Have Sugar Plum, will travel Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s touring Nutcracker takes beloved tradition — from tutus to polar bears — on the road By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 2:13 PM CST Friday, Dec. 20, 2024

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This article was published 20/12/2024 (295 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER — It’s a Friday evening, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet is getting ready to perform the first in a five-show run of Nutcracker at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, capping off a four-city, 16-performance British Columbia tour that began in Surrey on Nov. 21.

It’s a sold-out house, and Vancouverites are dressed in their ballet-best — sequins and satin and fur.

Of course, RWB’s Nutcracker is a grand holiday tradition in Winnipeg. But it doesn’t just belong to us.

In the weeks before the company takes up its annual Christmastime residency at the Centennial Concert Hall, it’s out on the road, creating holiday magic for dozens of audiences across the country. This year, the ballet brought snow to the West Coast.

“Nutcracker is — and for the foreseeable future will be — our biggest tour,” says company manager Ryan Bjornson. “It is the show that most presenters want to have, and the RWB is unique in that we are able to tour a full-scale production of a classical ballet like Nutcracker.”

Nutcracker season is a critical one for the company, not only from an artistic perspective — it’s a chance for dancers to get out in front of as many audiences as possible — but from a revenue perspective as well.

“We often joke that it’s the show that pays the bills,” Bjornson says. “And it’s because it’s this prolific holiday tradition that everyone across Canada really enjoys. It’s become part of a holiday tradition for so many people, and not just in Winnipeg.”

But touring a ballet at this level isn’t easy. It’s an intricately choreographed feat of endurance, logistics and problem-solving.

To get a sense of what’s involved, the Free Press spent 32 hours on tour with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Vancouver.

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Friday, 12:42 p.m., studio

In a small rehearsal space in the bowels of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, company members are taking dance class with guest instructor Curtis Foley.

It’s humid, making it feel more like a hot yoga studio in there than a dance studio. Dancers frequently slip off to the side to re-pin a bun, grab a sip of water or, crucially, reapply deodorant.

Class is a way to warm up and run through all the moves they will do in the show — and, as a special treat, they get to work with a live accompanist, Alex Tsisserev, who is a legend around these parts.

He plays the piano with one hand, raps out a beat on an overturned garbage can with the other, and has bells around his ankles. (He can also rip on the recorder.)

The company has usually already logged a few hours of dancing before they take the stage.

“Touring is incredibly physically demanding on the dancers,” Bjornson says. “We’re lucky enough that we tour with a physiotherapist, and she is very busy making sure that all the dancers are healthy and well.”

Indeed, there is almost always a dancer on Katie Zwingerman’s table, which she has set up in a room at the theatre.

At this point in the tour, illness and injury are of particular concern, as the dancers are starting to get tired. The company will have just two days off between the end of the tour and the eight-show run in Winnipeg.

They are also down a few women for this tour and Nutcracker features a hefty complement of female roles, which means no shows off for the gals on the road.

That said, rest days and breaks are built into the scheduling, which begins well before the dancers even start rehearsals.

Bjornson has to quarterback the logistics for 55 people in total — including the dancers, the staff, the crew and one truck driver, who hauls all of the sets, props and costumes to each stop on the tour.

“I have to start planning and thinking about Nutcracker in about June,” he says with a laugh.

Friday, 1:12 p.m., wardrobe

Polar bear heads, ornate tutus, mouse tails — if someone onstage wears it, Diana Miller is in charge of it.

In Winnipeg, Miller is a wardrobe supervisor. On the road, she’s head of wardrobe. Right now, she’s making sure all the heads are ready to go for the kids who will become the baby polar bears responsible for the “aww” moment at the end of Act I.

“We have over 1,200 costume pieces,” Miller says. “This includes gloves, accessories, earrings, necklaces, tiaras. That’s not even including undergarments; that’s just the things that you see.”

In addition to constant laundering and mending, managing all of these pieces requires meticulous organization — especially on the road. We mortals can replace the socks that didn’t make it into the suitcase pretty easily. A custom tutu? Not so much.

Organization starts with a good load-in, and a good load-in relies on a good load-out.

“Whether it be organizing the costumes, making sure that we have everything accounted for, and that the stuff that we have to categorize — like spot-clean, dryer, hand-wash — is all organized before we get in there,” Miller says.

