Behind 'The Nutcracker' with the dancers of Concert Canyon Ballet

Dec. 2—At just 30 years old, Jenna Smith has developed patellar tendinitis in both knees.

She recently recovered from surgery on her hip, and in the past, has had two surgeries on her knees, and broken her left foot three times due to stress of getting "on point" — a severe technical position that has caused her to have worn away her toenails since she began dancing at the age of 3.

This is the reality of being a professional ballet dancer.

Anything but 'snowflakes'

It's Wednesday, and Smith is sitting on the floor criss-cross with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle at their dance studio in Fort Collins, Colorado. The company of about 20 dancers is just three days out from their two performances of "The Nutcracker" at the Cheyenne Civic Center on Saturday.

"It's very hard. We fall in practice — you get hurt doing that — but just training, people don't understand the amount that we're actually exerting," Smith said. "You don't stop moving at this level all day until you go home.

"I can barely do laundry or do anything because I just sit in the bath and try to recover."

Now, she's going to physical therapy sessions two to three times every week, and that leaves out all the minor bruises and pulls that dancers experience on a daily basis.

These kinds of injuries aren't out of the ordinary in the world of dance, and their upcoming show is one of the more difficult productions for ballet dancers.

Her co-performers at Canyon Concert Ballet are a lot like her, as are many women and men who choose to become ballet dancers. For a prestigious art form that can be so delicately powerful, it is, beneath the surface, a punishing and unforgiving craft to hone.

This core group has just completed a performance of the piece "Snow" — one of the more extravagant numbers in the show — in which each of the dancers is meant to represent small flakes of snow whirling around the Snow King and Queen.

Their collective role as snowflakes is ironic — to be in the presence of 14 long, muscular dancers as they leap, spin and walk on point with precision is the only way to understand the force of their movements. As one entity in synch, their 10-minute performance creates a constant tremor in the entirety of the rehearsal room's hardwood floor.

Many of the dancers are from Colorado, but a handful have traveled from as far away as England, Argentina, France, Japan, and, uh, Arkansas — all to become a part of Canyon Concert Ballet.

Regardless of where they're from or their upbringing, they are 20- to 35-year-olds who have arrived by way of the same intrinsic motivation as Smith — dance and performance is, by little exaggeration, their life.

"I knew I wanted to do this since I was 3. Where words stop, that's where dancing is for me," Smith said. "It's always been my way of expressing myself, and it's kind of how I know myself. It's like a big part of my identity and who I am. It's so a part of me that it's like breathing."

Pappalardo's arrival

Concert Canyon was promoted to being classified as a professional company last year after spending the majority of its history as a semi-professional outfit.

This shift came in part as a result of the arrival of Michael Pappalardo as artistic director last January.

He hails from Australia, where he began his career in dance and the arts, but has since developed a substantial resume through different schools and companies in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States.

Having acquired this professional classification, Pappalardo was able to recruit dancers from regions outside of Colorado. The result is a company of diverse backgrounds that he said is unusual in traditional ballet, where the majority of participants are typically white.

"We really try not to be just the 'ballet mold,'" Pappalardo said while sitting in his office. "We have more diversity within our group than what a company would (usually) have. We really want to push, going into the future, more diversity, in general, across the art form."

It's worth noting that "The Nutcracker," a classic among classics, is due for some content renovation.

Some of the costumes and themes, he said, involve a degree of cultural appropriation that is neither tasteful nor essential to the plot, and, as a result, have been rewritten in the script.

The hope is that this has refined the story and made it more comprehensible for those who aren't already familiar with the narrative.

Pappalardo debuted this version of the show in 2016 amid his seven-year stint as artistic director of Melbourne City Ballet. He saw it produced for four years before relocating to San Jose, California, to work as an artistic associate in the San Jose Dance Theatre.

He also re-choreographed and reorganized the production — a welcome change for dancers like Smith, who estimates that she's participated in about 50 renditions of "The Nutcracker" throughout her lifetime.

However, the performance doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times a person has performed or directed it.

The bigger picture

"The Nutcracker," for all of its fame, is a tremendously taxing show.

"Nutcracker is always a headache and a challenge," Pappalardo said.

The most significant challenge for him is in choreographing a performance that includes a cast of more than 100 dancers from multiple different companies — including En Avant Dance Studio and Act Two Studio in Cheyenne.

It isn't Pappalardo's responsibility to teach or refine any of the dancers' technical ability. Instead, his attention is directed at the bigger picture, one that general concert-goers wouldn't readily consider while watching a ballet performance.

"Working with the dancers is more about educating on the style of the particular show, portraying things appropriately, the storytelling behind the show," Pappalardo said. "It's really important that me that (I'm) able to explain what is happening on stage and help the dancers to say the right things through their bodies, because it can be very misinterpreted."

The company first began working on the production in September, and in just three short months — a standard amount of preparation, according to Pappalardo — they've honed in to where they're ready to put the show to stage.

Marathon, not a sprint

Preparation is a full-time job for the dancers at Concert Canyon Ballet.

From a dancer's perspective, Smith described it like training for a marathon, demanding one constant performance of high physical stress. During rehearsal on Wednesday, the dancers, no matter how poised, completed their routines and often retreated to the corner to catch their breath, exhausted.

They are in the studio all day, every day, rehearsing and refining in spite of their physical condition, all for two full-bore performances in the span of less than 24 hours. While others are at a day job, Smith and her fellow dancers are honing their craft.

"This is a very hard show for me," she said. "It's fun when you start to see things get easier. Things that were really hard a month ago are in my body, and my body feels ready to go."

Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.