11-year- old Poppy loves ballet. She even has a special role in the Birmingham Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker. She's doing it all without being able to hear the music. Poppy is deaf. Her mom Kim interprets for her. She's at all the rehearsals, helping Poppy learn ballet just like the other kids.
"She thinks it's beautiful" Poppy's mother Kim Christenberry says. "She says she feels like she's in a dream."Kim and her husband adopted Poppy from China about this time last year. And she's not the first deaf child in the family.
"Our adoption agency called and said they had a little boy who was deaf who needed a family, so we adopted him and realized he need a sibling," Kim says. Poppy wasn't allowed to participate in ballet in China. At the Birmingham Ballet, it's a much different story.
"If poppy could hear me, I would tell her we don't want to tell her what to do, we want her to learn it herself," fellow dancer Linnea Blakemore says. Kim, the other dancers and the director all help Poppy to use visual cues to learn the dances. But on this stage, there's a lot more learning going on.
"Poppy has most definitely taught us something," Linnea says. "Not only how to sign, but to treat people who are different from us."Linnea wears a dragon costume in one scene with Poppy. But this time, it's Poppy's turn to shine.