What it takes to dance in the English National Ballet’s Nutcracker

I know I am in the right place when, among the London Docklands skyscrapers and canals, I see a 20ft-tall silver ballet shoe. This sculpture marks the entrance to English National Ballet’s Mulryan Centre for Dance, in Canning Town. ENB moved here in 2019 – a marked contrast to its old hub, Jay Mews in Kensington, where Diana, Princess of Wales used to pop in. But here, in 93,000sq ft of custom-built space, I find the company joyfully at work on a lavish, expansive new Nutcracker.

It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine one of the most popular works in the repertoire. It is late summer when I visit, but costumers are busily sewing 65 pieces of ice into each snowflake’s extravagant headdress. “This production will hopefully run 10 years or more,” says Aaron S Watkin, who was appointed as ENB’s artistic director last year. It could last a lot longer – Rudolf Nureyev’s 1977 Romeo & Juliet for ENB is still going strong, and there is a sense that the company is upping its game.

“We have thought a lot about how we can elevate the production values, by making a set that’s three-dimensional, not painted, and then layering on video and projection and illusion, to make it all come alive,” says Watkin, a Canadian by birth, who has already created a successful Nutcracker in Dresden, during his 16-year tenure as artistic director of the Semperoper Ballett. “I mean if you go to the West End, to Stranger Things, often you can’t believe how they just did that. Of course they have a lot more money…” But you have Tchaikovsky. “Exactly!” The show’s co-creator, Olivier Award-winning choreographer Arielle Smith, 28, chimes in. “The score is magic in itself; it’s unmatched.”

Watkin and Smith’s concept is grounded in one of ENB’s top London venues, Frank Matcham’s Coliseum in St Martin’s Lane. “When the curtain goes up, we want the audience to recognise the world – a street scene in Edwardian London, 1904, the year the Coliseum was built.” Clara will still be in her demure white nightdress, but with a lot more fight in her.

“So often, Clara is hiding and scared, and the Nutcracker Prince is leading her everywhere, but this time she’ll have more agency,” says Smith. “Maybe she’ll drive her own sleigh,” whispers Watkin. “As a young girl watching that, I’d have been so inspired,” replies Smith. “The Edwardian period was one of new hope and new possibilities,” says Watkin, “so while Clara is still confined by Edwardian convention, our message is very much, if you can dream it, you can do it.” Could suffragettes be involved? They both gasp. Spoiler alert.

I am ushered past rows of willowy men and women wearing high-spec legwarmers resembling moon boots, and into the sacred rehearsal space. Here 17 dancers are concentrating fiercely while a pianist bashes out the Waltz of the Flowers from Act II. “Remember, your petals will move when you jump!” calls out Watkin, who is leading the class. The dancers nod seriously. They are to be “buttercream roses”: frosting on legs.

Whenever they dance, their faces light up with theatrical, megawatt joy – which quickly fades when they are called to a halt. “Plié! Plié!” commands Watkin. “Come on, let’s do our tribute to the Kirov – they put their chins on the floor!” (He would know; as William Forsythe’s choreographic assistant, he worked with the Mariinsky Ballet – formerly known as the Kirov – in St Petersburg.) “Let your movements be romantic and generous; the Sugar Plum Fairy is next and she is all delicacy and control.”

Sangeun Lee, a gracious, tall lead principal originally from South Korea, reveals that she will be both the Sugar Plum Fairy and Clara’s mother – adding psychological resonance to the solo usually regarded as ballet’s most technical feat. “She’s demonstrating to Clara what she should aspire to,” she says.

Other dancers are watching from a corner in the studio. They look straight out of Degas, with added outsize rubber bands, which they use for precision stretching – one is exercising only her big toe. Each one has an individual plan from a science of sport coach, and in-house facilities include an ultrasound scanner as well as a hydrotherapy pool in which dancers recovering from injuries can perform barre exercises with less risk.

