‘The Nutcracker’ lights up the Schuster

Dayton Ballet dancers make hard work look effortless

It takes a lot more than fairy dust to heal an injured Sugar Plum Fairy. Just ask Halliet Slack.

A few months after performing the coveted role in the Dayton Ballet’s popular production of “The Nutcracker,” Slack sustained an injury that has restricted her dancing for the past six months.

“I was in rehearsal for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and it was the weekend before the show,” she remembers. “All of a sudden I felt a tearing — I tore my plantar fascia. It was an injury that resulted from overuse.”

Slack’s story offers a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a professional dancer and the amount of dedication and hard work required to make a dance performance appear so magical and effortless. “The Nutcracker,” says the Dayton Ballet’s artistic director Karen Russo Burke, is especially challenging.

Four years ago Burke choreographed a new version of the beloved story of little Clara and her adventures in the Land of Sweets. This fresh production — with conductor Neal Gittleman and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s classic score — returns to the Schuster Center Dec. 16-23. The show features sets by designer Ray Zupp, costumes by Lowell Mathwich, and a total of 141 dancers. In addition to 19 professionals, there are 16 performers from Dayton Ballet II Senior Company and 106 children including dancers from Dayton Ballet II Junior Company.

It’s not only a huge cast but it’s also more performances — 12, including dress rehearsal — than the company schedules any other time of the year. Typically there are four performances over a long weekend.

The challenges of dance, “The Nutcracker” 

Those who’ve heard Burke speak at one of the downtown Arts Cafe luncheons have some idea of the commitment it takes to maintain a career as a professional dancer. The demanding six-day-a-week schedule typically begins at 7:30 a.m. with a cardio workout followed by an hour-and-a-half anaerobic technique class. There are afternoon rehearsals, then dancers head back to the gym where the women do Pilates or yoga and the men do weightlifting. Male dancers often lift their partners on stage.

“A lot of lifting comes from the lower body, the legs,” explains Burke. “And they have to have good strong abdominals. If they lift her and are not supporting their back or their abs, their lower back is open to injury.”

Women tend to have more foot injuries —blisters, bunions, swelling. “When you’re in the wings and you feel the music, the adrenaline kicks in and you’re not attached to the pain,” says Burke. “But when you come off the stage and go to the dressing room, it hits you.”

Cardio is important because the choreography in “Nutcracker” must often be sustained for a significant period of time. In the case of the Sugar Plum Fairy, for example, 10-12 minutes of constant dancing is required. That’s also true for those in the ballet’s Flower or Snow Corps. “Corps work is some of the hardest but least rewarding,” says Burke. “Those dancers aren’t the stars but they require a lot of spacial awareness. If someone messes up it affects all of the others.”

If you rarely notice a dancer breathing hard, it’s because Burke teaches them to find methods and places to exhale while on stage. “I teach them to do that because when they are nervous it’s easy to hold your breath,” she says.

Another “Nutcracker” challenge is that many dancers are cast in more than one role. “In a repertory show, a dancer might be dancing one out of four ballets,” Burke says. “In ‘Nutcracker,’ a dancer might be performing four dances in one ballet. She might be a parent in the first act party scene, then be in Snow Corps, then have a lead or be in the Flower Corps in Act II.”

Dehydration is always a danger and leads to muscle cramps. “Everyone eats bananas and drinks Gatorade,” says Burke. And illness in a company can spread. During one “Nutcracker” run, seven dancers were out with the flu at the same time.

Burke says “The Nutcracker’s” hectic schedule of preparation and performance creates a significant amount of wear-and-tear on a dancer’s body. At issue, she explains, is the lactic acid that settles in muscle after the adrenaline rush that dancing requires. “It makes the body heavy and requires a 24-hour recuperation time,” explains Burke. “Dancers need to get it out of their bodies.” When an evening performance is followed the next day by a matinee, there aren’t as many hours to recuperate.

The up-side of performing this famous ballet, Burke says, is offering so many performances. “The down-side is that doing the same thing so often puts the same wear-and-tear on the same muscles. So we try to balance that by giving a dancer work at the gym that will use different muscles.”

