By Sarah Opdahl

Arabella Santoro is in the midst of a remarkably busy schedule—preparing to dance the role of Clara in Danbury Music Centre’s (DMC) Nutcracker Ballet, a beloved annual holiday tradition in the area for over 50 years. A talented dancer, and freshman at New Fairfield High School, Arabella has had a lifelong love for dance, and, in particular, she has fed a passion for classical ballet through countless dedicated hours over the past several years. She describes the feeling of dancing the role of  Clara as “ethereal,” and it is no wonder that being on the stage is so freeing and otherworldly. In fact, the magic of playing this role, this year, is an intensely emotional one for her and her family, as just seven months ago she was in the intensive care unit fighting for her life.

“Being as sick as I was did not feel real,” Arabella shared, following a sudden onset of listeria meningitis, a type of bacterial meningitis that is a serious complication of a listeria infection, in mid-April. “I went from dance class on Friday to the hospital on Tuesday not being able to hold myself up and walk,” and the ensuing months would be an up and down physical and emotional battle for her and her family. Suffering from every possible side effect of the illness, Arabella continually and unimaginably faced hurdles including severe pressure on her brain, a stroke, eyesight loss, partial paralysis, the need for a prolonged picc line, and the staggering list went on. Missing the remainder of the 24/25 school year, she shared, “of course I wanted everything to go back to normal… and to get back to school, but my one main goal was to get back to dance.” Through the toughest weeks in the hospital, in part in the intensive care unit, “all I could talk about was getting back to dance, even before we knew whether I would recover. The thought of being able to go back to dance gave me something to look forward to, something to fight for.”

Dance lessons began for Arabella as a toddler at Just Dance School of Performing Arts in Danbury, taking part in all dance types throughout her career, including jazz, tap, lyrical, and contemporary dance, though classical ballet emerged as  her favorite. She worked through the dance levels over the years, eventually graduating to being on pointe, plus competed with a Just Dance competition team and even competed  as a soloist at just 11 years old. Nearly three years ago she joined the Newtown Centre for Classical Ballet and Voice, soon after which she auditioned for and joined the highly respected Malenkee Repertoire Company, whose studio she describes as feeling like “my second home.” Originally accepted into four summer ballet intensive and pre-professional programs prior to her illness, including the American Ballet Theatre, Arabella has goals to pursue a variety of opportunities in the future. She was medically cleared in time to attend the Joffrey Ballet’s Classical Ballet Summer Intensive in New York City this year, which was an “incredible” experience in terms of both ballet technique and overarching guidance.

Auditioning for the DMC’s Nutcracker was a good challenge for Arabella, who had faced the difficult but thankfully normalizing experience of going back to school, combined with a delightfully busy dance schedule. At this point, with most  medical clearances long in the rear view and with fears of being marginalized in the competitive process, Arabella chose to not tell anyone from the DMC Nutcracker world about her prolonged illness. Aiming for the coveted principal ballerina role of Clara—a young girl who is gifted with a Nutcracker, then later sleeps and dreams about a prince—in the Nutcracker Ballet is a role most young ballerinas yearn for, and Arabella was no exception.  She explained, “I did not want them to look at me differently.  I was afraid if they knew, they might look at me (during the audition) as sick or limited, and consider or think that it was too soon, or that I might not be healed or recovered enough to handle the role of Clara; I didn’t want anyone (other than those few friends who knew) thinking because my return to dance full time was recent that casting me as Clara would be a gamble.” She went on to say, “I wanted to go into the audition free from all of that, and I hoped I could just dance the way I knew I could and give the best audition possible for me.  I wanted Arthur [Fredric] and Lisa [Denton] to see Arabella the Dancer and not Arabella ‘Did you hear how sick she was?’.” Clearly, they saw the Dancer and “when my mom and I  got the call, I had just gotten out of an appointment with one of my specialists, so we were driving and when Marnie (from the DMC) said I was cast as Clara my mom screamed, and cried, and I couldn’t believe it. For hours we both kept questioning whether we heard it correctly.  It was a good day!”

This remarkable kid and her family feel lucky to be seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel, with infectious disease, cardiologist, and pediatric ophthalmologist specialists having signed off and only occasional visits with a pediatric neurologist and neurological ophthalmologist. Though headaches are a lingering side effect, “I am much closer to fully recovered (which mom and I are hopeful is just around the corner), and soon listeria meningitis will be behind us completely,” Arabella said, going on to observe, “being so sick has permanently changed my view on things and I could not be more grateful that I recovered the way I did.” She is wholly thankful for the multitude of doctors and nurses who cared for her over the past several months.

“I am lucky, I know,” Arabella humbly reflected about her health battle, “I feel like my body is renewed since I was able to start fresh with myself. Although my illness was horrible and the experience I went through was unimaginable, recovering was almost like a new beginning for me.  It is almost like getting a do-over, and I have run with that.” She expressed immense gratitude for her current routine, “being Clara has been the happiest time of my life and I genuinely could not be happier. Dancing the role of Clara does not feel real… maybe once the performances are here it will feel real … I love it, even the 6, 7, 8-hour rehearsal days.  I do not want it to end; I love and enjoy every moment.”

Of course, the experience will come to an end, but it will do so in a lovely way, to rising sounds of Tchaikovsky’s cherished score by the Danbury Symphony Orchestra, and Arabella, as Clara, owns every one of her role’s gallops, arabesques, sautés, and chassés on the stage.

Join the holiday magic of Danbury Music Centre’s Nutcracker Ballet on Friday, December 12, 7:30 pm; Saturday, December 13, 3:00 pm; and Sunday, December 14, 3:00 pm at Danbury High School. Tickets are available online at Danburymusiccentre.org.