THUNDER BAY – Ava Paterson-French and Audrey Harrison had no idea their dance lives were about to change.
Eleven-year-old Ava and nine-year-old Audrey thought they were being invited on Friday for costume measurements, as they went through the audition process ahead of the return of The Nutcracker to Thunder Bay, the first time the ballet will be presented in the city since 2019.
Instead, the youngsters were surprised to learn they’d landed the most coveted role of all.
The girls were cast as Clara, each to perform in two separate shows when The Nutcracker is presented at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium in December.
Ava, a Grade 6 student, said she was shocked to learn she’d been chosen.
“I’m really excited. I love to dance and I’m just really excited that I’m going to get to play Clara,” she said on Friday.
“It’s the lead role - it’s a big role in The Nutcracker. I love it.”
Audrey is also excited at the opportunity.
“I like dancing,” she said. “I like The Nutcracker a lot, so I thought it would be fun just to dance in ballet and to do it.”
The production marks the first fully local presentation of the Tchaikovsky ballet in nearly 30 years, though out-of-town groups have brought the show to the city as recently as 2019.
Created in 1892, the two-act ballet, based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s 1816 short story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, opens on Christmas Eve in Nuremberg, Germany. At a family gathering, Clara is given a nutcracker by her godfather, Drosselmeyer.
Ultimately, after finding herself in the midst of a battle between an army of gingerbread soldiers and the mice and their king, the Nutcracker, now transformed into a prince, leads Clara to the Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Alisia Cameron, owner of Connections Dance School and one of the driving forces behind the collaborative Northern Ballet Performance Company that’s putting on The Nutcracker, said the show is a chance to bring all of Thunder Bay’s dance schools, plus several from the region, together to present a family-friendly show, one of the most beloved of the holiday season.
“The Nutcracker is a great opportunity for all of the kids in Thunder Bay who do dance, or who aspire to become dancers, to have something to look forward to for roles that are different and more diverse. There are plenty of opportunities for the full production for kids to see someone in a different role that they can aspire to one day perform,” Cameron said.
It’s also a great community builder, she added.
“It’s getting a lot of families together, even if they would not normally have crossed paths – even in the dance world. We’ve only been doing this for one weekend of auditions and it’s already very obvious that just having people come together at the same location is forging relationships and creating a warm, holistic dance community here in Thunder Bay.”
The group had the help of Thunder Bay’s Abigail Sheppard, the principal dancer with the Finnish National Ballet, in making the final decision on who would play Clara. The majority of the remaining roles have yet to be cast, though Alexandra Knudsen will play the coveted role of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Dates for The Nutcracker have yet to be announced. More auditions will take place throughout the summer. For more information, visit www.northernballet.ca.
