Free 'Nutcracker' This Weekend in Watsonville

Two free performances of “The Nutcracker” ballet will be presented next weekend at Mello Center for the Performing Arts at 215 E. Beach Street. Tickets are available in advance from Second Street Café at 28 Second Street (near Main Street).

Melanie Useldinger, a former professional ballerina and now mother of five, has been raising $10,000 to make the beauty of dance more accessible through two free ballet performances at Mello Center for the Performing Arts on Dec. 13 and 14.

“I’m a thinker, a dreamer, a do-er,” Melanie says. It has long been her goal to make the beauty of dance more accessible to families across Santa Cruz County.

This year for the first time, Agape Dance Academy’s “The Nutcracker” will open at Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville, home of the Santa Cruz Symphony. “It’s a gift to the community,” Melanie says.

Her dream began many years ago when she was a professional dancer. In addition to performances with professional companies in San Francisco and New York City, she sometimes also accepted small gigs at churches and community centers, including one particularly memorable occasion in a 5-foot-by-5-foot space.

It was too small for the powerful leaps and combinations she’d had in mind. “At first, I thought, ‘Oh, brother! Is it worth it?’

“But that was when I learned. I decided to dance something beautiful just for myself, inside of that small space, and afterward people came up to me crying, and saying, ‘I don’t know why. I was just filled with tears the whole time.’”

“Dance lifts the human heart,” Melanie says. “It inspires.”

After giving up professional dance to become a mother and work part-time, Melanie realized that the discipline, perseverance and focus she honed through her pursuit of classical ballet was serving her well in everyday life, long after she stopped dancing.

She wants the same for her students at Agape Dance Academy, located in Kings Village Shopping Center near Nob Hill Foods in Scotts Valley.

She hopes to also impart to them a similar spirit of giving through free performances to countywide audiences.

“They’ll have memories that the sacrifices they made will make a difference for others, not just for themselves,” Melanie says.

The spirit is catching. One student, Leah Grotzinger, age 14, learned of Melanie’s vision and said she now pictures the faces of little girls in an imagined audience, radiant with enchantment during this year’s performances – at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13 and at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 14.

“I’m not dancing for myself, anymore. I’m dancing for those little girls,” Leah says.

For tickets, go to Second Street Café at 28 Second Street, near Main Street, in Watsonville.