I’m here to tell you about my life– specifically, my life as a dancer.

I’ve been dancing for over nine years. I started off as a competition dancer, but I’ve recently made the switch to a ballet school. Through hard work and countless hours of rehearsal, I have become a senior company member of the American Youth Ballet.

Every week, I’m going to be sharing a bit of my story with you– what goes into creating a performance, the techniques of the trade and my own experiences as a dancer.

You can never be sure what will happen Behind Barres.

I am utterly sick of Nutcracker music.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have absolutely no problems with Tchaikovsky under normal circumstances. But I doubt even the most adoring aficionado could stand listening to “Waltz of the Flowers” several times every day for two months. It would drive them mad.

Such is the life of a dancer.

The Nutcracker is the single most famous ballet in production in the United States. It’s all over the place, especially around Christmas time. Every company worth their salt presents some version of the classic– if you don’t, the public, as well as a large chunk of the dance community, will disown you. There’s simply no escaping it.

Most dancers, including me, have a sort of love/hate relationship with the Nutcracker for this very reason. On the one hand, it’s a classic story with beautiful music and always a welcome production. On the other, we do it every year. And it’s not like it’s rechoreographed every time, either. In the end, we all know it by heart– you can play a five second piece of music from anywhere in the Nutcracker, and most dancers will be able to tell you which song it is, how far into the song it is, and what each and every person on the stage is doing at that time.

I guess I should consider myself lucky. I’m part of a wonderful company, and get to experience some new and exciting things this year. And, after all, we only have two months left.