A Ballerina's Full Rehearsal Routine for 'The Nutcracker'

[gentle piano music]

Oh, sorry. [sighs]

Can see we get a little winded.

Okay. [gentle piano music]

Hi, I'm Megan Fairchild, principal dancer

with the New York City Ballet.

Come with me as I prepare for my final season

of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker.

[dancers chattering]

So we start our day off coming into company class .

Even if we don't see each other in the day normally,

the whole company is actually together

for company class and it's a nice time

to have a little social moment.

I personally feel I spend a lot of my days in a studio alone

or just with one other person.

You come in a little early

and you find the range of motion in your body again

and try to get out a little bit

of the soreness from whatever you rehearsed the day before.

And then class starts.

We have a live pianist every day.

The teacher comes in [gentle piano music]

and gives whatever combinations they want.

I can sometimes tell if they've thought about the repertory

that we're doing at New York City Ballet,

but sometimes it's nice to really do different things.

Each combination, there's a structure

of what steps we should do,

but they make up new combinations every day

so that we don't get bored.

And eventually we step away from the bar,

move into center, we do pirouettes, jumps

and then we're all ready for our first rehearsal of the day.

[gentle piano music]

[rosin skittering]

Sometimes I put heels on now

and I'm like, Ooh, I want a little rosin.

You know?

I don't wanna be slip sliding in any shoes.

[Interviewer] What's that for?

Rubbing alcohol.

Just when they're brand new 'cause it's glue.

And this is great that that's hard,

but we also have to do this demi-pointe

so there's just a little bit of it.

You need to be flexible.

Nice pants by the way.

Jazz pants.

Yeah.

This is my partner Joseph Gordon.

Hi everybody. I call him Joe.

Is this second year doing opening night

of Sugar Plum together? Third, right?

Okay, third. Third.

Maybe third. Third.

Two or three. It's been many years,

many partners but-

She's the veteran. I'm the newbie.

It's very easy with Joe,

so I don't really have to work very hard.

We like dancing together, so that's nice.

[gentle piano music]

We both know this role really well.

There's no steps to learn.

It's basically just running the pas de deux,

and if there's any sticky moments that we wanna stop

because your body feels like it's not ready to move on

to the next step or something went really wrong,

we can stop and problem solve.

But usually we try to run through the whole thing

and then talk about it afterwards.

Maybe there's some things that our rehearsal director

at the front of the room saw that, you know,

we couldn't feel in our body.

It's a very different experience, what you're trying to do

and translate to the audience

and what is actually, you know, happening.

[gentle piano music]

Phew! Oof!

That was pretty good, actually.

That was pretty good.

Just a little too far away, I was for the-

I need to get going.

Second [indistinct] set.

What do you mean, you need to get going

on that tour jete?

Yeah. The double cabriole

looks fine.

Looked good, yeah.

And now I dance alone.

[gentle piano music]

So it's really important to have those eyes at the front

of the room because you can only control

so much with what it feels like.

But you need outside view of, okay,

your shoulder's popping up

or that arm's too high here, do this better.

Or you do it better when you do this this way.

It starts to become second nature.

If I didn't have that, your muscles would go into spasm

after the show or in the show

because it would be trying to micromanage too much at once.

We get to a place where you go on stage

and you can literally just get lost in the music

and your body just is moving

and you're not even telling it what to do.

It's just muscle memory.

That's what a good focused, zoned performance is.

You didn't micromanage anything in the moment.

It just happened

because you gave yourself enough preparation.

[Megan panting]

[laughs] So high.

I just need 16 seconds.

And also I don't like mapping in bad habits

'cause I'm tired, because you know what it'll be,

it'll be my shoulders.

[gentle piano music]

At the beginning, you had a lot of space go up.

I see what you're saying here and here,

and I'm just there.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. That's profile, though,

right?

Should I cheat it? Like that.

Oh! Yeah.

And then run profile, but-

I don't know if I can even make that look good.

Yeah you can. None of them are good.

So I just get very literal.

This is a double twist on the spine.

[Mary] Yeah, but don't make it big. Yes!

Initially I was brand new

to all of the steps and my partner,

we did six straight weeks of rehearsal,

an hour of rehearsal every day.

And we would get to the first difficult step,

and we would have to run that seven to eight times.

