Sofia Zobel Elizalde: 'Dance will always be a part of me'

Sofia Zobel Elizalde must have been doing pirouettes as early as in her mother's womb. When she was a little girl, she fell head over heels - and on pointes, too - in love with ballet when she was chosen to play Clara in a local adaptation of the immortal 1892 classical ballet The Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

- CHING M. ALANO

"I always have these incredible memories of when I was Clara on stage and dancing," Sofia relates with childlike delight. "I never wanted to go home. I just wanted to be on stage and to be dancing."

She played the young Clara a couple of times. "And I loved every minute of it," she gushes. "It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I felt every day when I was in rehearsal that I was in a fairy tale."

Though it was many Christmases ago, Sofia still talks about it with twinkling stars in her eyes and love in her heart. For what's Christmas without The Nutcracker?

"I've always believed that Christmas is not the same without a beautiful Christmas ballet," says Sofia. "And all over the world, they do The Nutcracker. Everywhere I go, in the greatest cities of the world, there's always a Nutcracker."

She hastens to add, "I think every young boy or girl needs to know the story of The Nutcracker."

Needless to say, the Christmas story becomes even more magical with each retelling. Children all over the world can probably relate to Clara, a young girl who receives a Nutcracker doll as a present on Christmas Eve and suddenly, the lines are blurred between reality and dreams as Clara and the Nutcracker go on a magical adventure together.

We didn't have to go to Russia or to Germany to watch The Nutcracker. For right here, at the spic-and-span dance hall of Steps Dance Studio in Poblacion, Makati, we get the best seat in the house as we watch a rehearsal of Steps' Christmas Ballets. But of course, Sofia, like the mother hen to her young brood, is around to oversee everything, right down to the last-minute details.