2024 Candy Cane, Julius- Dancer Spotlight

My most memorable nutcracker experience was when I was cast and Fritz and Norah Takehara as Clara for two years in a row. By the second year, we had a set routine backstage that we would do right before we entered. This little routine always helped me calm down, and I would always laugh right after, but need to stifle it because I was going on stage.

I’m most looking forward to being in Finale and Entrada, because although I’ve been a lead before, I’ve never been in these two scenes, and I’m very excited to be in them.

My advice to an upcoming dancer with MPBT would be to make sure you don’t give up. There are going to be many days when you can’t get the choreo, or it feels like it’s too hard, or it feels like you’ll never be able to clean it. But you can. Because me and many of my friends have been in that same position, and no matter how insurmountable the challenge seems, it works out in the end.