Nothing in my life matches dancing with my ballet friends in the Nutcracker on the big stage of The Warner Theater. I feel most comfortable and at home in the theater’s tiny dressing room. We joke, laugh, and panic (mildly) over our costumes and anything about the show!

This year, for the first time, I was a Frontier Girl on stage with one of the male professionals in the Washington Ballet Company. This past season was my ninth. I began in the smallest of the children’s roles – a little mushroom – and have worked my way up to being a Frontier Girl in Act II. As a “mushie,” we looked up to the older groups.  Now, the little kids look up to us.

Even though I love everything about “The Nutcracker,” performing multiple shows while the academic semester is ending is mentally and physically hard. After a long, hard day of classes followed by rehearsals at the Washington Ballet in Tenleytown DC, I only want to take a long nap, not do hours of homework. 

The Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker was choreographed by Septime Webre, who served as the Artistic Director of The Washington Ballet for seventeen years. His Nutcracker is set in a Georgetown mansion in Washington, DC in the 1800s. This year, my advisory saw me perform in The Nutcracker. Before our visit, we watched the New York City Ballet’s version by George Balanchine. I was thrilled to be able to share the magic of ballet with my advisory, and my advisor, Dr. Metz, was thrilled to have me teach some of the basics of ballet to my classmates. I want to thank my advisory for supporting me.