SOLDIERThe only time I joined the good guy's side as a toy soldier, with bright red stickers slapped onto my cheeks by a backstage mom and a cardboard cadet hat strapped to my tiny head with an itchy length of rubber band, I got my first glimpses of two things: weaponry and the chiseled butt cheeks of our male lead, Clinton. Our choreography mostly consisted of coordinated marching and fake beating the shit out of the mice with our wooden rifles, but our real purpose was to huddle around Clinton in one corner of the stage after the battle, concealing him as he whipped off the huge papier-mâché Nutcracker head, slicked back his long '90s boy-band hair a few times, and emerged as the Prince.
Related:
Is it magic yet?, Photos: Boston Ballet presents Black & White (2010), Review: Boston Ballet's The Nutcracker (2010), More 
- Is it magic yet?
When you've seen every Boston Ballet Nutcracker for the past 20-odd years, and reviewed most of them, it can get a little hard to locate the magic. Then again, when you survey other Nutcracker s around the world you appreciate that there's no place like home, and not many that are as good.
- Photos: Boston Ballet presents Black & White (2010)
Boston Ballet's reprise of Jiří Kylián’s Black & White
- Review: Boston Ballet's The Nutcracker (2010)
When E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote Nutcracker and Mouse King back in 1816, he can hardly have imagined the impact it would have on ballet as we know it.
- Festival Ballet's emotional, sensual Carmen
Although the gypsy girl Carmen is most familiar from the 1875 opera of that name by Georges Bizet, local audiences have also become acquainted with the Carmen performed by Festival Ballet, which was commissioned by them and first appreciated in the 2003-04 season.
- Jorma Elo and Anna Sokolow
In silence a man slowly pushes a large, light-filled box across a dark stage. The box is bigger than an outhouse and smaller than a garage, and the light shows through only one side.
- Boston Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
George Balanchine didn’t create a slew of full-length ballets, but it’s easy to see why a setting of Shakespeare’s ever-popular A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of them — and not just because, back home in St. Petersburg, when he was eight, he played a bug in a theater production of the Bard’s moonbeam-muddled comedy.
- Boston Ballet's 'Bella Figura'
"Bella figura" in Italian is more than a phrase — it's a philosophy. It makes life beautiful. "Bella Figura" as the title of Boston Ballet's latest program is an invitation to find beauty in three disparate choreographic styles — one of them incorporating topless women (as well as men).
- The meaning of 'THE'
William Forsythe's 1991 ballet The Second Detail begins with 13 dancers in ice-blue leotards and tights, facing away from the audience.
- Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins,' plus a soupçon of tap
Boston Ballet is ending the season with four prime examples of ballet choreography, displaying not only the rigors of classical technique but the different kinds of images technique can be crafted to evoke.
- Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'
After the frenetic gutbusting of its Elo Experience and "Bella Figura" programs, Boston Ballet is closing out its 2010–2011 season with a breath of classical fresh air — or so it would seem.
- The BIBC, 'Next Generation,' and more of Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'
It's been a busy week and a half. The first ever Boston International Ballet Competition took place May 12-16 at John Hancock Hall, climaxing with a gala awards ceremony and performance last Monday. On Wednesday, at the Opera House, Boston Ballet presented its second annual "Next Generation" performance.
- Larissa Ponomarenko bows out
The bad news — really bad news — this past week is that principal dancer Larissa Ponomarenko is retiring after 18 years with Boston Ballet. (She will, however, be staying on as a ballet master.)
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