WAKE FOREST, N.C. – A dance studio in the Triangle is trying something new with their annual production of "The Nutcracker."

For the 13 years Taylor Academy of Dance has put together "The Nutcracker" ballet, they’ve always hired out the starring roles to professional dancers, but this year, students will be dancing the principal parts for the first time.

What You Need To Know

  • Students will be performing the lead roles in this year's "The Nutcracker"

  • Taylor Academy of Dance is the only studio in Wake Forest that performs a traditional full-length "Nutcracker"

  • They’ve been doing this production for 13 years

The entire company is excited to bring the performance to life and have been rehearsing since summer. 

Julia Lassetter as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Jalon Mills as the Cavalier rehearse a month before showtime. (Spectrum News 1/Rachel Boyd)

“There's definitely more pressure since we have hired professionals in the past, so knowing that we have to live up to that standard,” Julia Lassetter, one of the students dancing the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy, said. “I'm very thankful for it, I’m extremely grateful and for the challenge too. It's very hard.”

Most of these girls have grown up dancing under Jill Taylor’s instruction. These roles are more than just months of practice in the making, they’re years of watching and dreaming of the day when they’d get the chance themselves. 

“That was definitely me as a child,” Lassetter said. “So it was a very surreal moment when I put on the costume and the crown and everything for the first time, and I definitely got a little teary-eyed because it's nice to be the role model for kids that some girls here were for me.”

In her wildest dreams, Lassetter never imagined getting this role before she even graduated high school, but Jalon Mills never dreamed of it at all; he only started dancing last year.

Dancers featured in both the Waltz of the Flowers and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. (Spectrum News 1/Rachel Boyd)

“I've always wanted to do it, but I came from a town that had no arts,” Mills said. “When I first came here and I saw flowers and snow and everything, I was like, 'Oh my God.' I would just watch it every time, I was mesmerized.”

This production is the only classical "Nutcracker" performed in Wake Forest.

They have two shows on December 9 at Rolesville High School where you can see all these dancers and many more take the stage.

“All the passion that I have that I've given to them, they're giving it all back,” Taylor said.