12.14.20 Home for the Holidays - Part 2

Just before Thanksgiving, I wrote about going to Ballet Austin to record the descriptive audio narration for the feature length film of the Nutcracker that is now available for home viewing.  On Saturday, the Home for the Holidays package was released, and I felt a not so small swell of pride when I opened the page and saw this:

It was a little weird to hit play and hear my own voice coming through the speakers on my computer...but it was exciting, too.

For two decades, Nutcracker has been a part of our lives...

as soon as our daughter began taking classes at Ballet Austin Academy, her dream was to have a role in the performance.  Once she was old enough - she did - every year for a decade.  From her first year as an angel, to her last as a rat...when she was part of the "new" (now seven years old) production with updated battle scene choreography and costumes.

My involvement paralleled hers - not onstage, but behind the scenes. I drove carpool, wrangled angels and mice backstage and began voluntering as a docent...first at her elementary school, then at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impared, and finally (the year she went away to college - and Nutcracker no longer started in September for us), taking on descriptive narration for the school performances.

When the Ballet Austin staff reached out during the summer, and asked if I would come into the studio and record the description for Act I (which would be sent to schools all over Central Texas so third graders would not miss their Nutcracker opportunity) I said, of course!

When they called again, just before Thanksgiving, to ask if I would be willing to return to do Act II, so they could include the narration with the full length film, I was honored.

It really wouldn't be the holidays around here with the Nutcracker - so we were delighted to be able to watch it at home (I now know how to cast from my phone to the television through the Roku).  It was different from other years, too be sure, we were in our sweats on the sofa...but they were great seats...and we loved seeing our friends - many of whom are my daughter's former teachers - perform.

Not only is the film beautiful but Ballet Austin is offering extra digital content each day...including a hilarious bit where the rats run around the empty building wreaking havoc.

Just click on the Home for the Holidays link at the top of the post, and you, too can sit back and watch sugarplums dance across your screen.

Here's hoping that next year, we'll be back in our seats watching the Silberhaus family live and onstage again.

Until next time.

11.13.17 I Must Be Nutz

The physicist and the biochemist in 2004

I became a Nutcracker parent (and docent) in the fall of 2004.  I continued in my role - working back stage, driving carpool, making sure we had the right colored ballet slippers - for the next 10 years, until my daughter graduated from high school and headed off to college.

Over the years, I created a charm bracelet for her with each of the roles she danced...and I acquired some Nutcracker jewelry of my own.


After I was done with the schlep, I continued to be a docent - both at the our neighborhood elementary, and at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  When I go, I usually wear one of my Nutcracker pins (along with my Ballet Austin Docent name tag).

This year, I've taken on a new role -  learning to do descriptive narration for blind and visually impaired ballet patrons.  If you had told me even a couple of years ago that I would spend hours in front of the computer painstakingly taking notes about dancers, costumes, and sets so that I could write a script to describe them in excruciating detail...I am sure I would have scoffed at you.  But that is exactly what I am doing.

29 handwritten and 18 typed pages

While it does give me the warm fuzzies to learn this new set of skills - I am not motivated entirely by altruism...

My father was a world renowned theoretical physicist.  He received numerous accolades and held a variety of senior positions at the US Department of Energy during his career - including serving as the Chief Scientist for the Superconducting Supercollider.

Yep - he was a bona fide genius.  But at the end of his life, his razor sharp mind was dulled by dementia, and one of the things I learned in the process of helping to care for him - and coming to terms with his death - is that learning new things in middle age, and later in life, may prevent or at least delay the onset of dementia.

So - along with learning metalsmithing - I decided that becoming a descriptive narrator was something that I could do for my community and for myself.

In 2013, Ballet Austin bought new sets and costumes for the production.  We bought our daughter an ornament on the tree, on the back it has her name and says Cast Member 2004-2013 - so she could always be part of the production - my name is not there.

She, and the rest of my family think it's "cool" but also more than a little hilarious that after saying that I'd be done with the Nutcracker when my daughter was - that hasn't happened yet.

Until next time

12.14.15 Visions of Sugarplums danced in their heads

Ballet Austin Nutcracker Cast 2013 - my daughter's last show

When my daughter was 3 years old, we were invited to a mother-daughter event to see Ballet Austin's production of Cinderella.  For more than 2 hours, she sat on the edge of her seat, and when the curtain went down and the lights went up, she said to me "Mommy, I'm going to be a ballerina".

My response was "of course you are" - because all 3 year old girls want to be ballerinas.

However, my girl really DID go on to be a ballerina; for 14 years she danced at the Ballet Austin Academy, and for 10 of those years she was part of the annual cast of the Nutcracker (she STILL dances for fun and exercise).

Charms - all the roles

My daughter was so excited to be cast as an angel her first year, and I bought her a James Avery angel charm, and had the date engraved on the back, as a keepsake.  The next two years, she danced as a mouse in the battle scene, so I bought mouse charms, and by her fourth year, it occurred to me that maybe instead of putting these charms on her regular charm bracelet, they needed to be own their own...so it was...that over the course of those 10 years we created a shiny record of all of her performances.

I confess, I tired of the schlep to rehearsals and the theater, and saw the production more times than I can count...but I got involved in my own way.  I became a docent - going into schools in the Austin area to talk to elementary school students about ballet and what they will see when they attend the performance.

Backs - all the dates

Being a docent is hands down my favorite part of the Nutcracker.  There is something so special and fulfilling about the opportunity to bring an art form I love to students, who often, have never seen a live performance.  For most of my presentations I rely on the wonderful materials provided Ballet Austin Community Education staff.  In addition to the presentation itself, each docent receives a bag chock full of props including, of course, a Nutcracker. For the past several years I’ve also been the docent for a particularly special group of children – the students at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired - and I was excited to see them again last week.

When I was first asked to do the presentation for TSBVI, I was already an experienced docent.  I said “yes” without a full appreciation of what I was taking on.  I knew the students would have little or no sight, but what I did not know what the range of other special needs the residential school serves.  Some students are sight impaired, but very high functioning in other areas, and some have much more severe disabilities and special needs. Fortunately, the school has a wonderful music teacher who gave me great advice on what would spark their interest and be appropriate for her students.

A TSBVI student holds a Nutcracker

Being the docent for TSBVI made me think about ballet in a way that goes beyond the visual.  To bring the Nutcracker alive for these students I focus on their other senses.  Students hear the story through descriptive audio services when they attend the performance at the Long Center, and Tchaikovsky’s fabulous score provides signature phrases for many scenes.

In the first act, there is the ominous music that precedes or indicates the arrival of the Rat King.  At the end of the act, there is snow - which does not fall silently – but as the rhythmic tapping of 32 perfectly timed pointe shoes moving across the stage.  In the second act, each "sweet" has their own musical theme, and as we listen I ask students to imagine the taste and smell of coffee, tea, cinnamon, chocolate, almond and peppermint. 

A TSBVI student tries on a costume

The students also love the costumes. Over the years I’ve made a point of taking well embellished tutus so that students can feel the beading, embroidery and tulle – allowing them to “visualize” the garment in their minds - truly creating visions of sugarplums.

My daughter is in college now, and we attend a performance every year when she is home.  But it is my time with these special children that really helps me to "see" the beauty of this "holiday gem".

Until next time.