Linda Chase faced what for many would have been an impossible choice.

After a lifetime of dancing, she had landed a scholarship with one of the world’s premier dance instructors and producers. Yet, she was also young and in love.

For Chase, the choice came easily.

Looking back decades later, Chase says, “I’ve never regretted the choice.”

CHASING CHASE

Linda Chase is probably best known as the woman who brings “The Nutcracker” each year to Valdosta.

For more than 30 years, Chase and her generations of Dance Arts students have brought “The Nutcracker,” Clara, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and all of the other familiar characters to life. They do so again this year, continuing one of Valdosta’s longest-running Christmas traditions.

Valdosta Scene recently sat down with Linda Chase to discuss the woman behind “The Nutcracker.”



BABY STEPS

Dancing and classical music fill Chase’s early memories. Then she was Linda Willard, the small daughter of David and Jane Willard.

Born in 1942, she grew up a post-war child, respecting at a young age the knowledge where every dime and penny comes from.

Her father, a Prudential insurance agent, bought a record album of “Sleeping Beauty.” Linda recalls hearing the music play on a family Victrola. She recalls, as a toddler, walking up the steps to a second-floor dance studio in Red Bank, N.J. A downtown building ran by renowned Russian ballerina Hela Slavinska.

“The stereotype is we think of Russian people as mean but they are not like that at all,” Chase says, recalling Slavinska and the many other Russian dancers­­­­ she has met in her career. “The Russian people are warm, friendly, generous, comical. ... The first song I learned I remember singing in a Russian accent.”

Slavinska often spoke in Russian to young Linda Willard and her other small child dancers, but she also spoke in the language of ballet terminology. Linda learned the French terms for her art at a young age.

In these earliest stages, dance became entwined in Linda’s life.



THE NEXT STEP

In 1955, the Willards moved to Jacksonville, Fla. Her father took a new job assignment. Many of her father’s clients were based in Valdosta, a connection which would not have an enduring significance for Linda for another decade.

In Jacksonville, Linda started middle school, but her dance studies continued.

At 13, Linda joined the Ballet Guild of Jacksonville, under the direction of Betty Hyatt Ogilvie. Ogilvie had danced with the New York City Ballet and had studied under the great George Balanchine.

Given this connection, Ogilvie arranged for some of her students to train under Balanchine’s teachers from Russia during summer programs. For four summers, Linda trained with the Balanchine teachers in New York.

By 1959, Linda Willard had caught the eye of the legend himself.



A GIANT LEAP

George Balanchine was a genius of ballet. An artist who created his own unique style of dance.

“Balanchine was no-nonsense,” Chase recalls. “When he walked into a room, everybody stood at attention. He wasn’t mean or nasty, but he was very businesslike. He knew what he wanted and knew what he expected. He was very challenging. He would push you to meet your own abilities. He would ask for something, and you would do it.”

In 1959, Balanchine allowed Linda the chance for a personal audition at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. He regularly awarded a dozen spots to attend what was the premier ballet school in America. After watching Linda Willard’s audition, he made an exception that year and took 13. Linda was that 13th pupil.

She moved to New York City. She studied. She worked as a babysitter to make additional money. She walked rather than spend the money given to her for cab fare at the end of each babysitting job.

She lived frugally and studied dance personally under the great Balanchine.

Balanchine rarely gave praise but “when he did, you knew it came from his heart,” Chase recalls. “He was an incredible person to work with.”

She studied under Balanchine for only four months. Had her studies continued, Linda Willard might have danced on the great stages, worked with the great choreographers, on the great ballets, across the globe.

Instead, she traded George Balanchine’s instruction for a young man named Fred Caddell.

Linda Willard was 18 years old and very much in love.



STEPPING FORWARD

Four months into her training with Balanchine, the Willards visited their daughter in New York. They brought along her high school sweetheart, Fred Caddell, for the visit. They came to New York to bring her home for a recess.

While Linda enjoyed her studies and time in New York, she had missed Fred more.

Between dance classes, she and Fred sneaked away and married.

The newlyweds told her parents of their wedding before making the car trip back to Jacksonville from New York. It was a long trip back.

“My parents were crushed by the decision to get married and leave Balanchine,” Chase recalls. “But they stuck with me.”

Back in Jacksonville, she wrote a letter to Balanchine, telling him of her decision to marry and not return to his school. Balanchine returned a gracious letter wishing her luck.

One person who has never forgiven her, Chase says, even 40 years later, is her Jacksonville ballet instructor, Betty Hyatt Ogilvie. She has never spoken to Linda Chase again.

But Chase has never regretted the decision.

“I did so much dancing as a teenager,” she says. “That was my life from 15 to 18 years old. I did so much as far as dancing and performing goes. Saturdays and Sundays practicing in the studio. I was happy with the change.”



MEASURED STEPS

Yet, those years of practice taught her a measure of discipline she could apply to her life as a young wife and, later, would share with her dance students.

“Dance students learn discipline,” Chase says. “Focus, being on time, managing their time. Kids want discipline. And by discipline, I mean structure not punishment. You don’t have to yell or scream.”

Married to Fred Caddell, they had two children: Melinda, who died in a car accident when she was 18; and son Fred Caddell III. But the marriage did not last. Linda would marry Ted Chase in 1975.

Yet, the Caddells had moved to Valdosta. In 1970, Linda started her first dance group; 16 students rehearsing at the auditorium at The Crescent.

In 1972, she held the first performance of her choreographed production of “The Nutcracker.” From 1972-79, she not only led the production, Linda performed in it, dancing as the Sugar Plum Fairy. In 1980, she started hiring people or selecting a student to dance the lead.

Through the years, she has built her sets, costumes, and nailed down a pattern to keep the show going as the cast changes each year to adapt to the ages of the dancers.

The show has run each Christmas since 1972, with one exception. One year, Mathis City Auditorium closed for renovations. That is the only time Valdosta has not had a “Nutcracker” in the past 37 years.

If it is up to Chase, “The Nutcracker” will return every year. She hasn’t even let life-threatening illness slow her down this year.



WATCHING HER STEP

Early this year, Chase noticed her energy flagging. She had lost weight. She lost her appetite. She felt tired. She experienced shortness of breath.

She thought it might be allergies. But allergies had never caused her to sit while leading dance classes. This did.

Doctors found that her left lung had collapsed. Fluid surrounded the lung. On March 31, she received the cancer diagnosis. On May 8, she started chemotherapy at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.

As her chemotherapy treatments come to an end, the fluid around her lung has decreased. At the time of this report, she waits to see what’s next.

Despite her illness, the treatments and the travel, canceling “The Nutcracker” was never an option.

“I never once considered not doing it this year,” Linda Chase says. “I worked harder earlier in the year to be sure everything would be ready ahead of time.”