Chicago Girls Adopted From Same Orphanage in China Star in 'Nutcracker' Together a Decade Later
K.J. Jacoby and Nora Ryan have quite a shared history
— -- A series of uncanny coincidences has led two 13-year-old girls who were adopted from the same orphanage on the same day in China by two different families to now starring together in “The Nutcracker” with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet.
K.J. Jacoby and Nora Ryan were both adopted from an orphanage in China on Oct. 29, 2002.
Their parents -- Diane and John Jacoby, and Christine Ryan -- were two in a group of seven Illinois families that flew to China through the Family Resource Center adoption agency.
Though the group spent 17 days together in China going through the adoption process, they mostly parted ways when they returned home in Chicago with their babies.
“When we came back to Chicago, everybody just went back to their lives,” John Jacoby told ABC News, adding that the group now reunites for an annual "Gotcha Day" celebration.
Around one year after the adoption, when K.J. and Nora were still toddlers, Ryan and Diane Jacoby ran into each other near their respective homes.
“Literally, Christine and I were both walking through an alley and saw each other and recognized each other and we realized we lived a block from each other and each had just moved in,” said Diane Jacoby.
"It was just amazing when we found each other," Ryan told ABC News.
A few years after that, as the girls approached school-age, Jacoby told Ryan about a summer camp she had enrolled K.J. in and the girls’ friendship was born.
“Every morning they would ride on the bus together,” Jacoby said. “Everyone at the camp thought they were real sisters because they call themselves the ‘Wu Sisters.’”
The “Wu Sisters” was the name given to the group of girls adopted along with Nora and K.J. in the city of Wuzhou, China.
A few years later after bonding at summer camp, the girls, by chance, also began attending the same school and learned they shared the same hobby of dance.
"She knows how important it is to have these other girls in her life," Ryan said of her daughter's bond with K.J. and the other "Wu Sisters." "They have this bond that they all came from the same place and somehow ended up in Chicago together and that they’ll all be friends."
“Their sort of special relationship comes from they both share the same background and history," Jacoby said.
K.J. and Nora’s dedication to dance has landed them each spots in the prestigious Joffrey Ballet production of “The Nutcracker” for the past three Christmas seasons.
It was only recently that Joffrey Ballet officials put it together that the two girls they had cast – this year as “Party Boys” – from a wide pool of dancers shared such a special connection.
“They both stood out in the audition with their level of proficiency, focus and ability to make corrections," Katie Kirwan, Joffrey Nutcracker Children’s Ballet Master, told DNAinfo. "They both smile continually throughout all rehearsals and seem to be delighted to be dancing.”
The Jacobys say they are happy for both girls to have someone so close physically to them with such a special connection.
“Not only do you know you’re an adopted child in an interracial family but you know you both came from the same orphanage in China,” Diane Jacoby said. “ That’s a bond between them that none of us can have.”
"They call each other. They text each other. They help each other out all the time," Ryan said.
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