Katie Bostleman's Nutcracker Memories

 As we enter into the last weeks of rehearsals for this year’s Nutcracker, I begin to become more apprehensive than ever. Every year when the Company members are reminded of the quickly approaching opening night, panic ensues, and six weeks suddenly seems like hours. Nevertheless, when we hear the first strains of the Waltz of the Flowers in our nightly rehearsals, all that changes. I am instantaneously transported back to the memories of Nutcrackers past, and I feel like that year-old girl sitting in the audience for her first time again.

This will be my tenth Nutcracker, and understandably, the years and stories start to blend. In fact, I had the unfortunate realization today that I could no longer readily name every role I have danced in this holiday tradition. However, none of that really matters to me. When I remember each year, I experience one unidentifiable feeling of elation, which reoccurs and wells up within me every opening night. Strange as it may sound, the distinct smell of The Nutcracker is probably the best way to describe it. For anyone who has ever participated in the show, it is well known that when you enter the theater the night of a show, a wave of this smell washes over you the moment you open the door. It is the scent of candy canes, chocolates, pointe shoes, rosin, the dusty sets, hairspray, some dancer’s Chinese food that they hurriedly grabbed on the way to the theater but never got to finish, SWEAT, makeup, and the first burning of the stage lights. You cannot really decide whether you like it or not, but it has always been there, and it is strong. The Nutcracker is no different. Poignant and omnipresent, it echoes through the years and brings a magic of its own.