(Editor’s note: Columns often contain opinion)
Over the weekend my daughter, Allie, dug through boxes in her closet and wound up on the other side of the wardrobe.
Mixed in with birthday cards from her Sweet 16 party (she’s 30), a rainbow of assorted dead pointe shoes and the safety award she received in fourth grade were multiple programs and T-shirts from the “Roar of Love”. Now known as “Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”, the ballet presented by Augusta Ballet is celebrating its 40th anniversary at 1 and 5 p.m. March 28 at the Columbia County Performing Arts Center. For tickets, go here.
Going to the land created by C.S. Lewis and brought to life by Ron and Kathleen Jones was a family tradition of ours for 15 years. From 2000 to 2015, all three of my children and even my husband and I ventured through the wardrobe at some point. It was as much of a rite of spring in Augusta as pollen, golf traffic and Easter. I watched as my children danced in nearly every role available. I didn’t record their growth by how much taller they had gotten over the previous year but by which roles they were experienced enough to take on.
Allie danced in the most “Roars” – the full 15 years starting as a firefly at the age of 4 and dancing the roles of Susan and the White Witch in high school. She did return as an alumnus in 2015 – the 30th anniversary. COVID has thrown off the anniversary count.
The early years were predictable as the ballet students followed a sequence of roles – cherub, firefly, pony, stars and angels, fairy sprite – a perennial favorite maybe because of the banshee screaming involved and naiad.
By the time they auditioned for and made the company, the roles weren’t as clear cut.
The anticipation of “Roar of Love”, the name of which was taken from an album by a group called The Second Chapter of Acts that translated the “Chronicles of Narnia” into song, began not long after the final curtain of “The Nutcracker”.
The wait seemed brutally long, especially with pre-teens and teens obsessing about casting going out. Casting posts resulted in more jubilation in some years. I know there was great excitement when my daughters each had turns as Susan and the White Witch.
My son Jeremy went through a range of roles starting as a pony then star. Later he was Fenris, the captain of the White Witch’s Army and the Great Lion Aslan, a role originated by Ron Jones.
My husband was Father Christmas and Mr. Beaver and finally in 2015, I was Mrs. Beaver.
Besides the massive amount of coordination of mom/grandmom/grandpa taxi to get kids to multiple rehearsals fed and on time, what I remember most was theater week at the Bell Auditorium where we performed.
For many years, I helped in the dressing rooms, tacking dancers into costumes, helping with quick changes and emergency pointe shoe sewing. I couldn’t put my girls’ hair into a ballet bun, but I could bobby pin a headpiece into place that wasn’t coming off no matter how many pirouettes they did.
When I got my first 35-mm camera, I took rehearsal shots — thousands of them. I typically got a handful of decent ones. I’d dart back and forth between the house to take photos and backstage to check on my children.
And there were the dances themselves.
One of my favorites is the opening called the Celebrants, performed to “Oh For a Thousand Tongues”. The ethereal white costumes and the grace of the dancers always made me cry – especially when one or both of my girls danced in it.
The end of Celebrants meant a rush back to the dressing room because everyone had to change costumes.
“Turkish Delight” is another favorite, but for a totally different reason.
In that one, the witch throws off her white cape to reveal a fiery red costume. It’s a frenzied fast-paced dance with the witch’s menacing wolves. It’s full of athleticism with lots of jumps, lifts and spins. Usually, only boys were wolves, but Allie was a she-wolf one year and danced with her brother.
I think there is a special memory associated with every scene.
And 10 years after they made their final trip through the wardrobe, I still cherish the laughter and the tears of the graduating dancers who’d miss the annual rite of passage, the triumph of a dance going just as rehearsed and the emotion of watching the ballet itself. Of course, I remember the silliness In the dressing rooms, and the looks my kids got when stopping for a late night meal after dress rehearsal in full wolf makeup or hair sprayed green.
Yes, Narnia and Ron and Kathleen Jones will always hold a special place in my heart.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
