A Sugar Plum for a Newly Arrived Ballerina in MCB’s ‘The Nutcracker’

Miami City Ballet dancers in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®’ “. Choreography by George Balanchine. © George Balanchine Trust. (Photo by Alexander Izilieav)

With its year-after-year performances, a long-burnished classic like “The Nutcracker” gains new glow when a gifted ballerina takes command for the first time of a prominent and career-elevating role. Showing this, Macarena Giménez, hired this season as a principal at Miami City Ballet, will debut as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the company’s George Balanchine version of the holiday dance tradition.

Miami City Ballet’s “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” is at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami, opening Friday, Dec. 12 through Sunday, Dec. 28.

“I so look forward to this opportunity,” says Giménez, a 32-year-old native of Longchamps, Argentina. In Buenos Aires, she entered the school of the venerable Ballet Estable del Teatro Colón and joined the company in 2012, eventually rising to the rank of principal under the direction of former American Ballet Theatre star Paloma Herrera.

All along, “The Nutcracker” in Rudolf Nureyev’s darker rendition marked key moments in Giménez’s career. As a youngster she danced small roles like a mouse and a child in the Party Scene. Her promotion to principal came after a rousing performance of Clara as a young woman.

Macarena Giménez, hired this season as a principal at Miami City Ballet, debuts as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the company’s George Balanchine version of the holiday dance tradition, on view at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, opening Friday, Dec. 12. (Photo courtesy of Miami City Ballet)

“At the Colón, Clara was my first performance after I gave birth to my daughter,” says the ballerina. “Now, immersing myself in Miami City Ballet’s ‘Nutcracker’ for Sugar Plum, I’ve been truly enchanted by the whole endeavor—costumes, sets, and especially the choreography, which is so attentive to the music.”

The magic of the ballet’s fantastic world, evoked through Balanchine’s wizardly dance strokes to Tchaikovsky’s famed score, culminates in Giménez’s regal ministrations as Sugar Plum in the second act’s Land of the Sweets. This follows iconic scenes as the first act’s Christmas party, the conjuring of mysterious guest Herr Drosselmeyer, the battle between mischievous mice and upright toys under a Sequoia-sized Christmas tree—with the Nutcracker at the helm—and a flurry of lissome Snowflakes.

Let it be said, though, that ruling this fairyland—where sweets jump through hoops, perky as peppermint, or swirl around, rich as Spanish chocolate—requires not just a decorous carriage and a cordial disposition but true ballerina grit.

Giménez has gained praise in how she balances suppleness with strength. And now, she explains, “By dancing Balanchine I’ve learned to apply technique in a novel way so that the movement looks natural and feels right in my body.”

Unlike most dancers at MCB, the Argentine newcomer did not develop her artistry in a Balanchine-based environment. Luckily, she does bring experience in some of the master’s works. Throughout her eleven years at the Colón and then at Sarasota Ballet, the company that drew her and her husband, Maximiliano Iglesias, as principals to Florida in 2022, she danced notable roles in Balanchine ballets such as “Allegro Brillante” and “The Four Temperaments.”

Giménez emphasizes how important it’s been for her to not just adapt but to flourish in Balanchine’s inventive laying out of dance phrases, which, she notes, often land right on the strongest beats of the music.

Macarena Giménez and Chase Swatosh in Miami City Ballet’s “Year of The Rabbit.” Choreography by Justin Peck. (Photo courtesy of Miami City Ballet)

About Sugar Plum’s displays alongside her Cavalier, she explains that “partnering feels especially different. It seems so much more three-dimensional. The spacing between me and the man allows for greater freedom in doing turns and participating in lifts. Of course, my classical base is there to bolster me, so it’s mostly been a matter of building on that with a new set of tools.”

In this, she’s had the good fortune to be partnered by Stanislav Olshanskyi, a mutual discovery that has worked beautifully for both.  Apart from his impactful stage presence, the Ukrainian-born dancer has well-honed skills to develop a productive artistic relationship with a variety of ballerinas. He recalls how back in the National Opera of Ukraine, where he was a principal dancer until coming to Miami City Ballet in 2022, he was serially assigned roles alongside more than twelve of the company women. At MCB, however, he’s been most frequently paired with Dawn Atkins, his trusted and terrific Sugar Plum.

Dawn Atkins and Stanislav Olshanskyi in Miami City Ballet’s “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®.” Choreography by George Balanchine. © George Balanchine Trust. (Photo by Alexander Iziliaev)

“Sure, everyone’s different,” he says. “And for me to adjust to someone new could be a little challenging.  There are nuances, and adjustments have to be made. But we all speak the same language of ballet, and sometimes it’s just a matter of us finding other, though similar words.”

A shared exemplary talent is, of course, a big part of this partnership. And in the case of Giménez and Olshanskyi, add a companionable understanding of what it takes to accommodate to a new environment, artistic as well as personal. Both dancers have as background classical European dance training—Giménez refers to the Russian academic lineage at the Colón—and had to shift to the dynamics of the American school—the speed, the keen musicality—once at their present company.

All that came to bear on Olshanskyi when he first portrayed the Cavalier at MCB three years ago, given that at his former Ukrainian company the Nutcracker story (choreographed by Valery Kovtun), as in the case of the Colón version, does not include a Sugar Plum and her consort.

Miami City Ballet School students in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®’ “. Choreography by George Balanchine. © George Balanchine Trust. (Photo by Alexander Izilieav)

“It’s turned out to be a pretty easy process with Macarena,” says Olshanskyi. “Occasionally we can be on different pages since we’ve never danced together before. But if there’s something we need to clear up, we just talk it out. And I think that doing this in a classical ballet, rather than in something contemporary, has also helped out.”

When the couple unveils their detailed crafting of the pas de deux that figures as the climax of MCB’s “The Nutcracker,” they’re determined to shine in its formidable feats and harmonious elegance. Still, Giménez has reserved a special place in her heart—as an artist and a mother—for Sugar Plum’s initial entrance into the ballet. There she sets the tone for her realm by dancing among students from MCB School, who will, no doubt, take her back to her own childhood experiences on stage.

She recalls a story of her eight-year-old daughter, Emma, when after a visit to see “The Nutcracker” wished she could take the Sugar Plum Fairy’s magic wand home.

“She became entranced by all the dance, the music—by so many sounds and colors,” says Giménez, and that’s a delight she can’t wait for her daughter to experience again.

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

WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12, Saturday, Dec. 13, Friday, Dec. 19, Saturday, Dec. 20, Tuesday, Dec. 23, Friday, Dec. 26, Saturday, Dec. 27; 6:30 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 21; matinee performances: noon, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14, Wednesday, Dec. 17, Thursday, Dec. 18, Sunday, Dec. 21; 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13, Friday, Dec. 19, Saturday, Dec. 20, Tuesday, Dec. 23, Saturday, Dec. 27.

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

COST: $52.65 to $360.95 includes fees.

INFORMATION: 305-929-7010 or miamicityballet.org

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