! Tchaikowsky’s famous and fabled ballet, the Nutcracker, is synonymous with the Christmas season. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, there is hardly a weekend that Arabian’s haunting melody, or the thrilling Russian Dance isn’t heard in a concert hall or school auditorium somewhere in the metroplex. From professional ballet companies to neighborhood ballet schools, everyone gets in on the act. And why not? The music of the Nutcracker is as familiar to our ears as Jingle Bells or Silent Night. ! But before the curtain rises and the overture begins, a different kind of ballet, as timeless as the Nutcracker itself and far less familiar, is rehearsed. Dancers practice it faithfully, on a daily basis, and it is a necessary prelude to the fluid and athletic movements that culminate on the stage. The choreography is grounded in seven positions or movements from which everything in the discipline of ballet must begin. It is, simply, the warm-up. ! Of the two indispensable tools used in the warm-up, it is hard to say which is the most important, the barre or the music. Each has a function, independent of the other: the barre as an anchor, a safety net; the music as expression through rhythm and movement. Combined, both serve the ultimate purpose of technique as a means of expression. ! To the observer, the warm-up is a mixed experience. It’s not so easy to imagine yourself in fifth position without your knees popping out of their sockets. Few laymen can perform a pliè and not hear ligaments ripped from the muscle. Yet, dancers perform these and other basic movements with considerable ease and gracefulness. Their faces are calm, mesmerized, in meditation, as if the music distracts them from from the physical exertion required to float and fly across the floor.