Dancers Grow Into Starring Roles
Rose Kelly has danced just about every role in “The Nutcracker,” except that of the Sugar Plum Fairy, but this weekend the 15-year-old Hampton Ballet Theatre School student from Bridgehampton will take on the starring soloist role normally danced by a professional, even in student productions.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for me as a dancer,” Rose said before a rehearsal at Guild Hall on Monday. “It’s a really amazing part, and it’s a lot of fun to dance.”
Rose will partner with Nick Peregrino of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in Washington, D.C., in the grand pas de deux, which is the finale of the classic Christmas ballet set to Tchaikovsky. “To be supported by a professional dancer is very different, but a really good experience,” Rose said.
She remembers looking up to the older students when she was just a preschool dance student. “I can’t believe I made it here,” she said, as a group of younger dancers talked onstage with Sara Jo Strickland, the school’s director. “We were once those little dancers,” she said to Vincenzo James Harty, who, like her, began studying with Ms. Strickland at the age of 21/2.
“She’s like a second mother to me,” Vincenzo wrote in an email on Tuesday. He recalls his first role in “The Nutcracker” when he was 21/2 “I was a polichinelle, and although I don’t remember much of the actual performance (besides the excitement of shuffling alonginside the darkness of Mother Ginger’s skirt, and finally the fabric opening up and seeing the audience and the lights for the first time), I must’ve been so thrilled that I walked right to the edge of the stage and almost fell off.” He has loved the theater ever since.
Vincenzo, also 15 now, will dance the solo role of the Dewdrop Prince this weekend for the second year in a row, but will also have three other roles. He is one of only two boys in the production, a position that sometimes comes with added pressure. “You’re expected to do any partnering that’s needed, but it’s fun too.”
His Dewdrop Prince dance in “The Nutcracker” is seven minutes long. “Every year you’re working your way up to these levels and thinking how you can be better,” he said. “I just want to keep trying to be better.”
Rose’s part includes four dances, one after the other, no small feat for a young dancer. “It takes so much energy, and also partnering is different and it’s sometimes hard,” she said. She has partnered with Mr. Peregrino before, in the school’s spring production of “Cinderella,” “so it was a little easier to dance with him this time.”
“Ballet is my life,” Rose said. “It’s every breath I take and it’s always been that way.” She attends Bishop McCann Mercy High School in Riverhead and hopes that dance will be in her future. Vincenzo, who is from East Hampton and is home schooled, has his sights set on a medical profession, perhaps as a veterinarian, but said that whatever he does, performing arts will have to be a part of his life. He is also a tenor with the award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
“Dance helps you a lot because you have to have a great stage presence and a sense of your body,” he said.
Rose, Vincenzo, and Mr. Peregrino will be joined on stage by the students of the Hampton Ballet Theatre School along with some parents and local actors.
Ms. Strickland choreographed “The Nutcracker.” Working with her once again are Yuka Silvera, who designed and sewed the costumes, and Sebastian Paczynski, the lighting designer. Performances are tomorrow at 7 p.m., Saturday at 1 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance, $20 for children through hamptonballetheatreschool.com or 888-933-4287, and $30 and $25 at the door.
“This year, all of the girls have really grown up and gotten stronger,” Rose said of the Hampton Ballet Theatre troupe. “They know the dances by heart. It’s going to be a stronger production and the dancers are absolutely amazing.”
“Every year we progress more and more, and I think that this year will probably be the best yet,” Vincenzo said.
Since the Conservatory of Danse Arts closed its doors this year, this weekend’s production will be the only South Fork staging of “The Nutcracker.” However Studio 3 of Bridgehampton will present “Mixed Nuts,” a multi-dance blending of “The Nutcracker” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” next weekend at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Shows will be Friday, Dec. 19, at 7 p.m. and Dec. 20 at 2 and 7 p.m.