A troop of dancing party-goers, mice, soldiers, and snowflakes, a galumphing bear and a wound-up mechanical doll filled the stage at the Downey Theatre and won the hearts of the audience. And that was only Act I of Tchaikovsky’s classical ballet, “The Nutcracker.”

The non-profit Southern California Dance Theatre gave its Nutcracker ballet performance Saturday night to a full house at the Downey Theatre. Lots of would-be young ballerinas and leaping Barishnikovs were in the audience, and at least 100 dancers came on stage, each well coached and obviously giving the performances of their young lives.

The Nutcracker Ballet may be 127 years old, but it is young every time it is performed with a cast like this. The night belonged to children, on the stage, and in the audience.

Ms. McKenna came from Inglewood and wore a knockout black hat and blue dress with an intricate silver necklace. SSShe brought several boys, all dressed up in suits with bow ties or in Devon’s case, a green suit with a long silver tie. Young DeShawn wore startling blue suede shoes with his midnight blue tuxedo jacket.

**Dapper audience members at a performance of “The Nutcracker” at the Downey Theatre. Photo by Lorine Parks**

“Getting dressed up is an elegant way to enjoy an elegant evening,” said Roy Anthony Shabla, Downey artist and Green Salon host, who had also admired the company’s Sleeping Beauty production in May. “More people in Downey should know about this ballet company.”

In the lobby, a young girl dressed in a sequin top and gauzy skirt irresistibly broke into pirouettes. She even tried going up on her toes, but it’s hard to go en pointe in patent leather pumps.

Paula Vreulink, the artistic director of the Southern California Dance Theatre, welcomed the audience from the stage, and she began by thanking the little people, the seamstresses who made the opulent costumes, and the mothers who were at the boutique counter selling programs and tiaras. Miss Paula began her dancing career in her native Netherlands, and she brings a European respect for the dance as well as an appreciation of jazz and aerobic styles, which she also teaches.

Miss Paula announced that the ballet school would be performing scenes from a new production, Alice in Wonderland, at the free all-day event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Downey Theatre in April.

In a throwback nod, Herr Drosselmeyer was played by Gerard Hanley, who performed the same role in the Dance Theatre’s first production of Nutcracker 25 years ago, according to Maureen Chen, dancing lady of the Christmas Party and publicist extraordinaire.

Getting seated in the theatre I found myself next to little Esther, who dreams of dancing and does aerobics in Covina where she lives with her mother and father. They came all the way to Downey to see this classic because they heard of the performance “through a friend,” – the ubiquitous Maureen.

Hanley played the old toy-maker host like a Willy Wonka, the Gene Wilder version, carefree as a child but with darker overtones to his generosity. One might think, what a supremely happy man must have composed such joyful tunes and stirring harmonies. Then one remembers Tchaikovsky’s private life of melancholy, and Drosselmeyer’s sweetly painful antics fit right in.

The production opened with the curtain going up on the side stage where a young Clara is being teased by her brother about their toys. Then the big red velvet curtains parted on the Christmas party, and elegant ladies and gentlemen, played by real grown-ups, danced a stately quadrille. The cast demonstrated an ethnic diversity, a welcome reflection of today’s multi-cultural mainstream.

Thinking Miss Paula might have been inspired by Misty Copeland, the first Afro-American female lead dancer in the American Ballet Company, I asked her how she cast the parts. She said that every year they look for new ways to stage the ballet. This year it happened that Afro-Americans and Latinos had prominent parts in the opening scenes. “But everyone has to earn their spot,” Miss Paula said.

Clara as the little child is transformed into the Dream Ingenue who leads us to an enchanted realm where her handsome prince quickly vanquishes the villainous Mouse King. From then on it’s all divertissement and games. Once the energetic Russian dancers and the dainty Mirliton baker girls have their turns, everyone is applauding and laughing.

An evening at the ballet differs from a symphonic performance in that it is traditional to applaud at the end of each soloist’s tour de force with loud claps of encouragement. The enthusiastic audience showed their appreciation of the company’s skill by doing just that.

The ballet-wise audience broke into applause after each spectacular turn and spin of the Spanish, Arabian, and Russian dancers, and the Coffee and Tea solos, to name only a few. Nutcracker is the ultimate foodie’s ballet and the Spanish dancers stand for hot chocolate to drink, Arabian for coffee, the Chinese for tea.

One of the great comic moments in ballet is the enormous peri-wigged lady, Mother Ginger, La Mère Gigogne, who seems to be three stories tall. Before she teeters out, the ornament- decorated party chandelier was subtly raised to accommodate her preposterous wig. She lifts the petticoats on her hoop skirt to reveal sixteen tiny tots hidden there who emerge to fill the stage with their tiny antics.

After such hilarity, the moment turned serious again. Precise technique and partnering were displayed on the part of the leading artistic roles, the sugar-frosting tutu-clad Sugar Plum Fairy and her danceur Cavalier, who performed a pas de deux featuring the “fish dive,” a partnered lift where the male dancer supports the female dancer with her upper body held low to the ground.

To achieve this pose, the dancer must be in fifth position and in a demi-plie to start the jump. Once in that position the dancer jumps, the back with the legs straight still in fifth position. The whole body is curved back with arms beautifully raised. This jump, the fish leaping out of water, is called the pas de poisson.

Other techniques on display included tour jetés, leaping turns across the stage by the male dancers, and spinning turns in place. Not getting dizzy takes a special technique. The dancers performed their arabeques en pointe, and the lead Spanish dancer made an entrance being held in an extended penché. There were sturdy male partners to catch and lift the ballerinas as needed.

The large scenes with the corps de ballet, the groupings of dancers, were particularly well managed, a spinning circle of dancers here, and there some leaping into the air: everyone moving and lively.

Then Tchaikovsky’s lilting Waltz of the Flowers had everyone in the audience swaying too as the corps de ballet moved thru intricate patterns in their flowing violet tulle skirts.

The company made good use of the Downey Theatre’s side stages, for intimate bedtime moments before and after the Christmas Eve party, both scenes with Clara, her mischievous brother, and a perky maid. At the finale dancers filled the deep center stage where imaginative minimalist settings of immensely tall windows with snowdrifts in the corners of the window panes, had earlier given way to a forest of snowy trees as bubbly snow fell. Costuming was opulent, adding to the richness of the entire production. And then there were the unforgettable strains of Tchaikovsky.

Downey is lucky to have such an excellent classical ballet school based near here, in Long Beach. Individual roles showcase talent and provide a springboard to professional performing, within a team-spirit atmosphere of backstage skills. One important aspect Miss Paula stresses is good diet habits for developing young bodies. No starving ballerinas.

Got to keep well and strong so there can be another winning performance next year.

'The Nutcracker' delights a full house at the Downey Theater