SALISBURY — The opportunity to take in a timeless Christmas performance won’t be around long.

The Piedmont Dance Theatre, in collaboration with the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, will be performing “The Nutcracker” on Saturday and Sunday at Catawba College’s Keppel Auditorium.

Salisbury Symphony Music Director Emeritus David Hagy said that the local performance of The Nutcracker has been going on for nearly two decades and that the partnership with the Piedmont Dance Theatre began after he saw their rendition of The Nutcracker years ago.

“I suggested that we try doing this concert, our family concert with The Nutcracker and the board reacted quite well to that,” Hagy said.

Since then, the partnership has blossomed into an artistic talent showcase that viewers anticipate every year. Piedmont Dance Theatre Artistic Director Rebecca Wiley indicated that the annual performance represents the culmination of months of hard work.

“I start preparing as early as April,” Wiley said. “That’s when I begin teaching the technical elements for pieces like ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ and ‘Waltz of the Snowflakes.'”

Auditions take place on the second weekend in September, and by the third week of that month, rehearsals are in full swing.

With it officially being crunch time, all the moving parts are coming together, but while the audience might just see the final product, it takes a team effort to get there.

“I love all the different aspects — marketing, choreographing, training the dancers, working on production details — but as we get closer to performance week, it can get a little overwhelming trying to keep all the pieces moving smoothly,” Wiley said. “Thankfully, I have an amazing team of volunteers and staff who step in and make a huge difference. Without them, it would be impossible to pull it all together.”

For Wiley, a love for The Nutcracker dates back to her childhood.

“The Nutcracker has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I’ve been performing in it since I was 11 years old. It’s always been such a magical experience for me, and when I opened my own dance school in 2003, I knew I wanted to share that magic with my students.”

Although Wiley is involved in the performance every year, it has hardly grown stale — just the opposite, in fact.

“The Nutcracker has become a marker of time — watching the dancers grow and progress through the roles year after year,” Wiley said. “The process forces me to pause and reflect, not just on their development as dancers, but also as individuals.

“In today’s fast-paced, automated world, moments like these where a group of people come together to solve a problem or create joy are rare. I believe in creating those moments, not just for our dancers but for our entire community. That’s what keeps me inspired to do this year after year.”

Hagy explained how changing creative directions keep the show fresh and new.

“We do this every year, but it’s never the same,” Hagy said. “I mean, it’s the same story, and it’s the same music, but what Rebecca does to it is make little differences each year …  that make it something that you’d like to see more than once.”

That creative approach takes time and vision. For example, even with the performance in the weekend’s imminent crosshairs, Wiley always keeps a steady eye on the future.

“I’m thinking about The Nutcracker year-round,” she said. “Even now, I’m already brainstorming ideas for 2025. It’s an ongoing creative process that never really stops.”

Having done it for years, Wiley has elements of the performance that stand out to her.

“There are so many favorite moments,” she said. “From a theatrical, musical and storytelling perspective, I’d say the scene where the Christmas tree grows during Act I. The combination of the music, the moving scenery and the choreography is so powerful.”

Wiley remembers standing on the stage as a young dancer, watching that tree grow and hearing the orchestra play.

“It felt absolutely magical,” Wiley said. “To this day, that moment still gives me chills.”

Another favorite of Wiley’s is the end of Act II, right before the Land of Sweets transitions back to the Family Scene.

“There’s something so moving about that part of the ballet,” she said. “It’s beautiful and bittersweet.”

Now, not all the magic happens in view of the audience.

“Some of my favorite moments happen backstage,” Wiley said. “Watching the team come together — whether it’s for a scene change, a quick change or solving an unexpected problem.

“Ballet isn’t life or death, but for those two hours, it feels like the most important thing in the world. It’s like being given permission to play make-believe as an adult. It’s a feeling of pure wonder, like stepping back into the innocence of childhood. It’s hard to explain, but once you’ve felt it, you never want to let it go.”

Similarly, Hagy pointed out how the performance has a way of tapping into a certain nostalgia that is hard to quantify unless one is there.

“There are probably 10 to 12 (musical) themes that the general public recognizes that are in this ballet,” he said. “They don’t know that it’s in the ballet. Particularly, they don’t know it’s Tchaikovsky. They don’t know any of that. They just know, oh, that’s Christmas-y, isn’t it? And they recognize it kind of because they heard it as a child in school, or different things like that. It’s really amazing that one piece should have that many melodies that are just immediately recognizable by the general public.

“You can even hear it sometimes when there’s an occasional ‘Ooh’ or ‘ah’ when a certain melody plays, so having a treasure that’s like that that is immediately received beautifully is incredibly fun to bring to life.”

As the music director, seeing all that preparation bear fruit is rewarding, but it does come with a bit of adrenaline-induced nervousness before showtime. However, he acknowledged that is natural and just a part of any dedicated performer who is emotionally and mentally invested in the show.

The Nutcracker Ballet will be performed on Saturday, Dec. 21, at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 22, at 2:30 p.m. at Keppel Auditorium, on the campus of Catawba College, 2300 W. Innes St. Tickets are available at piedmontdancetheatre.com.