"Nutcracker" is link to family history for 6-year-old snowflake

Published 11:19 pm Sunday, November 15, 2009

EVERETT — Janna Isaeva-Martinez joined other parents to peek through the glass window into the light-filled dance studio.

The soundproof walls at The Dance School in downtown Everett muted the music and voices. Eight girls moved across the room with silent elegance, their delicate arms swinging in the air, their eyes fixed on the instructor.

Isaeva-Martinez, 35, was feeling a bit nostalgic for the life she left behind in her native Russia. The studio looked a lot like the one in suburban Moscow where she spent seven years learning ballet and traditional Russian dance. She grew up at the end of an era when boys in Russia wanted to be cosmonauts, and girls dreamed of becoming ballerinas.

Fast forward 20 years. Now, on the other side of the glass window, her own 6-year-old daughter Esther was practicing to be a snowflake in the Moscow Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker.”

Esther’s part in “The Nutcracker” presented Isaeva-Martinez with an opportunity to connect Esther to her Russian heritage through a language her daughter understands.

Esther is to be among the 36 local kids, ages 7 to 16, who will dance alongside Russian ballerinas at the Everett Civic Auditorium Sunday. The Everett Symphony will perform the 19th-century classic by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Many American-born children of immigrants never embrace their parents’ native culture and language. Eager to preserve hers, Isaeva-Martinez and her husband Rafael Martinez, 38, enrolled Esther in a Russian-language school. They encourage her to speak the language with her Russian grandparents. Still, Isaeva-Martinez knows her life in Russia is something her children will never really understand. She welcomed Esther’s interest in ballet as a rare chance to share — and, in some ways, relive — her past.

It’s serious business.

During practice, Esther tilted her head to peek at her mother, hiding a smile. Isaeva-Martinez leaned forward and mouthed the words “look at the instructor,” in Russian.

“They are more American than Russian,” she said about her two kids. “They were born here. This is their life.”

An economics student, Isaeva-Martinez was 19 when she left her family to study English at Edmonds Community College. She met Rafael Martinez, who moved to the U.S. from El Salvador in Central America. Love swept them up quickly.

Their cultures, a world apart, were still strikingly similar. Isaeva-Martinez found it comforting to be in a strange land but near someone who understood her.

The couple married. Alexander was born soon after. Before they knew it, he grew into a slender, polite 12-year-old. He plays guitar, like his dad.

Martinez picked up Russian; she picked up some Spanish. They always find a way to say what they mean. Both languages, along with English, can be heard in the family’s south Everett home.

Martinez is a bus driver, a tall man with a gentle smile. His life back in El Salvador wasn’t easy: He started working at 13 to help support his family and was later drafted to fight in the country’s civil war. Isaeva-Martinez is a stay-at-home mom, a direct woman with fierce blues eyes.

Esther scored the snowflake part by chance, Isaeva-Martinez said. The mother and daughter showed up for class at The Dance School one day and learned that an audition was being held. The cutoff age was 7, but Esther was given a chance.

The girl was excited. Esther has been taking dance lessons since she was 4.

Isaeva-Martinez said she never seriously considered dancing as a career. She danced to strengthen her body and soul. It fostered her love for classical music, a passion she hopes Esther will inherit.

Week after week, the Martinez family has been coming to Esther’s dance practices. Mom squeezed between other parents to watch her daughter’s progress. Martinez and Alexander went out for coffee at the nearby Starbucks or just talked quietly, sitting next to each other, man to man.

As the performance neared, Isaeva-Martinez remembered she still had to buy her girl a sleeveless, black dress top. The one Esther has been dancing in has short sleeves. The family could do without spending the extra money, but Isaeva-Martinez was excited. She wished her daughter’s shiny brown hair was long enough to tie in a ballerina’s bundle.

When Esther’s practice session was finished, the girl blasted out of the studio. Isaeva-Martinez sent her to the changing room, watching as she ran across the hallway.

“This is definitely something she’ll never forget,” she said.

Katya Yefimova: 425-339-3452, kyefimova@heraldnet.com.