Sunday, December 13, 2009

FUN! Christmas Revels

Last night I took Will and Eva to see the Washington Revels Christmas performance and it was GREAT!  This year's production is around the Renaissance in Italy.  Leonardo Da Vinci celebrates two pagan feast days, Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, and it is full of Italian folk music and dancing from the renaissance period.  The music is beautiful, the costumes are magnificent, it is educational (I didn't know Italy had any tradition of bagpipes) and there is lots of audience participation.  We had some carols to sing (some familiar and some not), we sang in rounds, and the best part is the Lord of the Dance just before intermission.  The cast invites the audience to dance and leads everyone, singing and with hands joined, out of the house and around the lobby area upstairs downstairs....according to one actor, they never know quite where they will end up.  Will jumped into that congo line immediately.  Eva was exhausted from her climbing meet and so was less enthusiastic.  I thought it was a lot of fun because I love to sing, especially in a big group like that, and I have never seen anything like this. 

Will and Eva had two friends in the children's chorus and that is how we found out about this performance in the first place.  It was so much fun to see them on stage and impressive too, that children's chorus had to learn a lot of music.  The Christmas Revels may have to become a Phelps family tradition.

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

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