Soon, Clara will wake from dreams

The quest for eternal youth is, well, eternal. Think Peter Pan, or those folks in “Nip/Tuck” who routinely go under the knife. But what about the perennially pubescent Clara in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story of “The Nutcracker”? Forever young, she leaps, twirls and lunges around a gift-festooned stage every Christmas, when, in real life, many a Clara is quite beyond the age of wide-eyed innocence.

At 38, Etta Murfitt has been dancing the pigtailed, nightie-clad role in Matthew Bourne’s alternative “Nutcracker!” since originating it in 1992. But not for long. Murfitt is hanging up her Clara-wear for good after Jan. 2, when Bourne’s troupe ends its three-week Southland engagement at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

“I feel I’ve done the role for a long time,” Murfitt says of her decision, “but I am getting old for a dancer. I still want to keep performing, but I’d like to move into more character roles.”

Murfitt, whom The Times’ dance critic, Lewis Segal, praised for her “energy, skill and wholehearted belief in the work’s events and conflicts,” says she loves playing Clara. (She rotates performances with two other dancers.) But other roles, including that of mother, beckon. Murfitt, who is married to London-based theater production manager Petrus Bertschinger, gave birth to daughter Isabel in 1995.

Having a child has caused her take on the dreamy Clara to evolve during the last three seasons she has performed “Nutcracker!”

“There’s a bit of my daughter in Clara,” Murfitt says, “because when you have a child you can observe them and see how things are wonderful to them. That’s what I’ve taken from her and use that.”

Dancing Clara, Murfitt adds, has been a gift. “It’s a fantastic show, and you get to play so many different emotions and tell a great story.”

Telling great stories, after all, is a Bourne forte. Having taken classes in the late ‘80s with the choreographer-director in their native London, Murfitt began working with Bourne professionally in 1991. Together with Scott Ambler -- also still a company member -- they became co-founders of Adventures in Motion Pictures, a troupe that mixes contemporary dance and theater in daringly original ways.

It was Bourne’s re-envisioned “Nutcracker!” that put the troupe on the map. Originally six dancers, the group mushroomed to 18, with Bourne setting his version in a Dickensian orphanage instead of a luxe Victorian home, and Clara’s dream going slightly awry, albeit with a fairy-tale happy ending.

Murfitt recalls how she and Bourne fleshed out Clara. “Matt loves musicals, and one of his favorite performers is Judy Garland,” she says. “We thought about her in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and incorporated her being hopeful, even when things are dreadful.”

Bourne says he’s saddened at Murfitt’s decision to no longer play Clara, adding, “I think she looks younger than when she began the role. When Etta walks onstage, she still looks like a little girl, partly because she’s become a mother herself. I imagine that’s what made her so good in the part.”

Murfitt has also danced in Bourne’s alternative versions of “Swan Lake,” “Cinderella” and “The Car Man” (all presented at the Ahmanson), productions that cemented his trailblazing reputation. And while juggling career and motherhood took some finessing, Murfitt found ways to make it work.

“After Isabel was born, it was difficult, but exciting. I went back to do ‘Swan Lake’ in the West End, and I was still breastfeeding. That was slightly problematic,” she recalls with a laugh. “But I had my mother, father and husband, who were really supportive.”

More responsibility came in 2002, when Bourne broke with his producer Katherine Dore and started his current company, New Adventures. Murfitt followed and became the troupe’s associate director. In addition to performing, her duties include casting and restaging shows with Bourne, as well as scheduling rehearsals.

So instead of performing in Bourne’s next L.A. production, “Play Without Words” at the Ahmanson Theatre in April, Murfitt will be managing the ballet “Highland Fling” during its tour of Britain and Japan.

Says Murfitt, who also teaches dance and choreographs for opera and theater: “I can set the show up wherever we are and then leave. I have more freedom not performing, and it’s good to have a break from dancing, when I can spend time at home, which I miss.”

Like Clara, though, Murfitt remains wide-eyed and ever upbeat. “From six people moving around in a little bus with our sets, costumes and dance floor, never in a million years did I imagine we would end up touring the world, working with 74 dancers and doing four productions in one year. It’s like a dream come true.”

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‘Nutcracker!’

Where: Royce Hall, UCLA

When: 2 and 8 p.m. today, 2 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 2 and 8 p.m. Wednesday and next Thursday, 2 p.m. Dec. 31 and Jan. 2

Price: $35 to $75

Contact: (310) 825-2101, www.uclalive.org