We would get to the next difficult step,

and we would run that 10 times.

And then we would get to another difficult step.

It was like 20 times, that one,

like, it was almost really demoralizing at the beginning.

I think something that really helps in Nutcracker is,

you kind of take it on the road

and do it on a gig

at a smaller school away from the spotlight

of the big stage,

and you have a little more freedom to explore

and get comfortable.

And so at this point I could literally perform

at any given minute.

It's just in there.

But it's nice to have the preparation so that when you get

to the stage you don't have to think about anything

but like the beauty of the live orchestra.

[gentle harp music]

Hi, now I'm at physical therapy.

This is our physical therapist, Marika Molnar,

who we are so blessed to have at New York City Ballet.

She takes care of all of us. [Marika laughs]

She's like our mama.

And she's gonna do some shockwave on me

and help get rid of some scar tissue

at the bottom of my soleus muscle.

This is really a pressure wave,

brings better blood supply.

It actually helps the cells regenerate.

Just recently on the market in the last couple of years,

and we were fortunate enough

to have it here in the New York City Ballet.

This is the kind of treatment where you have

to rely on the patient to tell you when it hurts

and when it stops hurting.

Ready?

[shockwave pulses]

[Megan] It's like a jackhammer of sound waves.

[Marika] Yes, it is.

Really gets in there and reduces the pain.

[Megan] That hurts!

Is it about a five outta 10? Yeah.

[Marika] Okay, we'll stay here.

Still there.

[Marika] That's okay.

Sort of the back side of the Achilles.

It's better.

[Marika] About a two out 10, you said?

Yeah. Okay.

I'm gonna start traveling back upwards.

[Megan] I feel it into my heel.

[Marika] Good.

Now we'll do the focused, okay?

And again, the same idea.

I'm gonna put you on just a little stretch.

You tell me- There.

I feel all the way into my left ankle.

Good. Woo!

[Marika] Just a little bit longer.

Usually we do 2 or 3000 shocks per area, so.

It's interesting, now on this side,

I feel it onto my right side of my foot.

[Marika] It goes right through, yeah.

Well, this is the skinny part of your ankle.

Just keep breathing nice and calm.

[Megan] It's better.

Good. It's done.

Perfect. Woo!

Good job.

Okay, I noticed that I think

that because this is the toe that has not much motion,

I can't properly push onto it

and I think that's part of where this comes from.

Yeah, it- It's hardly moving.

Compared to this one,

which has quite an a nice range of motion.

So it goes from zero to about 90

and this one goes from about zero to about 45, 50.

And I have to really push it to even get midway.

What we should do really is work on mobilizing the joint

and making sure that everything under here is a little bit-

Looser? Less tight.

Okay.

We have PT spots open every day.

It's kind of a competitive thing to sign up for.

And she has a bunch of therapists that work for her.

We gotta pop. That was good.

[Megan] But you know there's like 106? Wow!

That's where we're stuck. Great, yeah.

106 or 109 people in the company

and all competing to feel-

[Marika] And we never know our schedule from day to day.

Yeah, we don't know our schedule until-

[Marika] We don't really know the rehearsal schedule

until two days ahead. Yeah, two days before.

[Marika] So it's hard to make a plan for something.

So then once those spots get open, it's a mad dash.

And some seasons I have an alarm on my phone

that goes off at 4:00 PM when the schedule opens up.

[Marika] Here we go.

Look at that. Yeah, this is popping a lot.

Okay. All right, great.

I'll see you next time. Sounds good.

Thank you. You're welcome.

[gentle piano music]

So I started doing gyro 11 years ago

as a gift from my brother.

It was something that he was doing for, I think, back pain.

A lot of guys do it for back pain.

And I had kind of on my radar Swan Lake

and I'm pretty small and I was like how can I be big?

And so this helps you really like stretching out

from your core,

but then you're still connected to your core

and it helps my arabesque.

And so now if I'm ever just kind of like stuck in any part

of my spine, I like to get on the gyro machine

and it's kind of my favorite workout

or let's say exercises before a show.

It doesn't feel like I have maxed out my muscles,

but I have accessed my whole range of motions.

So I get on stage and I try to go and do a full thing.

I'm not like suddenly surprised.

Kind of gets out all the ickiness in the spine.

