Of the bounty of cultural items that crowd the Christmas platter each year — Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas,” Handel’s “Messiah,” an ecstatic Jimmy Stewart running down the street of Bedford Falls shouting “Merry Christmas!” in “It’s a Wonderful Life” — few are as synonymous with the season as “The Nutcracker.”
And while the Bowlus Fine Arts Center isn’t staging the Russian classic this year, two dancers with Iola connections managed to get their fill of sugarplums last week by claiming starring roles in Ballet Midwest’s staging of “The Nutcracker” at the Performing Arts Center in Topeka.
Drew and Archie Huskey, grandsons of Iolan Sally Huskey, grew up active, athletic boys in their native Lincoln, Kan., but neither harbored dance dreams or even knew their assemblé from their elbow until they joined the Topeka dance company a few years ago.
In a macho culture that fails to transmit to boy ballet dancers the same affection it affords girls, the male to female ratio in most dance classes across the country is radically slanted. Because of this, however, a premium is put on those males brave and confident enough to slide into a pair of tights. This was at least the case for Drew, 30, the older of the two brothers.
“My boss at the hospital here,” remembers Huskey, who, in his civilian life, works as a pharmacist at the St. Francis Cancer Center in Topeka, “his daughter was doing ballet at a studio here in town. And they’re always looking for guys, because of course, socially, it’s not very well accepted for guys to do ballet. And so the girls need partners. At first, he encouraged me to come help them practice, but once you start showing up, the artistic directors really pull you in and want you to do more and want you to perform. And then, all of a sudden, it’s like: ‘You want to do ‘Nutcracker’?”
At 6’4,” with a narrowly muscular physique and a thousand-watt smile, the elder Huskey makes the perfect Sugarplum Fairy Cavalier, a role he’s embodied on the Topeka stage the last two years.
Huskey’s initial interest in performance dance was purely physical. “I do a lot of sports on the side, for fun and to stay fit. I got into yoga in college, and that helps a lot with flexibility. I run some. But I’m not a big fan of doing leg work, squats and everything. This is a good substitute. You don’t realize you’re doing a lot of these exercises but then, three hours later, you’re sweating pretty bad and you’ve got a really good leg workout in.”
But, in time, Huskey’s intellectual interest in dance overtook his corporeal one, and he now finds himself in spare moments pulling up YouTube clips of famous dancers. “And sometimes relatives will send me clips of professional male dancers, too. These guys are really impressive.
“If I had known about this when I was younger, I would have tried to get into it then. As far as my [toddler] son goes, if he’s interested in it, I’ll definitely encourage him and help him along.”
And while there’s no evidence that Drew’s balletic influence has rubbed off on his other six siblings, it’s caught fire with his younger brother Archie, who has for the second year earned the title role in Ballet Midwest’s version of “The Nutcracker.”
“Archie was very involved, in both high school and when he was at Allen County [College], in the drama department. He’s done many plays, he’s a great singer — he took singing lessons when he was younger — so I think, overall, he’s probably more talented. I’m probably stronger and taller, but I think, artistically, he’s more talented.”
Archie, 23, is currently studying civil engineering at K-State, where he has just concluded his finals.
Like Archie, Drew did his preliminary coursework at ACC — working at the Iola Pharmacy during this period — before graduating, in 2010, from KU’s School of Pharmacy.
It would be wrong to force a connection between Huskey’s work at the hospital and his sideline in dance, but the young pharmacist does at least apply a biochemical approach to his preshow jitters. Staring out at a packed house from the wings of the theater, Huskey reminds himself that “the hormones you’re releasing and the neuroreceptors that are firing in your brain when you’re nervous and when you’re excited are actually very similar. Some experts think they might even be the same. The only difference, I guess, is that you associate one with a negative feeling and one with a positive feeling.
“If I do start feeling that way, I just tell myself I’m excited, not nervous. I think about the positive outcomes rather than the awful things that could happen. And so, anymore, no, I don’t feel very nervous going onstage. Of course, it might help that my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, so I really can’t see how many people are out there.”
Actually, the specific liberation Huskey finds in ballet may derive from the fact that it occupies a world in stark contrast to the one he encounters every day at the cancer hospital.
“I’m totally dedicated to the oncology department here,” explained Huskey. “On a daily basis, I meet with patients to go over chemotherapy regimens and talk to them about side effects and about what they’re about to experience with chemotherapy. I try to help organize their home medication and the new prescriptions that we’re giving them, so it’s not quite so confusing. As sad as some of the outcomes are, the impact that you can make on these people’s lives is huge. You can really, really help them.
“So, yeah, I would say I do get some kind of release in ballet. I suppose at work you’re always dealing with people who are really sick and, in general, they’re often older people. When you go to ballet, you’re surrounded by young, athletic people, healthy people, people who are always smiling. I suppose it’s kind of an escape from reality. For a short time.”
The notion of escape is at least, in part, the theme of “The Nutcracker.” In the first act — a dream scenario — the young girl, Clara, is transported into a realm of unreality, a world where time is suspended. Here, toy soldiers battle armies of mice, and a broken nutcracker that the girl has loved in real life morphs into a beautiful prince who, in this new world, is capable of returning her love. Meanwhile, the stage itself transforms — a domestic interior gives way to a deep, moonlit pine forest, which, before you know it, disappears inside the soft noise of a blizzard.
‘Nutcracker’ production has local flavor
