Each December for the last 10 years, the local dance studio has given the community a large gift: a performance (or two) of “Scenes from The Nutcracker.”
Nancy Clement, ballet director at Columbia Gorge Dance Academy, said that this is going to be an exciting year for the company, because for the first time the local production will have dancers for the grand pas de deux.

“We’ve never had it before,” she said. “We’ve never had the prince.”

Melissa Vovou, who grew up in Odell, studied ballet with Bev Bridgewater in Hood River and Jacquie Kunsman in Oregon City, and then went on to dance professionally, happened into town with her partner, Vladimir Kuzkin, a dancer from Russia. The dancers are in between jobs, so the timing was perfect.

Kuzkin trained at Tashkent Dance Academy in Uzbekistan, near Afghanistan, where he grew up, and then moved to Moscow, where he danced professionally. He and Vovou met while both were performing on a cruise ship.

“You can just see his classical training just oozing out of him,” Clement said. “It’s been great for our students to see this level of dancing. And how fun it will be for those who knew Melissa and saw her dance early on, to see her dance at this professional level!”

The Nutcracker’s grand pas de deux is usually danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince and is made up of four parts: the adagio, where they dance together; two variations (a solo for each dancer), and a coda, where they reunite for another dance. But Clement said that the guest dancers will only dance the first part, so Kuzkin suggested they call it the “grand adagio.”

Clement said she has always been careful to call the local production “Scenes from The Nutcracker” because of the omission of the grand pas de deux and other parts, but this year it is very close to full-length.

“There is very little music we’re not using,” she said.

This year, Katie Virk and Kayla Walker will dance the lead role of the Sugar Plum Fairy; Kaytlin Hughes and Bridget Wade will share the role of Snow Queen; Claire Merriam and Meredith Virk will share the role of Clara; and Emmalyn Lindsey and Kara Kiyokawa will play the part of Fritz.

The Mechanical Dolls this year are Chloe Hight and Katie Ratliff and the Dancing Bears will be Amalia Sletmoe and Robin Wilbern; Sara Donahue and Katie Virk will dance the role of the Dew Drop Fairy. As in past years, Gavin McAlpine will play the role of Herr Drosselmeyer, the town toy maker, dancing with Rachel Krummel, as the maid.

“Scenes from The Nutcracker” got its start locally when Clement’s students danced for senior centers in the area, such as Down Manor, Parkhurst House and the Hood River Care Center. Community interest in the event grew, and so did the number of dancers, so 10 years ago the production was moved onto the stage and opened to the public as a fund-raiser.

“There were 60 dancers the first year,” Clement said. “This year there are more than 360 — 189 in one performance, and 176 in the other. The whole ballet department is involved.”

Every age is represented: 4-year-olds are baby mice; 5-year-olds are bonbons; 6-year-olds are petite angels, and so on. That adds up to a lot of dancers — and a lot of costumes.

“Ten years ago we had no money; no costumes,” she said. “Phyllis McGinnis would go to thrift shops and I would find fabrics on sale, and we sewed our own — so the early costumes were little homemade numbers.

“Later we started charging dancers a participation fee ($5 in the early years; $10 today) which gave us a little budget to work with,” Clement said. “Over the years we’ve built a costume bank and we try to replace something every year — this year we have new Russian costumes.”

This year the ballet community also pulled together to raise funds for a special performance floor covering, which will not only be a safer, less slippery surface for the dancers but will also protect the new stage at the middle school.

To celebrate this milestone year, the dance academy contacted all of the lead dancers from previous years and invited them to attend, if possible, so that they can be introduced on stage.

“We are getting little biographies from all the past Sugar Plums and Snow Queens — about 20 girls, who are now at various stages in their lives; some married, most in or just out of college; a few still dancing,” Clement said. “It’s been fun to hear from them.”

One of them, Kelsey Brauer, who danced the Snow Queen in 2005, is now “waist-deep in nursing school at the University of Portland,” and though busy, hasn’t forgotten dance.

“Dance to me has always been a physical expression of the music and your heart’s interpretation,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Yes, the technical side to dance is important — very important! — but this part of dance is something even an infrequent dancer can connect with.