For over fifty years, renowned choreographer George Balanchine’s masterpiece, Nutcracker, has been a holiday tradition for millions of people around the world.  Set to the score of Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite,” it is one of the most famous ballets of all time.

For two local dancers, Nutcracker is more than just a tradition.  It is a way of life.
This year marks the 30th season of Nutcracker for Maine State Ballet dancers Janet Davis and Juliette Lauzier, both of Windham. This incredible milestone provides a perfect opportunity for both women to reflect on how they and the dance company they love have grown over the years.

Janet Miele Davis was definitely born with the dancing gene.  She is the daughter of Maine State Ballet Artistic Director Linda MacArthur Miele and Broadway veteran and co-director of Maine State Ballet’s School for the Performing Arts, Jonathan Miele. She first pranced onstage and into our hearts at age three, as an adorable reindeer pulling Clara’s sleigh.  She spent several years as an angel, wearing a costume that wasn’t nearly as elaborate as the ethereal beings that now glide onstage at the beginning of Act Two. “Our robes were white sheets, and we had wings and halos made out of gold pipe cleaners,” recalls Davis.  “We thought we were really something.”

In the early years of Maine State Ballet’s Nutcracker, Clara and the Nutcracker Prince were played by young children, just as they are in the Balanchine version.  Janet was cast as the young Clara, a role she loved because she got to wear a red party dress.  Twirling around in the red dress is one of her fondest memories to this day.

Juliette Lauzier never got to be a reindeer. “I started dancing way too late... I was five,” she jokingly laments. She put in her time as an angel before winning the coveted role of Clara.  Not only did Juliette get her chance to twirl in the red dress, but she also had the honor of playing Clara the first time the Nutcracker was performed with a live orchestra.  In 1986, the Maine State Ballet Orchestra, under the direction of Karla Kelley, began playing for every performance.  Making the change from recorded music to a live orchestra posed a challenge for the dancers that first year, but it added a whole new dimension to the production, and the audience was thrilled.

In 1991, Linda Miele, decided her growing company was ready for a more challenging version of Nutcracker.  She added more complex choreography, including the pas de deux between Clara and the Nutcracker Prince.  Frederick Bernier joined the company as a principal dancer, becoming the new Nutcracker Prince.  Miele knew an older, more accomplished female dancer would enable the story to unfold more dramatically.  At the ripe old age of fourteen, Janet Miele fit the part.  “I was nervous, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do what they were asking me to do.  I had never danced onstage with a boy before, and I thought the whole thing was a little weird.  To be honest, I didn’t think it would work.”

Luckily, she could not have been more wrong.  Janet gave it her all, and the rest is history.  The revamped Nutcracker garnered rave reviews, and Janet lived out every little ballerina’s fantasy of dancing the part of Clara—not once, but twice. Janet’s life has become so intertwined with Maine State Ballet over the past thirty years, that sometimes it is difficult to separate the two.  Just as many of her ballet characters end up meeting their prince, Janet met her husband, principal dancer Glenn Davis, when he started taking dance classes.  They have a daughter, Emma, age 7, who is keeping the family tradition alive.  So far, Emma has been a reindeer and the drummer boy.  This year, Emma will be a Little Page in the Palace of Sweets, which means she will be onstage when the Nutcracker, her father, introduces Clara to the Sugar Plum Fairy, her mother.  “It’s such a magical feeling to look down at her little face and know that our family has three generations dancing this year,” says Davis.  The third generation is her father, Jonathan Miele, who will be playing the mysterious Uncle Drosselmeyer.

With more than 250 performances throughout its history, Maine State Ballet’s Nutcracker is one of the longest running productions in the Portland area.  For Davis and Lauzier, that adds up to thousands of hours of ballet classes and rehearsals, not to mention the hundreds of pairs of pointe shoes they’ve gone through over the years.  Between them, the two have performed in the dance of the Snowflakes at least one thousand times.

This year, Lauzier is cast as a Snowflake and a demi-soloist in the Waltz of the Flowers, two challenging dances that strictly adhere to the Balanchine style™.  She will also play the elegant Frau Stahlbaum, Clara’s mother, for the tenth year.  Her grace combines perfectly with Ron Trell’s dapper Judge Stahlbaum.  The two have a very special working relationship, and every year Trell surprises his stage wife with a new and glorious piece of jewelry to wear onstage.

Lauzier admits that she was very nervous when she first appeared as Frau Stahlbaum, because she was following in the footsteps of the lovely Beverly Lowe, a former ballet teacher and Maine State Ballet Company member. “Mrs. Lowe had been Clara’s mother for thirty years, and those were some pretty big shoes I had to fill. I just hoped I would make her proud,” says Lauzier.

And how does she feel now?  “I love Frau Stahlbaum.  I get to dress up in a beautiful gown and host a fabulous party.  But what the audience doesn’t know is that the second I glide off stage, I have to hike up my gown and run like crazy down the hall so I can make the quick change into my Snowflake costume.  It’s not nearly as glamorous as you would think.”

Janet Davis will divide her stage time between the lithe Dew Drop Fairy and the regal Sugar Plum Fairy.  According to Artistic Director Linda Miele, the two roles are on opposite ends of the ballet spectrum.  “When one dancer can master both of these parts, she truly displays skill and versatility.  Janet has both.”

What keeps Davis and Lauzier excited about Nutcracker after thirty years? 
“Every show, and every audience is different,” says Davis.  “When I step onstage and feel the energy coming from the audience, I have to figure out how to please them.  It’s a new challenge every time, and that keeps every show fresh for me.”

“We’re living every dancer’s dream,” adds Lauzier.  “We get to live and work in a place we love, doing the thing we love most.  And stepping out onto the stage at Merrill is like magic.  Every ache and pain disappears, and the music and the dance take over.  It’s like being transported to a magical place… just like Clara.”