Anne Schilperoort has put together a Christmas program based off an interesting children's book A Northern Nativity. Throughout the last four years, our team has marveled at Anne's creativity in finding inventive ways to pair classical music with multi-media.

Unfamiliar with the book, I wanted to find out more before seeing the performance. Here's what I found:

The book begins in the depression of the 1930's when the protagonist, William is a 12 year old boy.  "Everywhere across the country men traveled in search of work. They begged food, slept wherever they found shelter, rode boxcars- led on always by the hope that in the next town they would find a job and money to send to wives and children back home.  Some families had lost their homes and they traveled in broken-down cars, trusting to the kindness of strangers to keep going..."

William is learning about the Christmas story in Sunday school and history and geography in school.  Throughout A Northern Nativity, the author tells us of Williams' dreams of the Christmas Story taking place in unusual contexts in the far north, mingling his Sunday school teachings with his lessons in history and geography. Each dream is beautifully illustrated with a painting.  Williams dreams of the holy family as Eskimo's, cowboys, rod riders, truck drivers and fishermen, to name a few.
 For example, picture Joseph and Mary as Slavic Immigrants who wonder onto a construction site in a prairie city.  The nightwatchman on the construction site lets them into his trailer to get warm by the heater.  All of Williams dreams are just as interesting.
I borrowed the book from a local school library and was very struck by it's originality and multi-dimensionality. It really emphasizes how, even in the most humble of times, beauty and divinity can be found in unexpected places.  I am excited to see what Anne does with this story in her performance.
Ellie