The Roswell Dance Theatre and Tolbert Yilmaz School of Dance are very proud to present their upcoming show, The Nutcracker. This show has been an annual Christmas tradition for years and the dancers have just finished up their shows in the past few weeks.
The Tolbert Yilmaz School of Dance was founded in 1979 and has been training dancers in Roswell for decades. This dance company consists of over a 1,000 students, many being students from Roswell.
The Nutcracker kicked off on Friday Nov. 9 at 2p.m., and closed on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. On these dates, multiple casts performed a total of 10 shows. Each show has so much to offer, including character meet and greets, a visit with Santa in the theatre lobby, and so much more.
Junior Aya Elitr shares the inside information about what a regular rehearsal looks like for the Nutcracker. Elitr said, “A regular rehearsal is just a run through of the show and then notes at the end. Besides practice, we do Saturday rehearsals where we run through both parts of the show with the entire cast, and rerunning things if needed.”
Nancy Tolbert Yilmaz and Mary Lynn Taylor are the directors of the Nutcracker, and both work together to bring the story of Clara and her Prince travelling to the Land of Sweets to life. Elitr said, “I am playing a flower and pastry chef, and the main dances in the Nutcracker are ballet and modern.”
The cast of the Nutcracker has around four months to rehearse, and they face many challenges along the way. Junior Finnley Williams said, “I am the Spanish lead!! Some challenges I have faced are constantly trying to remember all of the corrections I was given from past rehearsals and applying them continuously.”
Williams said, “We began rehearsing for the nutcracker in August, so the whole process is about 4-ish months, and the audition process is pretty simple. We have one soloist audition where we learn 1-2 minutes of choreography and perform it in front of all our dance schools’ directors!”
The dancers put in hours of hard work and effort to put on this two-act performance, and they were truly able to bring their work together and perform over the course of these past weekends.
