Westmoreland Ballet takes 'Nutcracker' filming to Ligonier

Dancers with Westmoreland Ballet are getting a new kind of performance experience as they work on a video version of “The Nutcracker.”

With stage performances doubtful this year, company founder Judy Rae Tubbs decided to bring the holiday favorite to audiences in a pandemic-safe way. Tubbs also envisioned a “Nutcracker” that would involve Westmoreland County communities and businesses, by filming various scenes at points of interest around the area.

Filming commenced over the weekend in Ligonier, with staging of the battle scene Saturday at Fort Ligonier and the snow scene Sunday on the Diamond.

Future filming locations include a field near Saint Vincent College, Invisible Man Brewing and White Rabbit Cafe and Patisserie in downtown Greensburg, Greensburg Country Club and downtown Irwin, according to Jennifer Shultz, the ballet’s board president.

Plans are for the video to play in area theaters in late November, and also to be available by pay-to-download.

The company comprises about 30 dancers ranging in age from preschool to high school, Shultz said. They were joined in Ligonier by several professional dancers and Tubbs’s former students from the recently folded Laurel Ballet.

Professional help

Lauren Smolka of Greensburg, a former student of Tubbs who has danced with Laurel Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Ballet Tucson, came on board and recruited her former Indiana University roommate, Camille Kellems, who dances with Nevada Ballet Theatre. Kellems brought along her colleague Robert Fulton, a State College native.

Kellems and Fulton are dancing the Snow Queen and King roles.

Dominic DeFabo of Crabtree, another former student, came out of “semi-retirement” to dance the Nutcracker Prince, partnered with Isabella Vinoski of Ruffs Dale, a Yough High School sophomore who portrays Clara. A former Laurel Ballet member and present Westmoreland Ballet board member, DeFabo is studying international business at Saint Vincent College.

“Judy called me out of the blue and asked me if I was interested,” DeFabo said. “I said, I’m a little washed up, but OK.”

It’s a new kind of dance experience for DeFabo.

“I don’t think it’s so much about being outdoors,” he said. “Most of us haven’t done film before. We’re not used to the stop and start. On stage, you’re dancing the whole piece through from beginning to end.”

For Fulton, having to dance on a slope at the fort was a bit tricky, but he appreciates the opportunity.

“A lot of dancers have kind of lost hope right now,” he said. “We don’t know when we’ll ever be able to get back on stage.”

Fantasy and reality

Matt Fridg, owner of Headspace Media in Latrobe, is handling the video shooting and production.

“It’s an interesting blend of stage fantasy blended with reality,” Shultz said. “Judy is transforming the stage show, which is sort of 2-D, played at one angle to the audience. The camera is moving at all different angles to film the dancers.”

Members of the Ligonier Borough Police Department blocked traffic around the Diamond as shooting got underway.

Tubbs coached her “little sugar lumps” as they rehearsed the scene and danced through repeated takes.

“Hold yourselves like dancers, not like you’re waiting for your bus,” she said. “Don’t look at the ground, everyone wants to see your beautiful faces.

“You’re real troupers; you’re hanging in there,” she said as the warm fall afternoon wore on.