Philadelphia Ballet presents The Nutcracker

Where does the sparkle come from?

The Sugar Plum Fairy wears a pink romantic tutu when she leads Marie through the land of sweets, but for the grand pas de deux with her cavalier she wears a gloriously sparkly classical tutu, with nine layers of netting that start very short close to the body and get wider with each tier. A hoop in the sixth tier holds the skirts up, and dancers rehearse with practice tutus so that their partners can perfect the lifts and turns without crushing the skirt.

There are sparkling crystal beads aplenty, but Tierney says the secret is in the fabrics: netting and chiffon, but also silks and brocades and velvets in an array of colors: “if it’s one version of the color, or one version of the sparkle, it’s flat. It’s two-dimensional.” In the flower costumes, she explained, “There is the crushed velvet of the bodice, there are multiple layers of the skirt, there’s a pale pink silk, there’s a pale green silk.”

The bodice for Sugar Plum’s romantic tutu is brocade, Tierney said, with multiple different colors and textures and a pattern woven through it, because “brocade bounces light really well.” Bodices are made a bit like corsets, with steel boning and rows of hooks and bars in the back. Panels of shaped fabric give the bodice its snug silhouette while allowing the dancer to move her arms.

The fabrics have to move as well, and that movement helps tell the story. Hot Chocolate has layers of heavy laces and velvets, and Tierney said “when that dancer does a jump, that skirt comes down with her, with vigor and excitement.” The snowflakes have layers of very light net, and chiffon, and organza, and that skirt “absolutely takes its time and flutters all the way back down with her.”

Sometimes, though, mishaps happen. The Marzipans perform high arabesques while holding reed flutes, and Tierney said, “it pops the boning out. So I just collect the boning. I’m friends with so many other wardrobe managers in the country. And we’ll hold up our steel boning, and be like, ‘look how many I got today!’”

Cleaning up

It’s a long run, with plenty of tights and trunks thrown in the wash. But for the tutus there is vodka, sprayed inside to freshen them. “It’s antibacterial, and it doesn’t add any scents or any perfumes that can be irritating to the dancers,” Tierney said, and reminisced “my first purchase with my company card was bottles of vodka.”

When the run has ended, Tierney’s staff cleans each piece individually. Some pieces are dry cleaned, but mostly they do a giant hand wash: “One woman has become our absolute expert in washing bodices.” For herself, Tierney is a big fan of washing the skirts of the tutus. “Sometimes I’ll even give them a bath in a kiddie pool, and hang them upside down to let them dry.” Then they are all packed away for next year.