“Otherwise, it’s going to take more time to load in.”

Depending on the schedule, the RWB’s truck usually arrives either the day the company does, or the day before. Load-in takes about eight hours.

Friday, 2:06 p.m., stage

It’s jarring, at first, to see company dancers performing in their warmups on the big stage against the ornate backdrops.

RWB artistic director André Lewis stands at the front, cutting a silhouette in the stage lights. “Any challenges with the floor?” he asks the dancers.

He’s watching and providing notes as the dancers do a spacing rehearsal — or, as associate artistic director Tara Birtwhistle calls it, “finding their stage legs.”

“The dancers aren’t necessarily dancing full out onstage before the performance — they’re just adjusting their space on stage,” Bjornson explains. “And we have to do that in every city, because each stage is slightly different.”

In Nanaimo, Surrey and Victoria, they performed on much smaller stages. The Queen Elizabeth Theatre is more in line with what they are used to at the Centennial Concert Hall.

A major difference from Winnipeg, however, is that there’s no live Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra to perform with. Occasionally, the ballet can partner with other orchestras on the road, as they did with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra for the Victoria shows on this tour.

Otherwise, they perform to a recording — of the WSO.

“It’s great that we have the WSO playing with us even when they’re not playing with us,” Bjornson says.

Friday, 6:32 p.m., theatre

The weather outside is frightful. It’s 7 C and raining. Not exactly what you think of when you think of Nutcracker season.

Inside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, however, it feels more like home.

Lewis is introducing the show, telling the audience about all the little nods to Winnipeg in this production — including the old Richardson family house on which Clara’s family home is modelled.

It’s hard not to have a little bit of civic pride hearing him share this slice of Winnipeg with Vancouver.

This will be Lewis’s last Nutcracker tour. He’s stepping down as artistic director at the end of this season after 50 years with the organization — first as a student, then as a dancer and finally as artistic director, a position he’s held for nearly 30 years.

“It’s mixed emotions, you know,” he tells me later. “I keep thinking, ‘Oh, that won’t be my responsibility next season.’ I won’t be the one giving direction to the dancers and things of that nature.

“But at the same time, I think it’s the right thing to do. I was not forced to step down. It was something that I said to the board I wanted to do after 30 years.

“But when I look at the show, I say, ‘Oh!’ and there’s so much information that I have that I worry that others will not have or will not realize, because I’ve been part of the process since inception.”

Lewis commissioned this Canadiana-flavoured version of Nutcracker, which was choreographed by Galina Yordanova and Nina Menon and premièred in Ottawa in 1999. It’s an important piece of his legacy.

Vancouver, as it happens, was one of the first places it toured.

And no one — no one — is more dazzled by the fake snow in the show than the Vancouver audiences.

“They love it when they don’t have to shovel it,” Lewis says with a laugh.

Friday, 8:23 p.m., backstage

Watching the wardrobe department do their thing is as entertaining as watching the dancers. They are a bona fide pit crew back there.

On-the-fly repairs are part of Diana Miller’s gig. She’s had to whip-stitch dancers into their costumes seconds before they fly out of the wings and onto the stage — which means she’s also had to cut dancers out of them later.

Clara’s Act I nightgown was briefly missing from her dressing room but quickly located. No one panics. Earlier in the tour, Miller had about 40 seconds to locate one of the kid’s missing mouse tails.

Backstage is busy, but it isn’t chaotic.

“One of the coolest things about being a part of this production in general is the fact that you have this whole umbrella effect of all these different departments that work together and almost become family-like to put on a show that the audience can watch and go into this magical fantasy land,” Miller says.

“I used to go to the ballet as a kid because my Aunt Mary used to always have season tickets, and I had no idea how backstage was run until I started working it. The amount that happens back here and then what you see? It’s mind-boggling.”

She’s right. They are creating whole different worlds just steps away.

“The amount that happens back here and then what you see? It’s mind-boggling.”–Diana Miller

Saturday, 8:46 a.m., hotel

Today is a two-show day, with a 1 p.m. matinee followed by a 6:30 p.m. performance. Most of the company will be dancing in both.

Soloist Jaimi Deleau has had some changes to her schedule; it’s easy to forget that these artists are at work — and sometimes at work, people need to switch shifts.

