Taking Suzi to a show: The Ugly Duckling... in lights

from corbianarts.com

We are really lucky. While we live in a small town, we are neighbored by a college town that provides fun educational opportunities, sometimes at an amazing price. Over the past few months, Suzi and I have enjoyed attending events at a local performing arts center as part of a program for area schoolchildren. Many of the local schools pick a couple of these events and plan field trips around them. Of course, homeschool families can attend as many as they want. Admission is $2/person, and some of them are free! The only catch is that you have to be three years old to go. This is where Grandma and Grandpa come in.

Suzi has attended eight shows this season. She went to one with her Grandma, and I took her to the rest of them while Grandma and Grandpa watched Ivey and Robert. Today was the last show of the season. We saw Corbian Visual Arts and Dance & Light Wire Theater perform The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare. We loved it. I'm finding it difficult to explain, so I'll use what they call it on their website, which is "electroluminescent puppetry." The puppeteers (dancers, actors?) were not seen--they only animated the characters, which were made up of brightly colored strands of light, all that was visible in the darkness. Yet the heartbreak of the rejected duckling shone through. It was also funny. The audience full of children roared over potty humor and the ridiculous personality of the racing hare. I thought I might cry when the mother swan came out at the end of the Ugly Duckling. Beautiful.

So I got to share this with Suzi and call it a school day. She sat in my lap and asked questions the whole time. On the way out she told me she liked it a lot, but that it was a little scary. Then she started brainstorming ideas for making her own costumes and puppets. I am thinking this might be a fun ongoing art project for her. Maybe I could make a portable puppet theater to hang in a doorway. She'd have a fit over that, and her birthday is coming up. Hmmm.

Thought I'd add that we did do a little school after we got home and had lunch. We can do school in the afternoon, but so far I do think it's working better in the mornings. She's fresher then.