By Howard Pousner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When the curtain rises on the Atlanta Ballet’s 50th anniversary production of “Nutcracker” on Friday, John McFall will have changed his choreography the most since it premiered in 1995.

Beyond wanting to make the golden anniversary edition of the holiday classic glisten, the artistic director was determined to challenge his company’s 21 principals and six apprentices.

“Dancers are better than ever today,” McFall believes, and thus demand to be pushed, even on a standard such as “Nutcracker.”

McFall began his dance career with the San Francisco Ballet in 1965, when there still was a Cold War between the classical ballet and modern dance worlds. Dance’s Iron Curtain has long since fallen, and the artistic director has torn down a few walls of his own, in Atlanta Ballet collaborations with the likes of Big Boi of OutKast, the Indigo Girls and the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company.

Here, McFall gives five reasons why he believes ballet dancers today are at a high point.

1. Dancers are more in touch with their bodies and more self-directed:

“There’s a bit more of a science. Everyone’s anatomy is different, and getting to know your body is No. 1. We encourage our dancers to identify their weaknesses as well as become aware of their strengths. When they’re not dancing, many are at pilates and yoga, making those tendons pliable and backs flexible. We prefer six-packs to soft tummies.

“Also we encourage them to be self-directed, learning how to apply the information. It’s one thing to have a process where a teacher gives you advice and tells you how to accomplish something, but then you’ve got to do something beyond that, you’ve got to take that, because you’re only in class for 90 minutes, and apply it throughout your day and your career.

“Finally, we ask them to achieve some balance in their lives, not to live in a bubble. To be an artist, you have to respond to the world around you. You’re not living in a Cinderella story. You’re experiencing and commenting on everything happening around you. In other words, life.”

2. Atlanta Ballet’s dancers are seriously collaborative:

“I have dancers here that I hired when I got here almost 15 years ago, so they're artists, they've really gone a distance, we've been there together. We've really learned a lot, we've experienced a lot.

“And they're real collaborators artistically. They're very engaged. They don't stand around twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to give them a step. That's how we are here, how we work with guest choreographers. They love coming here because these dancers have passion, they're adventurous and they go for it.”

3. The teachers are better and more worldly:

“We provide a wider range of teachers. The world is much more open, it’s much more available, there's more crossover. Choreographers bring that wealth of experience to the process. If you have a choreographer from Czechoslovakia or Australia or Norway or whatever, they bring something that reflects their experience and it’s new. And you've got to be able to respond to that.”

4. The dance world is less divided today:

“Today you have all these different disciplines that come together with all these different languages. And everybody can move in so many new kinds of ways.

“When I was growing up, there were the modern dancers, the classical dancers -- there was kind of this abyss. There used to be an attitude when I was a classical ballet dancer: ‘Oh no, you can't take jazz class. Oh no, you can't do this, because that's going to impact your ballet.’ It was crazy.

“We take the opposite approach. We have hip-hop, we have jazz. You name it, it happens.”

5. Dancers are expected to do more:

“That's just how they live and breathe. And at the end of the day, there's more volume, they're larger, experientially they've done more.

“Atlanta Ballet does everything, so they've got to be able to do it all, and that starts in our Centre for Dance Education. And we're not competitive. We’re all about nurturing and developing the individual, because it's all about expression in the end, it's all about people's feelings. So it's what you share.

“It’s really about experience, maturation and getting to a place where you’re really in the groove -- where you’re so comfortable with yourself that you’re independent and free to do everything.”

Dance preview

“Nutcracker”

Opens Friday. Through Dec. 27. The Atlanta Ballet Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky’s score this weekend only, Friday-Sunday; a recording is used for subsequent performances. Tickets start at $20. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E. 1-800-982-2787, www.atlantaballet.com .

“Nutcracker" by the numbers

250 student dancers -- along with 21 company members and six apprentices

300,000 watts -- amount of electricity used for each performance

20 pounds -- amount of snow that falls each performance

38 feet -- height to which the Petrov Christmas tree grows

75 pounds -- weight of Mother Matrushka's gown, including 25 yards of red jacquard