Vernon Residents Have Leading Roles in the Nutcracker

Vernon residents Sara Clarke and Ara Spellman have been named to lead roles in the Connecticut Concert Ballet’s production of the
Nutcracker.

Sara will perform as a Chinese Lead Dancer in the second act of the  holiday tradition.

Ara will dance a reprise of a role she has performed in the past for the former Northern Connecticut Ballet and the Connecticut Concert Ballet, a pas de deux as Snow Queen with Steve Suty of Agawam, MA, in
the first act.

Sara is a 15 year-old sophomore at Rockville High School where she is an honor roll student, sings in chorus and is in Marching Band. In addition, Sara won the C.O.L.T. Award for both French and World Language. Sara has been dancing for a dozen years, 11 of them at CCB and this is her
11th Nutcracker.

Sara said of the perform,acne, “I love the variety of choreography there is to study, also how I can just fall into the music and become something or someone else.”

Sara spends many hours a week perfecting her ballet skills. She is a level 5 dancer in the American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum employed at CCB.

Sara spends six hours a week in classes that include ballet technique and pointe. She also takes class in modern dance to add depth to her dance education. Rehearsals for the Nutcracker are held outside of class time, Sara rehearses for her lead and supporting roles six hours a week. In addition, Sara takes a weekly two-hour class as a full ensemble member in CCB’s pre-professional track.

The biggest challenge, according to Sara, “is balancing two lives, school and dance.”

For every little girl who dreams of growing up to be a ballerina, or maybe for her parents who are wondering if all this time and effort “is worth it”, Ara Spellman has the answer, and the answer is yes.

Ara is a grown woman, a wife, a mother, and a ballerina. Ara will be dancing the role of Snow Queen, role she first danced 18 years ago while in high school.

Ara started dancing at around 3 in Windsor, and by age 5 was dancing with the Northern Connecticut Ballet in her first Nutcracker.

“I was in the Chinese Corps and I was so excited! I remember I wore a
colored shirt that was shimmery…and coming on stage…I can still remember that feeling. I have a visual memory of that moment, even though I can’t remember what color that shirt was,” she said.

Ara grew up at NCB and was performing lead roles by the time she was a freshman in high school.

“I performed as Snow Queen with Steve Suty as a freshman, and again with Rob Thornton (who last year directed Brigadoon for the West Hartford Community Theatre) as a junior," she said. "Steve and I go back even longer, the first time we danced together I was in seventh grade, and we were Soldier Dolls. That was my first role on pointe.”

For four years after high school, Ara performed with CCB and others as a freelance professional dancer, and also taught and choreographed.

A highlight was in February 1998 when along with Steve, Wendy Fish-Lawrence and David Lawrence (current Artistic Directors of CCB), Ara performed with Tim Martin Choreographies at the Clark Studio Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City. She performed in the first cast of "QXK" as a Black Pawn, performed in the second movement of "Cybertech" and understudied the lead female part for that ballet. In 2001, the year she got married, she performed as the Sugar Plum Fairy for both NCB and CCB.

But an injury she had received years before while training in Milwaukee wouldn’t heal and Ara stopped dancing for three years.

Ara’s husband, Ron, was in the Coast Guard, and for part of that time they were living in Washington,
DC.

The couple returned to Connecticut in 2005. It was then she was approached by an old friend, Elisa Young, to perform with Elisa in Killingworth. She did that role in the winter of 2005, her old injury was healing and she started coming back. After her son, Jack, was born in December of 2008, Ara was back at CCB and her involvement with the studio has grown steadily since.

“Dancing keeps me sane," Ara said. “I take care of Jack and I dance. If I miss a class I can feel it. Dance requires all your concentration, you forget everything else in your head. While you are dancing, it is possible to achieve so many goals, and when it goes well, it feels good, the music
and moving releases emotions. I also think ‘that was really hard and I did it’ and I feel great. There’s a success every day.”

Ara agrees that she is very lucky to be able to balance family life and dancing. “When you find something you love, whether it is for a living or for fun, some people never find that, but if you get to do something you love so much, you are blessed," she said.

In all, 250 accomplished cast members from Connecticut Concert Ballet will perform alongside professional dancers Mario I. Espinoza and Kimberly Van Woesik from Ballet Hispanico in New York City the first weekend, and with Darren McIntyre and Jennifer Grapes from Chicago, Illinois and most
recently with the Milwaukee Ballet the second weekend.

Performances are scheduled for the Bailey Auditorium, 134 Middle Turnpike East, Manchester, on Saturdays, Dec. 10 and 17 (2 p.m. and 7 p.m.) and Sundays, Dec. 11 and 18 (2 p.m.).

Tickets:  Preferred Front and Center Seats $35; General Admission $25, Child/Student/Seniors $15. Tickets are available online at www.connecticutnutcracker.com, by phone (860) 418-7294, at Dance Village, 171 Spencer St, Manchester, and Hairdresser on Fire, 176 Broad St, Windsor.

Connecticut Concert Ballet is a semi-professional classical ballet school and performing arts organization with studios in Manchester and Windsor, Connecticut and has 300 students from more than over 35 towns in the Greater Hartford area.

For more information on the school please visit www.ctconcertballet.org or call 860-643-4796. For more information on Ballet Hispanico visit
www.ballethispanico.org.