A Field Trip to Magic World of the ‘Nutcracker’

Nancy Amezquita, a second-grader from Oxnard, was brimming with visions of shimmering snowflakes fluttering to life and a rugged nutcracker soldier springing to action.

That’s just what the folks from the Malibu Ballet and Performing Arts Society had hoped.

“This is a chance to bring dance into the lives of children from all walks of life,” said Lisa Simon, program director for a performance of “The Nutcracker” staged for 900 schoolchildren. “It allows them to be inspired by dance, even if they don’t have the opportunity to try it themselves.”

Simon is one of dozens of volunteers who help the nonprofit society stage ballets and other dances to educate the public, especially schoolchildren.

In addition to parents, many volunteers are like Simon’s 11-year-old daughter, Sarah-Jayne -- youngsters who want to share their passion for dance with other kids by performing or helping with productions.

Volunteer Emma Ritchie, 15, who studied ballet for five years, helped craft a written version of “The Nutcracker” story so children watching the ballet for the first time would be able to follow the action.

The booklet, which was illustrated by two other students, tells the tale of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, in which a young girl named Clara receives a wooden nutcracker as a Christmas gift and dreams that night that the doll has come to life. Together, Clara and the Nutcracker Prince defeat a wicked Mouse King and tour a collection of magical places. Clara wakes from the dream a young woman.

Emma’s mom, Denise, another parent volunteer, recruited Sandy Reisz, manager of the Malibu Starbucks, to edit the text and more. Reisz, accompanied by several dancers in costume, traveled to schools chosen to attend the abridged version of the ballet.

Reisz read key scenes to the children while the dancers demonstrated ballet positions.

“A ballet, to a child who has never seen one before, might be confusing,” said Reisz, as she waited to give her presentation to a gym filled with second-graders at Manzanita Elementary School in Newbury Park.

“It’s following a story only through music and movement, so I get to teach them a story they’ll see in a different art form.”

“Being able to share what I love with kids to make them happy is an extraordinary thing,” added Emma, dressed in the red satin jacket she would wear the next week when appearing in the ballet’s tea dance.

At the same time, appearances like the one staged for the schoolchildren allow the dancers to gain more experience performing before an audience. Many of the students also have danced at fund-raising events staged by other nonprofits that raise money for cancer and cystic fibrosis research.

Mindful of what it’s like to raise money, they performed for free.

“We’ve found in our fund-raising that the major problem is that you spend money to make money,” said JoAnna Jarvis, who founded the society 24 years ago and serves as its artistic director.

The society operates on a budget of a little more than $100,000 a year from private individuals and others.

For example, the volunteer hours that Reisz and 10 other Starbucks employees spent working on “The Nutcracker” will result in a $1,000 grant from Starbucks to the society.

Pepperdine University offered the use of Smothers Theater for the two performances and buses to take schoolchildren from Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Martin Corral, Nancy’s teacher at Marina West Elementary in Oxnard, described the free bus rides as a rare luxury, given tight school budgets.

“A lot of them are from low-income families and they don’t get much of a chance to travel outside of Oxnard -- or Ventura County, for that matter,” Corral said.

When the ballet began, eyes widened and jaws dropped open as an ornate Christmas tree quadrupled in size.

Next, the nutcracker sprang to life and led an army of toy soldiers outfitted in red satin jackets and white satin pants and armed with red wooden swords. The battle against throngs of dancing mice ensued.

A chorus of oohs and ahs filled the auditorium as an ensemble of candy cane dancers -- girls dressed in white leotards covered with rings of red sequins -- took the stage with props that appeared to be red hula hoops. Moments later, a troupe of glittering human snowflakes, wearing white bodices and tulle skirts dotted with crystals, glided about on their toes.

A flurry of artificial snowflakes then began to fall. More oohs and ahs.

“It was beautiful,” said Nancy, who had seen “The Nutcracker” once before. “My favorite part was when the girls with the white dresses came on. They looked like snowflakes.”

“They were very quiet, so they must have liked it,” said her mother, Gloria Amezquita, who attended the performance with Nancy’s class.

After the 30-minute program, Jarvis fielded questions: How did the Christmas tree grow? How old were the dancers? And how was the Nutcracker Prince able to slip out of his mask without leaving the stage?

A key detail confounding another child concerned the candy cane dancers. They showed they could dance, but did they know how to hula-hoop?

The lead candy cane dancer, Emmanuelle Stahler, quickly tossed her hula hoop around her neck and began to twirl -- filling the theater with more oohs, ahs, cheers and applause.