Solving the problems 

Those repetitive moves, says orthopedic surgeon Frank Mannarino, is what makes a dancer’s injury so dramatically different from the injuries suffered by other types of athletes.

“It’s not like a soccer player who goes out and has a collision injury,” he explains. “Most dance injuries occur because of rehearsal practices and training. Dancers are very aware of their body’s mechanics but they are using the same body parts over and over. If you squatted a thousand times, for example, the tendons below your knee would be sore. Think about a dancer rehearsing for hours at a time, for weeks on end. Other sports have overuse but dancers are the worst by far.”

Those challenges are what inspired Mannarino and others in his Kettering Sports Medicine Center group to begin offering a specialty in Performing Arts Medicine more than 23 years ago. Serving as their coordinator is Carol Fisher, a physical therapist who focuses on dance. In addition to dancers from Dayton Ballet, she also cares for those from the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Wright State University, Stivers School for the Arts, the Pontecorvo Ballet Studios and many other dance/gymnastic studios in the Miami Valley.

Mannarino believes it’s critical for a dancer to work with a physical therapist who knows what a dancer does and what that dancer will be required to do again.

“We think of her as God,” Burke says about Fisher. The two have worked together for decades. “Carol will work out the kinks, tight calves, work on shoulders.”

A former dancer and gymnast, Fisher works outside the box to analyze dance and gymnastic movements in a holistic manner so an athlete can prevent future injuries. She says she understands the physical and mental aspects of becoming a successful dancer and artist. “People think it’s glamorous but they have no idea how hard dancers work, their commitment,” she says. “If you look at body weight strength ratios, dancers are stronger than most athletes.”

Fisher is certified in Pilates, Gyrotonic exercise, dry needling. She employs cupping, an ancient form of alternative medicine that uses cups to create suction. It’s been in the news because of swimmer Michael Phelps and the recent Olympic games. She also uses massage, myofascial release, manual manipulation and a Graston tool technique that employs stainless steel tools to break up scar tissues.

“A tear can develop scar tissue and it’s not what we want because it will limit a dancer’s mobility,” she notes.

When working with high-level professionals, Fisher says it’s important to look beyond the physical injury. “We must also set goals to ease the anxiety and stress they endure. Remember for professionals, dancing is their source of income so it can lead to stress when they are injured.”

Halliet Slack is a case in point. A native of Louisiana, she’s been dancing since the age of 5, when she appeared in ‘The Nutcracker’ as a Party Child and has been the Dayton Ballet’s Sugar Plum Fairy for the past six seasons. Last spring’s injury, she says, was devastating.

“I’ve been lucky and it’s the first thing that’s taken me out,” she says. “You feel isolated, out of your routine. Everyone is moving on without you and you feel helpless.”

But working regularly with Fisher, she says, has been motivating and encouraging. “Carol can get creative and she knows what we have to do to come back,” she says.

And come back, she has. She’s beginning to dance again and was thrilled to appear in the Dayton Ballet’s season opener.

"Halliet is inspirational," Fisher says. "Not every person would want to come back after her injury and it's taken a lot of stamina. I can give her the tools, but the biggest part is what she has to do both physically and mentally. "

Slack plans to dance as long as she can. “I love dancing because it is part of who I am, a reflection of my identity,” she says. “It serves as my best friend and worst enemy at the same time, just as it also can be empowering and then most humbling all at once. I also just love being a dancer. “

And when her dancing career ends? “I’m already taking some classes and would like to become a physical therapist’s assistant.”


WANT TO GO?

What: "The Nutcracker," presented by the Dayton Ballet, accompanied by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.

When: Friday, Dec. 16 through Friday, Dec. 23.

Where: Schuster Performing Arts Center, 1 W. Second St., Dayton.

Tickets: Prices range from $21 to $72 and are available at Ticket Center Stage (888) 228-3630 or online at www.daytonperformingarts.org. Senior, teacher and military discounts are available at the box office.

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