Following Mom's Footsteps, and Her Toe Work Carolyn Lippert with a photograph of her mother, the ballerina Carla Stallings Lippert. DANCE is an art best passed from body to body. An older dancer will teach a role to a younger dancer. She'll communicate all she has learned performing over the years, the physical and the emotional, and in the process forge a bond that links artists from generation to generation. That bond can be stronger when the dancers are mothers and daughters. This holiday season three daughters of former ballerinas with American Ballet Theater are having this experience. Hannah Marshall, the daughter of Cheryl Yeager, and Carolyn Lippert, the daughter of Carla Stallings Lippert, will perform in the Snow and Flowers scenes for the first time in "The Nutcracker," choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Friday through Dec. 16. Alexandra Pullen, the daughter of Ellen Pullen Shaker, will perform this weekend as the Sugar Plum Fairy with the Washington Rock Ballet in Warren, N.J. All three young women are members of the Studio Company, the performing group of the graduating class of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, the academy associated with American Ballet Theater that is a bridge between training and professional careers. Being the daughter of a former star ballerina when you're just starting out in the competitive field of classical ballet isn't easy. All three of these daughters have been training since they were very young; all live away from home in apartments in the city so they can get to daily classes; and all have decided to bypass or postpone college to focus on dance, with two completing high school online. All three hope to get a contract with Ballet Theater. The sacrifices and pressures are real, but having a mom who knows what it takes to succeed helps. "I know how hard it is; I'm not like the moms who don't know, who think it's very glamorous," said Ms. Yeager, who spent 18 years with the company, beginning in 1976. I know what's driving her. I understand why she wants to do it. And you can't want any more for your children than for them to do what they love. Ms. Yeager, who now teaches at Ballet Academy East, was talking as Hannah, 16, was about to begin a Snow rehearsal at the Ballet Theater studios. Mother and daughter both have dark hair and big eyes, and they often finish each other's sentences. Hannah, in a blue leotard, shawl and point shoes, said that knowing her mother danced has helped her with the career. "I've seen tapes of her perform," she said. She's my ultimate role model, in every aspect. To see her daughter follow in her path, Ms. Yeager said, is "very strange and very wonderful." She added: "This is what she wants, and she works very hard, and she's beautiful. I mean, I'm her mom and I'm a little biased, but I know what I'm looking at. Other children of Ballet Theater dancers have had careers with the company. Maria Youskevitch danced with the company from 1967 to 1975; her father, Igor, was a principal dancer from 1946 to 1955. Leslie Browne, Ethan Brown and Elizabeth Laing are the children of the former Ballet Theater dancers Isabel and Kelly Brown. Veronica Lynn, who danced from 1985 through the late "90s, is the daughter of Lupe Serrano, a principal dancer from 1953 to 1971. For dancers hoping to join Ballet Theater, being cast in "The Nutcracker" is a big step because it can sometimes lead to a contract with the company. Hannah said she cried in the middle of a rehearsal when she learned she had been cast. "I cry all the time, so it wasn't that big a surprise," she said. But this has been my dream since I was 8 years old: to dance with A.B.T. and to have my name in a program, to get to even be associated with my idols. As Ms. Stallings Lippert, the mother of Carolyn, remembers it, "When I was first cast, it was pure elation." She joined in 1976 as an apprentice with Baryshnikov's "Nutcracker" and danced with the company until 1987. It was the first time I had a tutu fitted for me. It was like you're floating on a cloud: your dream is right around you.