There will be no Sugar Plum Fairy twirling or Mouse King leaping for Alexandria children this holiday season. The Alexandria Ballet has cancelled the 2009 Nutcracker performances, another victim of the economic downturn.
In the past, Virginia Britton, owner and artistic director of the ballet, has been able to count on the kindness of "angels" to donate the $25,000 price tag of the seasonal favorite. This year, however, Britton’s angels had to tighten their purse strings, and ballet didn’t make the cut.
According to Britton, ticket sales could generate enough money for the company’s professional dancers. However, the up-front expense of renting the studio for rehearsals and performances would still need to be covered.
"If a large amount of money did come in at once, I don’t think it’s too late to salvage The Nutcracker this year," she said. "Most of the performers have danced it before. Everything’s done except rehearsal for the young children in her classes who haven’t performed it yet."
Britton’s version of The Nutcracker, geared to young audiences, has been performed in this region for 19 years, many of those at The Atheneum in Old Town. For the past three years she’s been teaching classes and performing The Nutcracker at the Alliance Dance Institute studio at Landmark Mall.
"There are few venues in this area for classes or performances," said Britton. "We are fortunate to be at Alliance Dance Institute where the space has sprung floors."
The Alexandria Ballet offers classes for children from age three through high school. Up to age eight, Britton teaches pre-ballet and creative movement.

BRITTON’S TEACHING methods allow her to include young students in her production of The Nutcracker. Some of the characters they dance include the mice, a little tea girl, and the guards.
One of those young students was Mary Kate Battle who started studying with "Miss Virginia" when she was 8 years old. She’s a senior at Notre Dame now, and she still takes dance lessons a couple of times a week — for fun, according to her father, attorney Tim Battle of Mount Vernon.
"Mary Kate was thrilled to be part of The Nutcracker, first as a guard with a moustache. She just stood there, and she loved it," the father shared.
"The next year she was a guard without a moustache. She moved up and up until she was one of the flowers dancing on stage with the professionals. She still says it was the hardest thing she’s ever done, but she kept up with the others and did a great job up on point for 4-1/2 minutes."
Battle says he’s disappointed Britton’s Nutcracker isn’t happening this year.
"It’s really a nice thing for the community," he said. "It reaches a lot of people who might not be able to afford the Kennedy Center for a ballet."
Another disappointed ballet lover is 13-year old Ella Boissonnault, a student at George Washington Middle School. She’s been taking classes at The Alexandria Ballet since she was 5 years old, has danced the role of Clara in The Nutcracker for the past two years, and was supposed to do it again this year.
"I think dancing is cool," said Boissonnault. "You can express yourself without words and it’s a nice break from reality. It’s fun to get in front of an audience and just let go."
An accomplished dancer for her young age, Boissonnault has studied during summers with The Washington School for Ballet and The Joffrey Ballet in New York, but says she likes "Miss Virginia" best.
"She’s not like other dance teachers," Boissonnault said. "Most schools I’ve been to are concerned with developing technique. Miss Virginia lets you put yourself into it, to add your own touch. It’s more you.
"Here it’s like family — The Alexandria Ballet family. It’s special because when you come here you’re always going to fit in somehow."
As the sole proprietor of The Alexandria Ballet, Britton wears many hats, but prefers the more artistic and creative roles of her company. She crafted and decorated all the costumes for The Nutcracker, designed the set and choreographed the one-hour shortened version. Her program maintains the artistic integrity of the ballet while keeping up the interest of young audiences. She includes a narrator who engages children in the audience at the start of the performance by having them practice boos for the mouse king and yeas for the prince. Her Nutcracker finishes with the Russian Dance as the finale — a rousing, happy ending to a first exposure for many to classical ballet.

IF A NEW ANGEL doesn’t find its way to The Alexandria Ballet in time for this year’s performance of The Nutcracker, Britton has a plan to revive the ballet for the 2010 holiday season. She is incorporating, filing for 501C3 non-profit status and creating "The Friends of The Alexandria Ballet." Ballet lovers and others who wish to help can contact her at 703-568-4425 or visit the Web site www.thealexandriaballet.com.
"One year when the sugar plum fairy came on stage with her wand," she recalled, "a little girl in the audience yelled out, ‘That’s me!’ The adults at the performance and all of us back stage gave a simultaneous, ‘Awwww.’"
That’s the kind of reaction that’s brings the dancers and the audiences back year after year.
If there’s an angel out there trying to earn its wings this season, Miss Virginia and her dancers are standing by.