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Personal Note
The ballet The Snowman is based on a children's book by British author Raymond Briggs, published in 1978. In 1982, this book was turned into an animated movie by Dianne Jackson for Channel 4. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1983. It has been shown every year since and has become a part of British and international Christmas popular culture. The cartoon version was scored by Howard Blake.
The book and film have no words, instead telling the story through picture, action and music. This adds to their charm, as well as making them easy to publish in other languages.
The film's one song, "Walking in the Air," was written specially for it and performed by a St Paul's Cathedral choirboy, Peter Auty. The song was released as a single, reaching number 5 in the UK charts, sung by Welsh chorister Aled Jones.
By adding 30 min of new music, the original one-hour ballet was created in 1993 - score by Howard Blake, choreography by Robert North - for the Stora Theater in Gothenburg, Sweden. Design of sets, costumes and lighting by Andrew Storer. It had several succesful season-runs in Sweden (1993-1996), Italy (1999) and Scotland (2001-2002).
After the score was completed (Summer 1993), the artistic director of The Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Bill Alexander, invited Howard Blake to create a 90-minute stage show using dance and mime.
With another 30 min. of additional music the show ran for 90 performances in December 1993/January 1994. Choreography by Pat Garrett, costumes and sets by Ruari Murchison.
In 2000 two new characters were written into the story, a Jack Frost and an Ice Princess, creating a more dramatic story line and in this revised form the show has received consistent acclaim.
Source: Wikipedia and HowardBlake.com
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The Snowman is the tale of an unnamed boy who builds a snowman one winter's day. (The day appears to be either Christmas or New Year's Eve, but this is not explicitly stated.) That night, at the stroke of twelve, the snowman comes to life. The first part of the story deals with the snowman's attempts to understand the appliances, toys and other bric-a-brac in the boy's house, all while keeping quiet enough not to wake the boy's parents.
In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole — the song "Walking in the Air" appears at this point — and attend a snowmen's party, at which the boy is the only human. They meet Father Christmas and his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern.
The story ends after the return journey. Next morning the sun has come out, and the boy wakes up to find the snowman has melted. The viewer begins to wonder if the night's events were all a dream, but the boy discovers that he still has the scarf given to him by Father Christmas.
Source: Wikipedia
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Official website
Sadler's Wells
Peacock Theatre, London
Video Clip
The Snowman at the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
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In 2000 The Snowman had a succesful season in The Netherlands. It was our first theatre experience. At the age of 5 (Manon) and 3 (Sabine) we were very impressed with the whole atmosphere. The theatre, the stage, lights, sets, music, costumes and of course the adorable snowmen.
After the performance we got to meet
THE Snowman backstage.
Marnix (the actor/balletdancer) kept the magic alive by not speaking a word, but miming at us, inviting us in his cosy Christmas-decorated dressingroom where he posed with us for a pic.
Below you can view the picture - clicking the thumbnail will open a new window, where you can see a larger image.
Look at those red cheeks!! Very impressed we were indeed! So much, that this is one of our fondest theatre memories, eventhough we've seen many shows after that.
Those memories made us apply for this fanlisting and we're very happy that we were approved :)
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