BOSTON — Cora Hertz, daughter of Punxsutawney native Jasmine Lellock, will be performing for the fourth time in Boston Ballet’s production of Miko Nissinen’s “The Nutcracker” in the role of Page.
Hertz, an eighth-grade student at Thurston Middle School in Westwood, Massachusetts, has been a student of the Boston Ballet for nine years and has previously danced in “The Nutcracker” in the roles of Lamb, Urchin and Page. Hertz has performed in Thurston radio plays and musicals, and she helps out with the sixth grade play.
It is an interesting twist of fate that Hertz has set her sights on a dancing career, as Lellock was formerly a student at the Van Dyke and Company Dance Studio here in Punxsutawney.
“I lived in Punxsutawney from the time I was born until I went to college, about 18 years. Even after I was coming back from college, I still called Punxsutawney home,” Lellock said. “I attended Van Dyke’s from the time I was four until I was eight or nine. I loved it. My dad took me every Saturday, and afterwards, we would go to Ruth and Harry’s Bakery for bear claws or donuts. I never really had a dancing career. I did a lot of musical theater, though we really didn’t have a theater program at the Punxsy High School, but we had the Variety Show and I also did Community Theater. I did a bunch of musicals with them, then I did college theater and now I am a high school teacher and I direct plays for high school and I have been doing that for about 20 years. So it’s kind of wild to see Cora doing it so much.”
Hertz said she has been dancing since she was one and a half, and has been involved with the Boston Ballet since she was five. She said her role as Page in “The Nutcracker” acts as a guard for the Sugarplum Fairy in the story. She said this year, she feels more of a senior toward the other dancers.
“I feel so old this year. Every single other year, everyone else was my age. This year, I feel like I am almost babysitting for the younger kids doing ‘The Nutcracker.’ This may be my last year, so it feels good knowing that the people doing this with me for their first year, I feel like I am prepping them to go on to do greater things,” Hertz said.
