On December 12 and 13, area audiences will have the opportunity to attend two separate productions of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker: one performed by the professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities (plus a few local performers), one performed by the student performers of RiverPointBallet (plus a professional dancer). And Ballet Quad Cities' Executive Director Joedy Cook is up-front about a large part of the holiday favorite's appeal: "For all ballet companies, Nutcracker is what really helps pay their bills. Nutcracker is the one ballet that you can count on to get an audience."

Yet as Cook well knows, that's not the reason that audiences themselves flock to The Nutcracker year after year. "It's truly the most recognizable music in the world," she says, "and that's because it's magical. And The Nutcracker itself is magical. It's magic, it's dreamy ... it's 'Calgon! Take me away!'"

For choreographers, inspiration can sometimes come from a story, or a theme, or a series of dance moves. For Ballet Quad Cities' Margaret Huling, who makes her professional choreographic debut with the upcoming Configurations, it came from Tchaikovsky - specifically, the First Movement of the composer's Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50.

"I was kind of fighting with myself over what I wanted to do," says Huling, "and I kept coming back to the First Movement. It's music that really inspires me."

Yet choreographic inspiration can also come from the inspiration of others, as Ballet Quad Cities' Associate Director Courtney Lyon discovered in the course of re-staging original choreographer Johanne Jakhelln's Romeo & Juliet in the 21st Century.

Domingo Rubio, the Mexico City-based dancer currently performing with Ballet Quad Cities, is discussing his American breakthrough in 1999.

"I was with a Mexican company dancing in Los Angeles," he says, "and Gerald Arpino [artistic director of Chicago's Joffrey Ballet], he saw me dancing at my fullest. You know, I was doing big, big roles ... everything that you could do without fainting. And stuff choreographed by me - things that would suit myself. He saw those performances and wanted me for his company.

"So even though I was 33," he continues, "which is, you know, an age that you could quit, I started with Joffrey."

Thirty-three?

"It was like a good second wind," says Rubio. "I started late, and I've been catching up."

When Ballet Quad Cities Executive Director Joedy Cook was looking for a new artistic director earlier this year, she quickly rejected Steve Beirens.

"I would get all these résumés," says Cook of her search to replace Matthew Keefe, the company's artistic director for the 2006-7 season. "And I'd watch the DVDs they sent, and I would have all these little piles. And Steve went into this ‘no' pile."