Bea Rashid, founder and artistic director of the 10-year-old Evanston Dance Ensemble, long had thought C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" would make a great holiday ballet. "I could see those scenes as dances," she says -- when Lucy walks through the wardrobe into the winter-bound Narnia, when winter turns to spring. "And it has so many fantastical characters, the triumph of good over evil -- I thought it was a wonderful story that would work for dance." She could adapt the story and choreograph the dances, she figured, but "the music was key. The only person I trusted with it was my husband." [More]