Another dancer has been fighting off an illness all week and requires a lighter load. Instead of Sugar Plum Fairy — a role in which she’s very familiar to Winnipeg audiences — Deleau will be dancing the solo in Waltz of the Snowflakes as well as Russian in the matinee, and then Clara’s mother and Spanish in the evening.

This kind of pivoting isn’t uncommon.

“Especially with long tours, you have to jump in when needed,” she says. “It’s harder to switch at home if you know you have family coming.”

Deleau is a tour veteran at this point. This is her 11th season with the RWB.

Dressed in leggings and a Disney hoodie, Deleau assembles her hotel-provided continental breakfast, a rare treat on tour. She plates up two hard-boiled eggs, toast and jam and a blueberry yogurt and pours hot water over a tea bag. She’s been really into chai on this tour.

Nutrition can be a challenge on the road. Luckily, some hotels — like this one — are equipped with kitchenettes.

“Eating out for four weeks is a lot,” she says. Typically she’ll have a protein yogurt with berries and granola for breakfast, a carb such as quinoa or rice with veggies and chicken between shows, and a post-show protein. And lots of fruit.

Travelling can be hard on the body at the best of times, but when your body is your instrument, it’s particularly rigorous.

“You’re traveling from city to city, you’re in a new bed and a new environment every week, pretty much, so it can be difficult to feel settled,” she tells me later on in the day.

“You’re traveling from city to city, you’re in a new bed and a new environment every week, pretty much, so it can be difficult to feel settled.”–Jaimi Deleau

Being on different stages and in different theatres can also pose challenges.

“Some stages are harder than others and that can be stressful for your lower limbs. There’s a lot of extra body maintenance I feel that happens on tour — even more than in Winnipeg. Which, I mean, is part of the job.”

Deleau, a genius, travels with a portable humidifier. “My parents laugh at me,” she says.

If there’s a sauna or a hot tub in the hotel, she’s using it. Muscle relaxants and Voltaren are also key items in her bag of tricks.

“I have these compression calf boots that I like to sit in every night for at least 15 to 30 minutes to help with the lower limbs.”

But for all its demands, tour life is also fun.

Deleau likes exploring new cities and performing in front of new audiences. And unlike at home, her downtime isn’t filled with laundry and chores.

“On your days off, you can just walk around and go for breakfast and go shopping and not be like, ‘Oh, I should be, like, cleaning my kitchen or my bathroom.’”

She heads back to her room to change into her RWB-branded warmups and pack her bag before picking up a chai latte at Lovelarte, a nearby café she likes, on the way to the theatre.

Saturday, 10:03 a.m., dressing room

It’s three hours to curtain for the matinee, and Deleau is seated in front of the vanity mirror, posture perfect, doing her show makeup. She has to do it now; there’s class at 11 a.m.

All the dancers wear puffy insulated boots to keep their feet warm.

She sweeps a fluffy eyeshadow brush back and forth over her eyelids. In front of her is a caddy full of products — including her go-to mascara, Lash Princess by Essence, a $6 drugstore find.

She has a dressing roommate: second soloist Amanda Solheim, who is originally from Surrey. The trick with Nutcracker is to do a makeup look that works for every role.

The wardrobe department is coming down the hall, dropping off fresh laundry. Behind Deleau is an assortment of costume pieces and wardrobe bags. She has six different pairs of pointe shoes on the go for this tour.

By 10:51 a.m., she’s in the studio stretching for class — this time with guest instructor Reid Cuming.

Lewis is giving the dancers a pep talk, reminding them to stay focused. They are in the homestretch before the homestand.

Tsisserev is back for today’s class. He does a gorgeous piano cover of Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball, a little departure from the rest of the soundtrack of this tour, which is “all Tchaikovsky all the time.”

Saturday, 11:30 a.m., hallway

Nutcracker features a large cast of children; when the RWB is on tour, they use local ballet students, who rehearse well before the company comes to town.

The kids who will be performing in the matinee have begun filing in, stealing sneaky peeks into the studio where the professionals are taking class.

RWB ballet master Jamie Vargas works with Nutcracker’s youngest cast members. They play the party kids, angels, mice, Mounties, reindeer and polar bears.

In Winnipeg, he has more time with the kids, as they come from the RWB School. On tour, it’s a different story.

