The winter holiday season is a comforting and cozy part of the year, filled with annual festivities and traditions. Among these is The Nutcracker, the ballet that has become one of the most beloved symbols of the wintertime. However, for the Rockville Civic Ballet, this year’s Nutcracker production marks a different kind of celebration: that of its fiftieth anniversary as a ballet company.
The Rockville Civic Ballet (RCB) was founded in 1974 by local resident Claudia Mangan with the motto of “Ballet for All,” after remarking that despite having a successful athletics program, Rockville lacked one for the performing arts. Under her direction, the RCB became a thriving civic-run organization, managed by the City of Rockville and composed of volunteers. Upon Mangan’s tragic passing in 2015, Eleanor Simpson and Erin Kwong, longtime RCB dancers and leaders, stepped in to continue her legacy and head the company. During this time, the Friends of the Rockville Civic Ballet (FRCB), a non-profit organization, was established to support the RCB through donations, volunteering, and scholarship opportunities for dancers.
While the company has grown exponentially over its fifty-year history, it has stayed true to its original mission of accessibility and inclusivity. “The RCB has made an effort since its inception to challenge the previously accepted limitations of classical ballet,” Simpson said; it welcomes all dancers, regardless of age or ability, relies on family involvement, is a tight-knit community and allows dancers to both work outside of ballet and engage in it. Its diversity stems from there being no performance fee to participate in its productions and dancers not aging out of the program, which are both the case in most companies. “Anyone can participate, as long as you’re signed up for ballet classes. So you don’t have to be a professional dancer,” dancer and instructor Anna Adhikari, one of this year’s Snow Queens, said. “If you sign up for ballet classes and you’re excited, you’re involved, you’re ready to help out and volunteer, then you can perform onstage.”
Additionally, it brings together members of the Rockville community “into one nostalgic ballet feeling, getting to have the festive environment of it all,” long-time RCB dancer and Sugar Plum Fairy Tiffany Reyes said. Simpson concurred that “as a civic ballet our goal of serving the Rockville community is just as significant as our commitment to the art form itself.”
Over the past half-century, the RCB has both performed known ballets and premiered original pieces, expanding its ranks to include 120 dancers across several generations in this year’s Nutcracker production. To honor their milestone, they performed a two-part spring production of Fresco, an original contemporary work, and the classic Giselle, paying homage to Mangan’s custom of integrating new and old works. In the summer, they set the stage for Satie Suite, a symbolic interpretation of the RCB’s founding, and The Odyssey, both created by Mangan. In the meantime, they organized events for the cast and paid tribute to key RCB individuals. Now, the celebration has culminated in a unique staging of the quintessential The Nutcracker.
“This fiftieth Nutcracker is the biggest and the boldest and most definitely a challenge that the directors took on head-first,” Adhikari said. The RCB held eight shows instead of the usual six and split cast every divertissement, or small group dance, in Act III. One cast of each of the Land of Sweets solos performed a dance choreographed by Mangan or inspired by her work, and the other followed choreography built by Simpson and Kwong, depicting the RCB’s progression in time and rendering the show more engaging to audience members attending multiple performances. “[It showed] off the strength and versatility of so many of our dancers and [emphasized] the creative history of the company,” Kwong said.
Through this year’s Nutcracker, the RCB hopes to inspire a new generation of dancers and increase popular engagement with the art. “I think The Nutcracker is so special because it’s like magic. You see it for the first time as a little kid, and you want to be a ballerina,” Adhikari said. “You kind of see it once and you’re hooked, and you want to see it again and again… So it’s just, for me, the best part of the holidays.”
While The Nutcracker is one of the best-known American ballets, it holds a special place for the RCB. “Many of our dancers see themselves grow up through The Nutcracker. They start out as little party guests or toy soldiers, and through years of hard work are able to take on challenges as advanced dancers in the [Land of Sweets],” Kwong said. This enables them to become familiar with the ballet, while “more seasoned dancers find joy in teaching new dancers a well loved role and cheering them on during rehearsals and performances. It also reinforces our connections with the community and each other, since the audience and our members get to see how the show changes over the years. The Nutcracker is a celebration of the growth of the RCB and all our innovations.”
For the RCB, the future is full of promise and ambition. Simpson has two goals for the company: that it continue working towards its promise of ballet for all, and for it to have the structures necessary to grow and fulfill its mission. “This is a vision that can never be fully reached until every single person in Rockville performs in a show together! I want the RCB to participate in recruiting and collaborating with dancers from even wider ranges of lived experiences,” Simpson said. “I hope to demonstrate our program’s value to our community leaders and work with them to expand our storage so that costumes and materials can be safely stored and frugally used to produce 50 more original ballets and well over 50 more years of ever improving productions!”
Looking ahead, FRCB president Silvie Gallardo anticipates that the RCB’s spirit and traditions will endure. “I hope we not only last another fifty years, but then another 150 or 200 years into the future, and that we continue to be just as diverse, just as inclusive, and just as caring, because all the dancers here uplift each other,” Gallardo said.
Written by Daniela Naaman
Photo by Kevin DiBartolo