Interlochen Arts Academy Dance Division will present Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" this weekend. I am so glad that children of today can experience the wonder I experienced as a child. You see, each December, my birthday gift was to ride a train to Chicago to attend a live-performance of "The Nutcracker."
Imagine my surprise to learn that my dear friend Joe Kaminski, who for years taught ballet each summer at Interlochen, had danced both Drosselmeyer and Mother Ginger roles in those Chicago productions. And he had countless hilarious stories to tell, especially about mishaps that occurred when gathering and dealing with a passel of young dancers under Mother Ginger's enormous hoop skirt.
Now in the summer, when I wander down behind the new Dance Building at Interlochen to watch the ducks out on Green Lake, I think of my friend Joe — and Mother Ginger. You see, though fully developed, young ducklings cannot thermoregulate. So when they get chilled, the mother duck gathers them under her body and wings to keep them warm... just like Mother Ginger. This behavior, called brooding, also shields the little ones from rain and hail storms and protects them from predators.
It’s not easy to collect all those little ducklings and to tuck them all in, but Mother Duck seems to manage, even while waddling around on webbed feet. For Mother Ginger waddling around on stilts, it has to be a bit more of a challenge.