“I have to be able to put together sometimes two different casts of kids in less than three hours, so that they are ready for a performance — sometimes that evening or the day before,” he says.

“But the kids are great, and it’s very rewarding to work with them, because they’re very genuine in their feeling of what’s happening. They get super excited when they’re backstage just waiting, and they’re in awe looking at the dancers dancing.”

Stage fright, however, is a real thing.

“Sometimes they panic before going on the stage, and I have, like, seconds to try to get them out of their heads or their little fears,” he says.

It looked like one of the little mice was crying backstage at last night’s show. Turns out an errant whisker was bothering her eye.

There was, however, a close call at another show on this tour. In the second act, a coterie of tiny angels helps Drosselmeier bake a cake with an assist from the Sugar Plum Fairy.

“The rehearsal assistant tells me, ‘Just a heads up, one of the girls doesn’t want to go on — and she’s crying,’” Vargas says.

This was a problem. She was one of the lead angels, and there are no understudies.

“I think it took every tool that I had to talk with her but not pressure her, because that would have backfired,” Vargas says.

So he asked her about her favourite ice cream. She met the dancers and learned they were friendly.

“The music was already on. The curtain was already up. And I was just looking at her, hoping that she would actually want to go on — and then she snapped out of whatever she was thinking and yep, she went on.”

A Nutcracker miracle.

Saturday, 1:06 p.m., backstage

Jaimi Deleau is backstage wearing a sweatsuit and a tiara.

It’s minutes into the matinee, and she’s watching the party scene unfold onstage while quietly running some steps.

In roughly 40 minutes, she’ll take the stage for Waltz of the Snowflakes — the stunning Act I closer in which Clara and the Nutcracker Prince are transported to a magical snow forest.

Later, after a costume change, she’s back out there for the crowd-pleasing Russian trio in Act II, which is one of the more athletic numbers in Nutcracker.

She whips through those turns with incredible power, as though she hasn’t been dancing for weeks. As though she doesn’t have to dance again in a few hours.

Saturday, 5:36 p.m., corps de ballet dressing room

Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero is playing softly in the dressing room shared by the women in the corps de ballet. Some of them sing along as they put on their show makeup for Round 2. “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”

All roads lead back to Swift. Days ago, the pop superstar wrapped her Eras tour at BC Place, just 400 metres from where these artists are now.

The counters are littered with pre-show detritus: makeup, hair products, snacks (a clamshell of blueberries, a box of Cheez-Its, Gatorade). The whole room is engulfed in a cloud of hairspray.

Julianna Generoux is transforming herself into Clara. Her family is here from Alberta to see her perform.

The corps de ballet member has danced in the lead role a few times on this tour, and will be performing Clara for the first time in Winnipeg on Dec. 21.

It’s a big moment. Usually principal dancers perform Clara.

“This is only my third season in the company, so I didn’t think this would come so soon, you know?” she says between shows. “It feels very surreal. It’s so special.

“It feels very full-circle, too, because the first time I realized I really wanted to be a professional ballet dancer was when I did children’s roles with Alberta Ballet’s Nutcracker.”

Generoux came up through the RWB School with fellow corps de ballet members Kyra Soo and Maggie Weatherdon, who have also danced in the role of Clara on this tour.

Soo performed in Vancouver on Friday night — a hometown show for her — and Weatherdon in Saturday’s matinee.

“They are some of my closest friends, so getting to debut this the first time all of us together is pretty crazy,” she says.

Saturday, 8:15 p.m. backstage

We’re nearing the end of Act II.

When the dancers are on stage, their performances look ethereal, effortless. But once they are out of the stage lights, they are panting and sweaty with exertion.

These are athletes. And like teammates, they encourage each other. There are lots of hugs and hand squeezes.

It’s time for the grand pas de deux. Generoux is a stunning Clara, performing with soloist Peter Lancksweerdt as the Nutcracker Prince.

Just as everyone backstage throws a pea during the food-fight battle scene, everyone watches the grand pas in silence. It’s a rare time of quiet.

“It never gets old,” Vargas whispers.

And then, just like that, the show is done. A jubilant chant breaks out among the dancers — “One more day! One more day!” — before they rush back out onstage to take their final bows.

It never gets old, indeed.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com