Tapestry Dance Company Presents OF MICE AND MUSIC: A JAZZ NUTCRACKER, Begin. this Weekened

Tapestry Dance Company presents its annual and critically-acclaimed Of Mice and Music: A Jazz Nutcracker Saturday, December 14 through Wednesday, December 18, with matinee performances on the 18th and the 19th at 2:00 pm.

Celebrate the holidays with this delightful adaptation of the classic nutcracker story, told with an original, swinging jazz score by Blue J, a live band and an army of tapping mice.

Tickets are available at www.austintheatre.org or by calling (512) 474-1221, and range from $24-29. For more information on Tapestry Dance Company, classes or donations, visit www.tapestry.org.

Long Center Resident Company, Tapestry is a professional, non-profit dance organization founded in 1989 for the purpose of developing a foundation in multi-form dance performance and education and is home to the only repertory tap Dance Company in North America. Its expansive south Austin, TX facility is home to seven resident artists, an annual tap dance festival, educational outreach programs, and a pre-professional and adult training facility sharing the unique training syllabus of founders Acia Gray and Deirdre Strand.

The events and programs of Tapestry Dance Company include seasonal multi-­?form concerts at Austin's Long Center, The Annual Soul to Sole Festival, community outreach programs such as Rhythm, Dance, Music & You!, numerous master classes and workshops in modern, jazz, ballet and rhythm tap as well as touring residencies throughout the world.

The most recent production of the company's NEA Masterpiece production of The Souls of Our Feet -­ A Celebration of American Tap Dance toured The People's Republic of China for 5 weeks in October 2011. Tapestry Dance Company is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

As soloist, choreographer and master teacher, Ms. Gray has toured extensively across the U.S. and abroad to include England, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Spain, Brazil, Canada and Austria and has shared the stage with such tap greats as Gregory Hines, Savion Glover and Donald O'Connor to name a few.

In June/2002, Ms. Gray was inducted as a premiere member of the Austin Arts Hall of Fame and was nominated for a prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts as well as being a choreographer chosen for the 2003 NEA National College Choreography Initiative. Her critically acclaimed book and Amazon.com category bestseller The Souls of Your Feet - A Tap Dance Guide for Rhythm Explorers is available at all major bookstores and has been translated in the Czech Republic and China.

Profiled in Dance Teacher Now magazine, Ms. Gray also served on the NEA funded Steering Committee for the National Tap Plan, was recently recognized as a leader in the field in Lynn Dally's UCLA event Women In Tap. Ms. Gray is currently touring her work The Souls of Our Feet - A Celebration of American Tap Dance through the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative and was awarded the Third Coast Rhythm Project's "Legacy Award" and honored as the "2008 Texas Tap Legend" by the Dallas Dance Council and is the 2010 recipient of the "Hoofer Award" by Tap City - The New York City Tap Festival. Ms. Gray currently serves as the President of the International Tap Association.