really fun for me.”
Before the weekend of the ticketed performance, the dance company puts on an outreach performance for special needs students on Dec. 14 during the final dress rehearsals, the company reduces prices and gives out free tickets for this event.
“The outreach performance is really cool because you get to see how much all of the kids genuinely enjoy the performance,” Eichenlaub said. “It makes all of the rehearsals and work that we have put in so worth it, it’s a really rewarding experience.”
Balancing their school work and the dancing can be difficult at times, but the performance makes the hardships worth the long hours in the end, Eichenlaub said. The tickets for the performance are sold online through South Bay Ballet at southbayballet.org.
“Dancing is a great thing and it gives you a huge sense of discipline not only used just in dancing but also used throughout life,” Rosenfeld said. “Training for performances like these also help translate to school where they give you even larger senses of discipline.”
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