It's the peak of Nutcracker season and there are strung-out, panicked dancers across the globe anticipating the end that is in sight. Being in a production of The Nutcracker essentially means you sign up to sleep, eat, and breathe the beloved holiday ballet from October to January. So yeah, it's no joke.
Here are ten ways to identify the Nutcrackin' dancers in your everyday life:
1. They've got this constant gleam of frantic desperation in their eyes
Listen up. Nutcracker season is intense. From 5 hour rehearsals late at night to trying to remember four different sets of choreography, dancers are grasping at straws just trying to stay sane. The struggle to balance other priorities with the behemoth that is Nutcracker usually leaves dancers visibly frenzied.
2. They're humming classical music to themselves
Have you ever listened to a song and then couldn't stop singing it for a week? Okay, now imagine you listened to that song for hours on end every night for AT LEAST two months. That's Nutcracker rehearsal.
3. Ditto on mumbling
When you're in five scenes and you have 1-6 minutes of choreography to learn for each of these scenes, you begin to practice whenever and wherever you can. If that means mouthing the steps and making those weird little hand gestures during Biology, then so be it.
4. The popping noises when they sit/stand/breathe
Everything is stiff. Everything is sore. Everything hurts. Dancers' joints are just snap crackle and popping all over the place during Nutcracker season.
5. They're lugging around an overflowing bag
They're either on their way to rehearsal, on their way back from rehearsal, or have rehearsal at some point in the distant future and won't have time to stop back home and gather their things.
6. ALL THE CAFFEINE
Sleep deprivation is pretty much a given, especially once tech week starts. Gotta love the rehearsals into the early hours of the morning because Linda still isn't sure what the arms are for that one leap in the middle of flowers. Linda, get your act together so we can go home and go to bed; I've already had four triple shot lattes today, I don't know if my body can handle another.
7. Crunchy, dry hair
Hairspray never comes out. At least, not the way dancers put it in to shellac their hair back for a performance. Shower three times, that stuff's not budging.
8. Their faint outlines of red lipstick
Same applies for lipstick: it's not coming off. Even when you scrub really hard, the essence of the color lingers, kind of smudged around your mouth like you ate a cherry Popsicle. Not a flattering look for anybody.
9. They leave a trail of bobby pins
Love or hate them, bobby pins are a staple of any dancer's supplies. That being said, they get lost often and everywhere, whether they fall out of a bun during a turn or out of a hole in the corner of a dance bag.
10. They won't shut up about it
Nutcracker is downright stressful, but dancers love it more than anything in the world. It means holidays, traditions, memories, bonding, and performing. While Nutcracker season is kicking our butt, and we're constantly complaining about our rehearsal schedule or our itchy costumes or THE FACT THAT THEY PLAY NUTCRACKER MUSIC IN EVERY STORE/ELEVATOR/COMMERCIAL AS SOON AS NOVEMBER STARTS, we wouldn't trade it for the world. And trust me, when we moan about how Nutcracker is the worst, we're all secretly glad that it's that time of year again.
