By Rebeccah Waff Cope
There is a long-standing tradition in the Town of Holly Springs about which especially recent transplants to the area might not realize, but students who have attended Holly Springs High School and their families are well aware. This year, the high school will hold its 15th annual dance production of The Nutcracker, a traditional holiday performance but with a contemporary twist. Kids who first saw the show while they were in elementary school (there’s a special performance each year just for them) are now starring as dancers on stage! This year’s shows will be held on Thursday-Sunday, December 15-17, with matinee and evening times available.
Holly Springs High School has a dance program within its Fine Arts Department, which is run by The Nutcracker’s director Laura Stauderman, who was interviewed for this article. She is the only dance staff but gets a great deal of assistance from the school’s “veteran” dance students, who help with teaching show choreography to newer dancers. Ms. Stauderman first brought The Nutcracker to life at East Millbrook Magnet Middle School in 2004, where she served as Dance Director (before that she was at the Howard W. Blake Magnet School for the Arts, FL). She later carried the annual tradition with her when she transferred to Holly Springs High School in 2006.
Ms. Stauderman grew up dancing and watching professional performances in New York (she was a member of the Mid-Hudson Ballet Company), before heading to North Carolina. She graduated with a BFA in dance education from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and her Master of Arts in dance education from Teachers College, Columbia University, NY, where she taught the modern dance course and produced the annual student choreography concerts. She is now in her third year at Drexel University and is working towards an EdD (Doctor of Education) in Creativity and Innovation.
Ms. Stauderman is a National Board Certified teacher and was one of the first educators to implement the National Honor Society for Dance Arts at both the middle and high school levels in North Carolina. She is presently serving as Board President of the NC Dance Education Organization. Her additional teaching credits include The NC Dance Institute, Infinity Ballet, the former Virginia School of the Arts and the regional and national high school dance festivals in Norfolk, Miami and Philadelphia.
Ms. Stauderman’s choreography was commissioned by St. Petersburg College and The Tampa Visitors Bureau and was awarded to be performed as an opening number to the Radio City Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular at DPAC in 2011. Her Rockettes dance is shown each year as part of The Nutcracker at Holly Springs High School, when the toy soldiers perform a kick line in tight precision. It’s always a hit!
The mission of the Holly Springs High School’s Fine Arts Department is to provide students an all-encompassing education in an effort to prepare them for futures as not only artists but contributing citizens who will appreciate as well as support the arts in their communities. Students take dance technique, especially modern dance, along with leadership classes and they perform in a high school musical and at basketball games. Ms. Stauderman said that The Nutcracker production was designed in a way which allows students to build on their class techniques but also to collaborate on, and express their creativity with, guided projects which are incorporated into the show.
The Nutcracker is a full-length production which uses the Duke Ellington arrangement of Peter Tchaikovsky’s traditional score, but additional music has also been incorporated as new dance projects are included. The story is different from the traditional one—its Act I is set as a holiday pajama party where Clara’s mom reads a story about dances from around the world. Later, Clara dreams that a thief steals the Nutcracker doll and tumbling elves turn the doll into the Nutcracker prince, to whom she eventually weds.
Fifteen years after The Nutcracker show premiered at the high school, its Act II now features a dozen dances from around the world, with complex choreography, a slideshow of images from each country, and traditional, well-researched costumes and choreography. Along with the Dance of the Snowflakes, Waltz of the Flowers, Spanish, Russian and Arabian, this production includes dances of Africa, India, Ireland, Greece, Scotland, Polynesia and France. Tchaikovsky’s Chinese music is incorporated into Act I, where a porcelain China doll dances.
Based on their own experiences and dance training, students have helped to set the choreography, such as the two students who were competitive Irish step dancers (they still get credit for this in the show’s playbill). Outside artists have also contributed by providing live experiences and advice in African dancing/drumming and Bollywood dance, for example. Chuck Davis and The African American Dance Ensemble taught some classes (at East Millbrook Middle) as a United Arts guest artist-in-residence and the Annandale Center taught students how to do Scottish highland dancing. This show really is a community effort!
The last time this full production was on stage was in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic started. The show was canceled in 2020 and performed with limitations in 2021, when a double cast of students was scheduled in case some of them had to step out due to sickness. This year’s production will be shown five times: Thursday, December 15 at 7 p.m.; Friday, December 16 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.; and Saturday, December 17 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. The show is about 96 minutes in length with a 15-minute intermission.
Admission is free although donations for the show are gratefully accepted at the door. Seating is first come, first served. Ms. Stauderman expects that the 600-seat auditorium will fill up for all of the shows, so be sure to get there early. Reserved seating for the Thursday and Friday evening shows is available for $15.00, which includes a pre-show catered dinner. These tickets go on sale the last week of November and usually sell out within one week. Parents of the students are given the first chance to buy the reserved seats. These sales serve as a show fundraiser (production costs are over $2,000) and funds are also raised though business sponsors and by selling the playbill, including advertisements inside.
For younger kids, ages 4-10, a “character experience” is also offered. This will take place on Saturday, December 17 starting at 11 a.m. This is an interactive event where children get to meet the dancers, see the costumes up close, and bring home a souvenir, plus they get reserved seating for the 2 p.m. show and a catered lunch before the show. The cost for this is $15.00 per child and $5.00 per adult.
