This year’s ‘Nutcracker’ the last dance for Miami City Ballet’s retiring prima ballerina

Weeks ahead of George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker,” the Sugar Plum Fairy is getting ready to entertain. Her wand at hand, she has magic to command. At her palace in the Land of the Sweets the decor glows, a caravan of dance is about to be received.

Since 1990, Miami City Ballet has brought a number of noteworthy ballerinas into the story’s lead. But the upcoming shows feature an incomparable Sugar Plum Fairy at a special juncture. After 27 seasons as a professional dancer, the last 18 at MCB, principal ballerina Jennifer Lauren is retiring from the company.

Miami City Ballet will present George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker,” opening Friday through Dec. 24 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. (Lauren dances the role at the Arsht at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 17 and noon on Sunday, Dec. 24. Before she performs in Miami, Lauren will be a guest artist dancing the role in her hometown of Tuscaloosa. Other dancers performing at MCB as Sugar Plum Fairy include Dawn Atkins, Hannah Fischer, Samantha Hope Galler, Ashley Knox, Jordan-Elizabeth Long and Taylor Naturkas.)

Impish projections by Wendall K. Harrington along with designers Isabel and Ruben Toledo’s costumes and set are the hallmarks of MCB’s production with its made-for-Miami look sparked by company artistic director Lourdes Lopez in 2017. Peter Tchaikovsky’s score, often the soundtrack to our yuletide chores and cheer, will sound livelier than elsewhere coming from the company orchestra.

Need a rundown on the Sugar Plum Fairy —or most things “Nutcracker?” Lauren’s history with the ballet makes her an encyclopedia of such knowledge.

“When I talked to Lourdes about retiring,” says Lauren, “we looked over the season, and ‘The Nutcracker’ stood out as near and dear to my heart.” The role of Sugar Plum Fairy loomed perfect for a farewell.

Familiar and meaningful—Lauren likes to compare “The Nutcracker” to cherished visits from a loved one—the work has the status of a cultural ritual. And while studying ballet in her native Alabama and participating in Tuscaloosa Community Dancers’ annual “Nutcracker,” the young dancer fell under the fairy’s spell.

“I’ve looked up to this ballet since I danced as a Polichinelle at the age of eight,” says the Tuscaloosa native. Having watched countless shows and moved through different roles in the Christmas favorite, by the time she performed the role as a professional at Alabama Ballet—the Birmingham-based company among a select few to do the Balanchine “Nutcracker,” the same one as MCB —Lauren says she “knew the choreography, the music, inside out.”

She carried that know-how joining the corps at MCB in 2007. Many Snowflakes, Flowers, sweets and dancing dolls later, Lauren plugged back into her wand power in 2013, when director Lopez assigned Sugar Plum Fairy to the ballerina for the first time at her current company.

“This opportunity felt huge and I was ecstatic,” says Lauren, appreciative that Lopez paired her with Cuban-born principal Reyneris Reyes as the Cavalier, his experience and affability bolstering the ballerina’s artistry.

Other Cavaliers thereafter joined forces with Lauren to put luster on the pas de deux, which is the culmination of “The Nutcracker,” imposing without being bombastic, a silky bespoke fit for the ballerina.

Former MCB principal Renan Cerdeiro, a long-time dance partner of Lauren’s in many memorable ballets, says, “The way Jennifer approaches her Sugar Plum had an influence on me. I used to go for a more stern, regal look. But she’s so sweet and lighthearted that taking her hand and looking into her beautiful blue eyes on stage let me put more sparkle in the dance. After all,” he says with a laugh, “the Cavalier is probably made of candy.”

It’s not that dance technique here brings empty calories but that it indulges the illusion of a sugar high. As Cerdeiro points out, “Balanchine’s choreography (created in 1954) is packed with steps, a greater challenge for me than more traditional versions.”

In this, Lauren’s interpretations have evolved. “When I was younger, I was just thrilled to get out there and do what I’d dreamed of since I was a little girl. As I grew into the dancer I am today, it became less about executing steps and more about presence, how I carried myself. Sugar Plum Fairy is not simply about a smile and looking pretty. I’m there to tell a story. With so many eyes on me, it’s a huge responsibility.”

The character initially sets a tone of wonder mingling with angels—here it’s children from MCB School—opening her realm, her heart, soon to welcome Marie and the prince into a world alien to discord. Sugar Plum Fairy oversees dances with regional flavors which are treats for the soul as much as the senses. When she takes center stage in her iconic pas de deux, says Lauren, “The music is quite luxurious, and that’s where she confirms her leadership.”

And the ballerina must beam with generosity, and for that, Lauren tells us, she draws inspiration from her mother. Betty Quarles has always been there for her daughter: to drive her to dance classes while encouraging academics; to sew costumes; to greenlight her apprenticeship at a young age away from home and eventually to cheer on her daughter’s career—hand in hand with Jennifer’s late father, Ronnie, —with trips to Miami to watch many a “Nutcracker.”

“It was always so much fun afterward to spend Christmas with her in her small South Beach apartment,” says Quarles, their dear company including Blake, her daughter’s husband since 2009 and Jennifer’s pug Sophie, once even featured in “Pointe” dance magazine.

Though Quarles realized ballet was Jennifer’s oxygen early on, she maintains she’s mostly wanted her daughter “to be a well-rounded human being.” That’s what she communicates to all those ballet mothers who often ask her how best to support their children in the art form.

For her farewell, Lauren is dancing Sugar Plum alongside Stephen Loch, her Cavalier since last season. Both dancers grew up in Southern towns (he’s from Denton, Texas) and worked hard for their ballet dreams. Tackling choreography, they’re highly attuned (he came to MCB as a principal in 2021 from Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet, another Balanchine-based company), and their temperaments harmonize.

He says, “When we’re in the studio, there’s no pretense. Jennifer is very grounded, and there’s great energy between us. It’s been magical to find a partnership like ours at this time in my career.”

In a delightful turn of planet ballet, on Dec. 1— Lauren’s 43rd birthday—they performed Sugar Plum and the Cavalier as guests at Lake Cities Ballet Theatre in Lewisville, Texas, where Loch first took the stage as a 5 year old in the party scene. Likewise marking a homecoming, Lauren has often returned to dance Sugar Plum with Tuscaloosa Community Dancers. She returns to its production as headlining artist from Dec. 12-15 where her Cavalier is Rainer Krenstetter, another former MCB principal.

And that part of her farewell seems like a signpost in a future direction.

“Dancing Sugar Plum has allowed me to be a positive role model for many young, aspiring dancers,” says Lauren. “And over the past five years, I’ve been teaching a lot more. Now I can enhance that. No matter what I do, I’m going to be sharing my knowledge.”

If you go:

WHAT: Miami City Ballet’s George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker”

WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 24.

WHERE: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

COST: $43-$264

INFORMATION: 305-929-7010 or miamicityballet.org

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