“We are really supported to take care of our bodies,” says Ivana Bueno, 25, who will dance the part of Clara. “Our body is our only instrument so we have to have it for our whole life.” What is her Clara going to be like? “She’s a fighter, a warrior. She’s the one stabbing the Rat King, and that’s what makes all the magic unlock for her, and the romance.”

Bueno feels like a future superstar. Her eyes are genuinely almond-shaped. Brought up in Córdoba in Mexico, she was scouted by Tamara Rojo, ENB’s former artistic director, and was recently appointed first soloist after seven years with the company. Earlier this year she played Odette/Odile in Derek Deane’s Swan Lake at the Royal Albert Hall. “I was going to be one of the cygnets and a princess in Act III,” she recalls, “but then the girl who was going to do the main role was injured 10 days before, and everything changed…”

She also took the lead in both Mary Skeaping’s traditional Giselle and Akram Khan’s modern version of the same, performing the latter at Sadler’s Wells the day the Princess of Wales made a surprise visit in September, only her second public outing since finishing chemotherapy. “Wonderfully powerful, moving and inspiring... Creativity at its best!” enthused the Princess.

“I feel like I’m just starting to do what I dreamt of – I can go into roles more deeply,” says Bueno. After each performance she applies ice to her feet, plus magnesium and CBD cream. She lives a 10-minute walk from the Mulryan Centre, and spends her evenings wearing compression boots (“I treated myself”) while sewing her pointe shoes “and watching Netflix, a perfect evening!”

The new on-site costume atelier is vastly improved and expanded, thanks to sponsorship from Chanel. “They help us so much,” says Gerry Tiernan, production costume manager. “They sent me an embellishment expert from the King’s Foundation the week before the tech rehearsal to be an extra pair of skilled hands when we need them most. It’s expertise, it’s knowledge, and it’s financial.” Grace Chan, COO of ENB, says spontaneously when I bump into her in the foyer, “Oh, we love Chanel. Unlike some corporate sponsors, they’re very long-term. They believe in making, and in growing, female talent.”

As I tiptoe round the costume workshop, I see many marvels: a small Victorian jacket being roughed-up with sandpaper, so it looks as if a chimney sweep got it third-hand; a tutu glittering as if dusted with the first frost (“tutus are fairly industrial on the inside,” says Tiernan); multiple nightdresses for both child and grown-up dancers – it’s hard to tell which is which... Outfits are created by specialists around the country – a bodice-maker in south London, a tutu workshop in Birmingham.

In the dye room I find Symone Frost, peacefully dipping a white fabric scrap into a tank of pink to create a delicate ombré petal, one of about 1,000 she will hand-dye for the skirts and headdresses of the buttercream roses. Each is individually stiffened with fishing twine. The delicacy and care of the operation is staggering. A photograph of a cupcake is pinned to the mood board for guidance.

Production designer Dick Bird’s Edwardian London is drawn from the lowering cityscapes painted by Atkinson Grimshaw, but for the Land of Sweets he has been on an international sugar rush, making costumes of Ukrainian poppy-seed cake, torrone, marzipan, hot chocolate, and twirling cinnamon sticks, all chosen for their “kinetic qualities”. When I ask about Chanel’s support, he reminds me that the link goes back to ENB’s co-founder Alicia Markova, who danced with the Ballet Russes and met Coco Chanel when she was designing costumes for Serge Diaghilev, its impresario.

I didn’t expect to be moved to tears, but Emma Hawes’s Sugar Plum pas de deux with Aitor Arrieta is so full of love, I completely forget I am sitting on the floor of a rehearsal room, and that Hawes is wearing a faded practice tutu. “Emma!” shouts Loipa Araújo, associate artistic director, who was, in 1967, prima ballerina of Cuba’s national ballet. “Go and get a proper tutu, that one looks like a rat’s nest.” Hawes runs off to fetch one, and also quickly tends to her poor feet with cream and bandages, before going back on pointe, as blithe as if she were spun from air and sugar.

The Nutcracker is at the London Coliseum, London WC2, from 12 December to 12 January (ballet.org.uk)