Ballet Manila’s first full-length The Nutcracker, staged at the GSIS Theater in December 1998, was the completion of “another one of life’s full cycles” for then artistic associate and principal dancer – now artistic director – Lisa Macuja-Elizalde.

As she related in her director’s notes then, she was first exposed to The Nutcracker music in her grandmother’s house when she was a child. Little did she know then that the Christmas ballet would figure prominently in her future in the world of dance.  

In December 1982, she was a Snowflake in the Leningrad Choreographic Institute’s annual production of the full-length ballet. Though that ended in mishap, with her hair getting entangled in stage scenery, Lisa would have another memorable Nutcracker moment when she debuted as Masha in 1984.

“I was the first foreign student ever given the chance to perform this lead role reserved for students whom their teachers feel have a future as principal ballerinas with the Kirov Ballet,” Lisa wrote. And for that honor, she had her mentor Tatiana Udalenkova to thank.

None of the enchantment of The Nutcracker has worn off for her in the years since. Especially not when the then three-year-old Ballet Manila got the chance to present the ballet in its full-length version with music by Peter Tchaikovsky and choreography by Vassily Vainonen, with revisions by guest artist Viktor Saveliev and principal dancer Osias Barroso.

The story unfolds on Christmas Eve when Masha’s Uncle Drosselmeyer gives her a Nutcracker doll which later transforms into a Prince who takes her on a magical trip. The spectacle involves a battle between toy soldiers and giant rats, an encounter with giant butterflies and bats, dancing dolls from Spain, Arabia, China and Russia and waltzing flowers.

Since the company was still fairly new then, with full-time dancers still not that many, the cast was rounded out by apprentices, scholars and select students from the Ballet Manila School.

Dancing as Masha in The Nutcracker then was special for Lisa for another reason: It was her comeback to the stage after giving birth to her eldest child – and it turned out they would share a bond over it too. As she recalled in her director’s notes, “Even now, at only four and a half months old, my own daughter Missy listens to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker music and is immediately caught in the magic of its spell.”