All-local ‘Nutcracker’ planned at new college theater

WASILLA — Sometimes things just work out perfectly.

No one knows this more than the Enliven Dance Company at Sonja’s Studio of Dance, which is hoping to stage the first big production in the soon-to-be-completed UAA Valley Center for Arts and Learning at Mat-Su College.

“We used to do the Nutcracker every other year here,” studio owner Sonja Babcock said.

But, over the years, as the dances got more involved and the scenes more intricate, it got harder and harder to put on performances on the stages available to them at local schools.

And just about the time the Nutcracker got too big for the venues available, Mat-Su College embarked on its theater construction.

“We’re thrilled because we have a venue now that we can access,” Babcock said.

And the college is thrilled to have Enliven.

“We definitely want to cater to the community and get community events in here, and Sonja is a good fixture in the community,” said Matt Sale, the college’s theater director. “Almost everybody knows her because of all the kids in her classes.”

He listed off a bunch of other groups that have expressed interest in the theater, everyone from the Mat-Su Concert Band, to local businesses looking for places for trainings and conventions, to Whistling Swan Productions, a company that stages concerts at Vagabond Blues and in Anchorage. He said weekends are booking up all the way to April.

The Nutcracker is booked for an opening night of Dec. 13. A lot of things have to go according to plan between now and then to make that happen.

For one thing, the theater has to get finished on time.

“We’ve been told the construction should be done by the end of October,” Sale said.

He said he and a yet-to-be-hired technician will then go in and spend November rigging up the light and sound systems, hopefully wrapping up by Dec. 13.

An Alaskan Nutcracker

Babcock said that Enliven plans to add its own touches to the ballet. The music will still be Tchaikovsky, but a lot of the other parts will be Alaskan.

She said Enliven will use fireweed and forget-me-nots for the Waltz of the Flowers and incorporate some Caribou clogging.

They’ve cast an Alaska Native as their lead, Marie, and in the part of the mysterious toymaker Drosselmeyer will be the Frontiersman’s own A.J. Seims in his alter-ego personae, Moose Jaw.

“He’ll be awesome,” Babcock said.

And, most important of all, probably, is that the dancers will all be local, including all the members of Enliven, most of whom have done at least some training Outside, but all of whom live and dance here.

Katie O’Loughlin is a Sonja’s-studio-trained theater major at the University of Alaska Anchorage and also a member of Enliven. She said she considered taking offers to study dance Outside, but instead decided to stay in Alaska.

“It’s really great that there are starting to be opportunities for me to dance here because I was planning on going to London, I was planning on going to New York. But it’s starting to open up,” she said.

As for the Nutcracker itself, asked to name their favorite dance, hands down everyone said the Russian dance.

“Russian is always so impressive,” said Shannon Navrot, another Enliven member. “There’s tumbling, there’s acrobatics.”

“I always get really excited for dancing Russian. It’s really tiring, though,” said Kristen Olson, who will be the principal dancer, playing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Navrot added that the Arabian dance is also impressive.

“Everybody loves Arabian,” she said. “There’s partnering and there’s lifts.”

And then, of course, there’s the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

“I love Sugar Plum, too, because of the music,” Olson said.

“I don’t like ballet, but I really like Sugar Plum,” added Navrot, whose background is mostly in hip-hop dance.

Babcock said there’s enough costumes and set pieces that she’s brought in Cindy Hale as a costume manager to keep it all organized.

Babcock said tickets for the ballet will be sold at the door, and proceeds will go first to pay for the venue and, after that, to invest in making future productions even better.

No one will get paid for their performances.

“This is what we love to do. I’m so busy. I’m going to college. I could easily not do this, but this is what I love,” O’Loughlin said.

Big for the Valley

“Although we think the Anchorage Nutcracker is beautifully and wonderfully done each year, eventually we would like to get to that point,” Babcock said.

She sees the production as a yearly event, something that could become a tradition for Valley families.

Suzy Schoeneberger, who will serve as producer for the performances and is even now busily gathering together all of the parts she’ll need, said that to do something like this here will be a big deal for Mat-Su. She said that people Outside don’t even think Alaska has dancers.

“We really want to show them that there are so many trained dancers there that people don’t even know about,” she said.

Babcock can hardly contain her enthusiasm both for the ballet and the building it’ll be staged in.

“I am so excited. I think the community is going to not only be in awe of the dancers, they’ll be in awe of the facility,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.