A Sugar Plum Fairy tale
She was only 3, but Hannah Lowe was smitten when she saw her first performance of The Nutcracker.
“I saw it at the National Ballet of Canada and I loved it so much I wouldn’t stop dancing around the house afterward,” the 15-year-old recalls.
That was December 2003. Three weeks later, her parents enrolled her in classes at the Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement, a not-for-profit dance academy in Parkdale.
Now, more than a decade later, Lowe has key roles in the school’s amateur production of the classic Christmas spectacle. She plays the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy in two of the four shows, ending Sunday.
“The Nutcracker has always been my favourite ballet,” she says. “It holds a special place in my heart — the Sugar Plum Fairy, the costumes and the music I’ve always known.”
Lowe started performing in the school’s production when she was 6, and this marks her ninth year in the annual show.
She’s also busy helping to sew costumes, overseeing warm-ups for the young children in the performance and helping to collect and archive old photos of The Nutcracker to mark the company’s 30th anniversary of the ballet.
Between her own dancing and assisting with the pageant, Lowe estimates she’s at the school four to eight hours every weekend during “Nutcracker season” — late September to December.
And when it’s not that time of year, the advanced-level ballerina is at Pia Bouman five days a week doing eight or nine ballet classes. She also gets private coaching every other week. “I’m probably here 15 hours a week,” she says. “It’s a lot.”
How does a teenager set aside the time to do all of this while balancing her school work? Lowe is in Grade 10 and is homeschooled by her mother, Kathryn Smith.
“I do school from 9:30 a.m. until whenever I have to leave the house that day, which can be from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.,” Hannah says. “I have an allotted amount of work I have to get done in a week. If I’m behind, I have to do some work when I get home from dance at night. I’m a bit of a night owl.”
She does some online courses and others designed by her mom.
“She is a really responsible, hard-working, focused and self-directed girl, so I wouldn’t say she has any trouble balancing it all,” says Smith, 42.
Mom is also involved in The Nutcracker, doing costume co-ordination.
In fact it’s a family affair. Hannah’s grandfather Tony Smith, 80, the oldest performer in the pageant, is playing the grandfather of Clara, the pivotal character. Hannah’s two younger sisters, Clare, 11, and Nora,10, are also in the production, mounted at Humberside Collegiate Institute.
Hannah’s father, Iain Lowe, 46, helps out at the refreshment table. (Hannah’s brother Hamish, 13, attends Canada’s National Ballet School, whose students participate in the National Ballet’s annual production of The Nutcracker).
Pia Bouman, 73, the founder and director of the school that bears her name, calls Hannah a role model and a mentor to others at the school, especially the younger dancers in The Nutcracker.
“It’s impressive what someone like that can pull off,” Bouman says.
“The Nutcracker has always been my favourite ballet. It holds a special place in my heart.” HANNAH LOWE PLAYING THE SNOW QUEEN AND SUGAR PLUM FAIRY