May 2nd Donor Appreciation Event

The reception and showing hosted by Ballet San Jose to honor those who have generously donated to my campaign was a resounding success. 


The epic battle I waged with my printer to produce programs (printed on two sides of a piece of paper and in color!) was ultimately successful. I will never again fold up and cram a program into my purse. The Studio E Theater had been straightened up looked wonderful. This work and the tedious labor of arranging chairs was done by Rob Sees; thank you so much Rob for your efforts. 


Guests were warmly greeted at the door and handed a precious program by my father, Eric Rawson, who was said by some observers to have leant an appropriate amount of gravitas to the occasion. 


After the nearly fifty guests had arrived and been seated in the Studio E Theater, School Administrative Director Kristin Bertrand began the program by thanking our sponsors. Ballet San Jose Artistic Director Dennis Nahat, who was in attendance with John Gerbetz and choreographer Donald Mahler, was recognized first, for the generous support offered to my campaign by Ballet San Jose.

John Gerbetz, Donald Mahler, Dennis Nahat and Keira Schwartz

Kristin thanked the Conway family and Margaret Handyside of the downtown Britannia Arms, who supplied the delicious food and wine for the event. Nadja Conway attended the reception with her two beautiful daughters, both of whom have taken lessons at the Ballet San Jose School.

Next Kristin introduced me, and I tried to remember to honor and recognize the many other people who helped so much to make the event successful. Luckily, I had listed them in the program, as I did a pretty poor job of remembering everyone during my speech. One person I forgot to publicly thank was Kristin herself, who has worked along side me each step of this campaign, and without whose organizational skills and support I would be utterly lost. So thank you Kristin!

Kristin Bertrand with 2009 LLS Man of the Year, 

American Music Theater's Michael Miller and his wife Melinda Miller

I went on to try to convey my appreciation to all of the donors present for their generous support of the important work done by the LLS. I gave some details about my own treatment, and the clinical trial in which I participated. This trial involved the use of my own stem cells, which were harvested and then transformed in a laboratory to become "cyto-induced killer cells." If all goes as planned, these cells will be part of my immune system forever, there to recognize and destroy and Hodgkin's Cells in case of recurrence. It is these types of treatments and cures, discovered by research funded by the LLS, that will make the curing of Leukemia, Hodgkin's Disease, Lymphoma and Myeloma so much easier in the future.

I also took the opportunity to recognize my mother, Zivile Rawson, to whom I dedicate my candidacy, and the performance of 54321WPT that was to follow our speeches. 

My husband Gareth Hughes, me, my brother Cliff Rawson, 
Zivile Rawson, Eric Rawson

I told stories about the strength of my mother throughout my time of treatment and recovery. I mentioned that we tried to learn Italian on the way to chemo sessions, that she decorated my hospital room for Christmas and visited me there each day wearing the required mask and gown, and that she stayed with me during each and every doctor visits and treatment session, giving me strength when I had none left, and keeping us both as high spirited as possible. I recounted the story of a terrible day waiting for surgery. We had been in the surgery prep room for five hours due to delays, and when we thought we couldn't last one more minute without losing our minds, my mother brought us to hysterical laughter by dancing for me the choreography of her friend Cherly Ortiz, who had created a dance for their exercise class to perform. I will never forget how my mother managed to turn one of the most difficult days of my treatment into a treasured memory. 

Florence Schwartz with Cheryl Ortiz

My mother was presented with a beautiful bouquet of protea and sunflowers, and went on to speak passionately, thanking those in attendance for donating, and honoring them as heros who are saving lives with their generous donations. 

Next on the program was a showing of my ballet 54321WPT. 

Keira Schwartz and Damir Emric in 54321WPT

Photo by Patrick Tower

My brother Cliff Rawson played the guitar and sang the five beautiful pieces he had composed for this work. Each section of the ballet was created to silence, then filmed and mailed to Cliff in Brooklyn, where he would compose music to the completed choreography. 

In my opinion, this was the best performance of this ballet to date. Ballet San Jose company dancers Lahna Vanderbush, Emily Bromberg, Mallory Welsh, and Jing Zhang were stunning in the sections entitled Five and Three.  

Lahna Vanderbush and Peter Hershey

Emily Bromberg and choreographer Amy Seiwert                                   

Mallory Welsh

Preston Dugger and Jing Zhang

Ballet San Jose School students Nika Jurich, Jessica Wu, Angela Ma and Kaitlyn Estepa were not only charming but also technically impressive (I'm only slightly biased as their teacher) in Four. 

Angela Ma, Kaitlyn Estepa, Nika Jurich, Jessica Wu, Dalia Rawson, Adrienne Bergh

Keira Schwartz and Damir Emric were gorgeous in Two, and Keira outdid herself in the difficult solo One which ended the ballet. 

Damir Emric with his parents

Keira Schwartz enjoying the party

The costumes were a hit, as many people complimented me on them. Thank you to Maggie Heaman for design input and construction, as well as for managing the dancers during this performance and the two previously presented as part of our new venture, The Rawson Project.

James Turk, Sue Howell and Maggie Heaman

After the performance, everyone enjoyed the food and wine donated by the Downtown Brit, and served by volunteers and donors Jamie Gennis and Kara Langer.  

Jamie Gennis and Kara Langer

All of the photos from this event were taken by my wonderful friend, Mark Young, who I can always count on to help out in any situation. Mark, I'm sorry I snapped at you before my speech, and thank you so much for all of your gorgeous photos!

Eric Werness, Maria Jacobs-Yu, Gareth Hughes, 

Elizabeth Svoboda Werness and Mark Young

I had a great time catching up with all of you who were there. I wish that all of you who have donated to this campaign could have been with us to celebrate and so that I could have honored and thanked you in person for your generosity.

Thank you all again for your contributions. Together, we are raising quite a respectable amount of money, and I am no longer totally convinced that we can't win this!

If you would like to see all the photos from the May 2nd campaign, you can view and download them at:

http://gallery.me.com/dalia3001#gallery