How does a ballerina keep match throughout the grueling ‘Nutcracker’ season? A day within the lifetime of a Sugarplum Fairy.

When New York Metropolis Ballet dancer Unity Phelan steps on stage, her entrance is ready to the tinkling bells of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” probably the most recognizable sounds of the vacation season. Sporting an extended pink tutu for the starring function within the dance firm’s annual Nutcracker season — an occasion that attracts 100,000 individuals to New York Metropolis’s Lincoln Middle every year — she exudes magnificence, poise and style.

However behind the glowing tiara and flawless approach is the rigorous schedule of an elite athlete.

“It is among the many most grueling jobs you could have,” Phelan tells Yahoo Life whereas concurrently making use of her make-up backstage earlier than a efficiency with the care but velocity of somebody who has executed this a whole lot of occasions earlier than.

“Your entire physique and soul goes into what you do every single day. It is not all fairly. It is exhausting — mentally, bodily, emotionally. However you like it, so that you do it every single day.”

A day within the lifetime of a Sugarplum Fairy

Through the Nutcracker season, which lasts for six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Yr’s Eve, Phelan performs six or seven exhibits per week: two to 3 exhibits with New York Metropolis Ballet, and 4 exhibits over the weekend as a visitor artist with faculties or smaller ballet firms. When she isn’t on stage, the Princeton, N.J., native is knee-deep in rehearsals for different exhibits for New York Metropolis Ballet’s upcoming winter season, which begins just a few weeks after Nutcracker wraps up. Mondays are her solely days off.

It’s a tricky schedule, however Phelan has paid her dues. Since being promoted from the corps de ballet to soloist and finally to principal dancer (the best rank in New York Metropolis Ballet) in 2021, Phelan alternates between the lead roles of regal Sugarplum Fairy and spritely Dew Drop throughout the Nutcracker season. Phelan shares the roles with different principal and soloist dancers, so she doesn’t dance in each present; members of the corporate’s corps de ballet, alternatively, are on deck for all 49 performances.

“They actually bear the brunt of The Nutcracker, I might say, for the corporate,” Phelan says of the ensemble dancers. “They’re right here each evening, every single day, working. It is form of like a ceremony of passage.”

Nonetheless, Phelan incessantly works 12-hour days — typically on the go from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. These days observe the same routine:

• Morning: Waking up. Phelan doesn’t drink espresso or tea; as an alternative, she begins the day with a collagen complement in scorching water, together with a breakfast of yogurt, granola and berries. She then heads to the ballet studio, the place she does bodily remedy workouts and warms up for thirty minutes. “For dancers, as soon as we activate considered one of our muscular tissues we’re capable of entry it extra simply all through the day,” Phelan explains. “Turning on sure muscular tissues that may lie dormant in any other case — like turnout muscular tissues, deep abdominals, a few of my multifidus muscle in my again — that [is] going to maintain me not solely protected against any kind of damage, but additionally sturdy and pulled up and lengthy.”

• Afternoon: Understanding. After warm-up comes an hour-long ballet class, adopted by three to 6 hours of rehearsals. Then, it’s showtime. “At 5:30 p.m. we cease rehearsing, and I come again to my dressing room, activate my lights, activate my heating pad, do my make-up and do the present.”

• Night: Winding down. After the present — or if she doesn’t have a efficiency that evening, after rehearsals — Phelan heads dwelling. “I really like my wind down. My wind down is my favourite a part of the day,” she says. She often retains shifting for a bit, dropping her stuff off at her condo earlier than taking her canine, Pippin, for a stroll to decompress and “let the whole lot get out” of her system. “Then at dwelling, I often sit again, soak my ft in a bucket of ice for 10 minutes to take down any irritation that will have arisen in my ankles, after which I’ll spend a while on a tennis ball or some kind of ball rolling out my hips and my again.”

A dancer’s food plan

Phelan leans closely on two habits to remain wholesome and keep away from accidents: a superb food plan and cross-training.

Consuming effectively is instrumental, however Phelan says it’s generally onerous to find time for a full meal; so whereas she packs a lunch from dwelling every single day, she additionally has her dressing room stocked with wholesome snacks.

“I will eat all of those because the day goes on,” she says, gesturing to a dressing desk stash of granola bars, peanut butter and different fast bites. “It is actually necessary to have one thing as a result of in the event you begin dancing hungry and do not feel like you have got form of a backlog of sustenance to drag from, that is once I really feel like accidents occur.”

She eats a banana earlier than each present and later has some almonds and pretzels — “as a result of I all the time need one thing salty towards the tip of the day.”

A dancer’s exercise

Many dancers profit from some type of cross-training, like yoga or swimming, along with the every day ballet grind; Phelan dietary supplements her ballet routine with plyometric exercise courses taught by health teacher Beth Nicely, who can also be knowledgeable dancer.

“After I was younger, I had a extremely onerous time constructing muscle,” Phelan says. “So by the point I used to be 15, I had a gymnasium membership and was fairly lively in figuring out and upkeep and coaching my muscular tissues.”

Reasonably than utilizing heavy weights, Phelan says the courses concentrate on shifting and leveraging the athlete’s personal physique weight, doing issues like leaping onto packing containers, utilizing trampolines and turning.

“Normally what occurs whenever you get injured is your physique strikes in a method that you simply weren’t ready for, after which it reacts by one thing shifting,” Phelan says. “So coaching myself to do these turns and jumps and strikes preemptively has been a complete game-changer for me, and I additionally really feel prefer it retains my stamina in unbelievable form. I’ve seen that I do not get as drained and might do longer, tougher days.”

On psychological well being: ‘If individuals do not prefer it, then that may actually have an effect on you’

Whereas a dancer’s job is bodily taxing, it may possibly additionally take a heavy toll on psychological well being, even for probably the most seasoned performers.

“It is a very heady profession since you’re form of giving your self each present,” Phelan says. “It’s totally private. It is not such as you’re submitting a report; you are not going to a gathering the place it would not actually matter. You’ve got labored your entire life to do that factor, and if individuals do not prefer it, then that may actually have an effect on you.”

A method Phelan copes is to keep away from studying evaluations of her performances — whether or not good or dangerous — in any respect prices. In the event you imagine different individuals’s reward you then additionally want to provide credence to their criticism — and Phelan would moderately be her personal choose.

“Dance could be very subjective. Some individuals may love your rendition; some individuals may hate it. However particularly now, at this level in my profession, if I really feel pleased with what I’ve executed, that is all that actually issues,” she says. “And naturally, my bosses must be pleased with what I do too.”

A significant supply of consolation that helps Phelan keep sane regardless of a demanding work schedule is her sturdy help system: her household, her sister, her canine, Pippin, who helps her admire life’s “easy joys,” and her husband, Cameron Dieck, who danced with New York Metropolis Ballet till 2018 and understands all of the rigor that goes into commonly churning out shifting performances every season.

“What we do appears so lovely and easy, and there is a lot work behind it to make it appear to be that,” Phelan says. “It is that form of dichotomy that I additionally suppose is difficult for dancers: to have individuals understand that it is really actually onerous work and blood, sweat and tears every single day — however what you see on stage is a phenomenal pink princess in a tiara.”