Preview
Young talent brings fun to 'Nutcracker'
West Florida Ballet performs The Nutcracker at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Largo Cultural Center, West Bay Drive and Seminole Boulevard, Largo. $12.50-$15.50. (727) 587-6793.
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published December 5, 2003
TAMPA - At a ballet class this week at Blake High School of the Arts, Eric Spear repeated one message over and over.
"Dance is all about being pretty," he said, putting the leotard-clad dancers through intricate exercises at barres around the mirrored studio.
"Ballet isn't supposed to look heavy and difficult. It's supposed to look pretty and easy, even though it isn't."
Spear, 21, graduated from the Joffrey Ballet School in New York in August and goes into rehearsal this month for the first national tour of the hit Broadway dance musical Movin' Out. He isn't much older than the students he was instructing, and they plainly related to his ebullient, playful style.
"Look at Miss Legs over here - no problem!" he said, applauding a limber, long-legged girl posed in a perfect arabesque.
But even more than pretty, he said, dancing should be fun. "Regardless of technique, if you feel like you're enjoying yourself, and you feel pretty dancing, then it'll come across that way to the audience."
Spear was giving the class as part of his work with West Florida Ballet. He will be featured in the Safety Harbor company's production of The Nutcracker, which has four performances this weekend at the Largo Cultural Center.
For the past three years, Spear has been a regular guest with the company, dancing in The Nutcracker as well as Swan Lake, Midsummer Night's Dream and Cinderella. "I come down two or three times a year. It's like a second home," he said.
Spear stays in the homes of board members, most of whom have children in the company. "All the mothers fight over Eric," said Ann Little, who has a daughter in the company. "We all want to adopt him."
West Florida Ballet has about 30 advanced dancers; many are high school girls with career ambitions in the art form. "Most of our top dancers study during the summer with companies like American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet," said Joan Greising, vice president of the board. "We want to bring a high quality of dance to the Tampa Bay area."
The Nutcracker, with a cast of about 100, is the company's largest production. Artistic director Mark Anthony Jelks brings in Spear and another professional dancer, Patrick Shea, for principal roles. Spear will dance the "Snow" and "Arabian" pas de deux with several young women from the company.
Shea will be the Cavalier and do the grand pas de deux with the Sugarplum Fairy, danced in alternating performances by Melinda Pena, a junior at East Lake High in north Pinellas, and Jessica DeRosa, a senior at Blake.
Dancers can become a bit jaded with Tchaikovsky's holiday staple, the only ballet that many people know or attend. It's not uncommon for professional dancers to appear as guest artists in several productions a season.
"I've done at least two Nutcrackers a year for the past three years, and I'll probably be doing Nutcrackers for the rest of my life," said Spear, who is paid $1,500 for his work with West Florida Ballet. "It's a great season because we make money, but I dread this time of year in terms of hearing that same music. That will forever haunt me."
He may get a break from Tchaikovsky, thanks to Movin' Out, which features Twyla Tharp's choreography to Billy Joel songs. The tour begins in January in Detroit, Spear's hometown. He started auditioning last April for the legendary Tharp.
"I'd been to six or seven callbacks," he said. "It was one of the most stressful times in my life. But Twyla was really sweet, especially to me. I think she knew I was a little bit younger than most of the people and went out of her way to be very kind to me."
A Broadway tour under an Actors' Equity contract can be an economic bonanza for a dancer. Spear said he will be paid $1,775 a week plus a weekly per diem of $777. "I can live off my per diem and save everything else," he said.
He's hoping that the Movin' Out tour will play the Tampa Bay market when he's in the show because of all the friends he's made in West Florida Ballet. And he would like to see the company grow.
"I think Tampa needs some kind of resident ballet company," Spear said. "I think with the right funding that these are the people who can do it. They're producing some really good dancers."
A bounty of "Nutcrackers'
This weekend also offers these noteworthy Nutcrackers that combine the talents of students with professional dancers:
The Ballet Society's Nutcracker in the Park offers the classic outdoors on the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront, and blanket seating is free. 5:30 p.m. Sat.-Sun. North Straub Park. Grandstand seats: $5. (727) 827-3828. The Chocolate Nutcracker is a multicultural version of the tale with music from Harlem, Cuba, Brazil and West Africa. 7 tonight, $17, and 11 a.m. Sat.-Sun., $12. Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. (727) 791-7400. More Nutcrackers: the Moscow Ballet, Dec. 13 at Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg; the Sarasota Ballet of Florida Dec. 20-23, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, Sarasota; the Miami City Ballet and Florida Orchestra, Dec. 26-28, Ruth Eckerd Hall. See the Weekend section for details.
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PreviewYoung talent brings fun to 'Nutcracker'
