Local mice and snowflakes get ready to join international Nutcracker show

Kelly Wilkinson, Indianapolis Star
·3 min read
Young ballet dancers learn moves for their audition Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022 at Fox Hill Dance Academy. Children 6-17 in age auditioned to dance with professional dancers from around the world in the Dance With Us community engagement opportunity offered by the NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet troupe. They hope get roles as mice, snowflakes, snow maidens, party guests or other dancer variations.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. On Michigan Road, anyway.

Young ballet dancers gathered on a September night in a small yellow house. The historic home, once part of the Underground Railroad, houses the Fox Hill Dance Academy.

Visions of snowflakes and other Nutcracker ballet images danced in the dancers’ heads.  Numbers were pinned on their leotards and tees, coifed buns were lifted and ballet shoes were pointed.

Julia Vest, left, is comforted by Audition Director Bogdana Кopiy at the start of auditions Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022 at Fox Hill Dance Academy. Children 6-17 in age auditioned to dance with professional dancers from around the world in the Dance With Us community engagement opportunity offered by the NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet troupe. They hope get roles as mice, snowflakes, snow maidens, party guests or other dancer variations. Julia had to leave but still got a small part in the show.

Annual Nutcracker performances are beginning to unfold for the upcoming season, with auditions and rehearsals. At the Fox Hill Dance Academy, Ukranian Audition Director Bogdana Кopiy auditioned age 17 and under dancers for roles in the upcoming NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet.

Кopiy brought the young dancers into the studio, and they began to mimic her moves. With an artistic eye, she noted which dancers to place in the children’s roles as party guests, mice, snowflakes, snow maidens and other roles to dance alongside international dancers in this version of the holiday favorite with the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovksy score.

“In a world that sometimes seems to be pulling itself apart, the message of this international troupe of artists is that we can still come together to celebrate beautiful art across borders,” Talmi Entertainment Producer Dan Talmi said.

The NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet company, highlights dancers from Ukraine, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and more, this year. The ballet, put on by Talmi Entertainment, was formerly known as Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker but was renamed in respect and solidarity for Ukraine and because of current world events.

Kopiy, from Ukraine, sadly thinks of her beautiful country when asked. She thinks of children who have died and will never get to dance on stage like the children she works with in Indianapolis. She wears a small heart in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as she dances and teaches.

She makes and sells the beaded jewelry, donating money to the Ukrainian Army.

“My heart brooch shows me who I am in this world,” Kopiy said, “my love for Ukraine and a position of support for other people who have it too! This is a manifesto! No words and very accurate!”

Audition Director Bogdana Кopiy, right, takes a photo of dancers Grace Belcher, left, and and Josephine Radice, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022 after giving them their parts as dancers in a variation of the Trepak dance of the Nutcracker at Fox Hill Dance Academy. Children 6-17 in age auditioned to dance with professional dancers from around the world in the Dance With Us community engagement opportunity offered by the NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet troupe. They hope get roles as mice, snowflakes, snow maidens, party guests or other dancer variations.

Ballet invites young dancers to dance with professionals

Built into this Nutcracker’s national tour is their annual “Dance-with-Us” community engagement program. This audition is part of that as young dancers get the opportunity to dance alongside professional dancers with fine-tuned talent. For 30 years, youth in cities on the tour have been invited to dance with the classically trained dancers.

The ballet will be for one performance at the Old National Centre on Nov. 30 including the local youth. Though some sat with nervous titters as they awaited their assignments, they’ll be ready in their costumed show.

Hillary Wolf, Shiloh Smith and Hannah Lowe chat while waiting to audition Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022 at Fox Hill Dance Academy. Children 6-17 in age auditioned to dance with professional dancers from around the world in the Dance With Us community engagement opportunity offered by the NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet troupe. They hope get roles as mice, snowflakes, snow maidens, party guests or other dance number variations.

It will be a show with the added message of peace and harmony as dancers from around the world share their talents.

“This year I am happy to be here and work with American children on NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet,” Kopiy said. “I am here physically, but my thoughts and heart are in Ukraine, in my adorable city of Lviv with my mother and my brother who is defending Ukraine!”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Nutcracker national tour invites young ballet dancers to audition