Lise Houlton has danced principal roles for the world's leading choreographers. As artistic director of Minnesota Dance Theatre & the Dance Institute, she oversees the quality of dance and everything else in each production, including the holiday classic "Loyce Houlton's Nutcracker Fantasy," which her mother, in addition to founding Minnesota Dance Theatre in 1962, also created. But the job can be anything but artistic at times. "There's hardly anything glamorous about the title," Houlton says, "because you do everything from MDT studio maintenance to sew costumes."

And wash them. And raise money for the small non-profit company, which has eight dancers and three apprentices. Based in the Hennepin Center for the Arts, MDT will move next door to the Shubert Theater when rehab work is completed on the century-old structure.

Houlton teaches company dancers in an ornate, soaring rehearsal studio in the former Masonic Temple, a looming Romanesque structure that houses HCA. "Mikhail Baryshnikov still says this is his favorite studio, and he's been everywhere," Houlton says. "The word is the Masons did all sorts of pyro in here. It adds to the mystery and the history."

Houlton began her dance career at MDT and spent two years at the Stuttgart Ballet before joining American Ballet Theatre in New York. She returned to Minneapolis in 1990 and succeeded her mother as MDT's artistic director five years later. MDT's next season begins in October with two weeks of performances and continues with the Nutcracker in December and a two-week spring session.

It's all my years in Stuttgart and American Ballet Theatre. I want, love, need the live music aspect. When the musicians and dancers breathe together and create their world of art together, I don't know of anything more powerful. Childbirth, maybe. So every opportunity, we seek that out.

My mother used to say to us before a performance: "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll!" We were of that era of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. She loved the dynamics of energy, the appeal of a body that was an instrument for dance. And certainly the beauty of being well trained. Of creating a line that was not of the human existence because of the rigorous training that was done every single day. I think that is what makes a performance successful.

When people hear the word "ballet" they think of ladies in funny tutus and men in white tights, and I think there's no interest in that. That is intimidating. We only wear tutus in "Nutcracker." The two years most of our costuming has been at American Apparel and Lululemon Athletica stores. Once a new audience member sees it, I think it's very intriguing to them.

I am. As difficult as it is for our families and audiences to get parking if a Twins game is on, it is so excited to be out on a Saturday and see the hordes of people. Maybe one of them will see our posters and say, "Hey, let's go see some dance. Downtown isn't so bad after all."