I think they call this arch and curl.

So you're like arching every little vertebrae,

not just from one section

and then you're curling through the spine

as you bring the thing back in.

When we're in the theater, I'm doing it almost every day.

Pilates feels more like a muscular workout

and this feels like a body connectivity exercise

where you just feel longer and more flexible.

And this is my favorite one down the center.

And I also have very tight shoulders,

and so it helps me, you know,

have that diva ballerina posture so effortlessly.

That does not come effortlessly to me.

[weights clang]

We also have someone

that once injured themselves dropping these weights

on their foot.

So I think about her every time. [laughs]

So I try to really root down in my hips

and make sure I'm not letting this pull me up.

Making the hamstrings long.

I kind of mobilize the sacrum and I twist a little bit.

I used to do a ton more cross training.

I used to swim.

I used to be doing the elliptical or the bike,

but now I'm a mom and so my cardio is running around

after my kids [laughs] and cleaning up.

At the latter part of my career,

it's more about staying strong to avoid injury.

The stamina seems to really be there through the rehearsals.

If we have a layoff, I take time off, I like to rest my body

and I know exactly kind of when to get it going again.

I'm not a prisoner to the gym like I feel I used to be

as a younger dancer.

That's why I keep talking about like range of motion.

That's kind of all that really matters at this point.

Okay.

That was my summarized gyro workout.

I could probably spend half an hour on there.

[dramatic orchestral music]

So this is a new feature

of our wellness center at New York City Ballet.

We have the Arctic Circle.

It is the cold plunge room.

So normally actually I'd be in a full, just leotard

or swimsuit and go fully in.

But we're doing a quickie session today

and right now the most important thing is my lower legs.

So just getting into here is gonna be really beneficial.

We are lucky to have this.

A lot of dancers used to use big garbage pails,

and they would fill them with from the ice machine

and cold water and ice their legs after a show

or after a long day rehearsals.

And now we just have this.

So we don't have to do as much work.

Honestly, I'm not that into ice, but this really helps.

[water splashes]

[Megan sighs]

It's really cold.

I usually try to watch a show on Netflix [laughs.]

For two minutes? Yeah, it's just like,

you gotta like, you can't recognize it.

I mean, so I'm at 30 seconds, my feet are starting to burn.

It doesn't feel great,

but it allows the whole body

to have like, new blood in the legs.

I'll have fresh calves tomorrow.

Okay, yeah, I'm hurting.

[control beeps]

The hard part is getting out

'cause you can't really stand [laughs] on your legs anymore.

When we're in the theater, we just leave this open all day.

People come in and out the whole day.

And honestly like 10:30 at night is a big party

after the show.

[upbeat string music]

So now we're at my chiropractor's.

This is Dr. Roy Siegel.

I've been a patient for-

Many years. Over a decade.

It just helps me maintain my body.

I don't feel like I have

as much pressure on my back every time I lift my leg,

Arm up in the air, fight hard,

fight hard, fight.

Thorax is not happy.

We'll get this.

[pressure tool clicks]

It's an impact instrument.

Five pounds per square inch

in a hundredth of a second moves the joints

back into place

when you find things that slightly outta place.

Deep breath in, and breathe out.

I'm told that the vagus nerve starts at the hippocampus,

goes to every organ tissue in the body.

And when we do this, correlates function

with everything else that should be going right.

Okay, now face down.

It's testing well.

Okay.

[Megan] I'm getting a lot

of work done on my soleus muscle.

Got it. So it's just been my back,

otherwise.

Thanks Roy.

[Roy] Yeah, I think we're set.

We're good.

[dramatic orchestral music]

So something that's not interesting

to pick up on camera is the time

that we're just relaxing.

When we're in the theater,

I have a mattress and I try to take a nap once a day.

I am a mom of three, so I don't always get as much sleep

as I want and I have to wake up early

and get them to school.

So I'm really priming myself

to peak at like nine o'clock at night.

Oftentimes the first show of a season,

I feel like my nerves are just like,

like I had five coffees and I can't like calm myself down.

I'll take 20 minutes and sit and meditate.

I like transcendental meditation.

I have a mantra that I keep tying my focus back to,

but the whole goal is to like let it pass.

[dramatic orchestral music]

Thanks so much for rehearsing with me!

Bye, Self.