Ballet: Flying is not always fun, but is a ‘special privilege’
Giant leaps
Along with cladding them as pirates, fairies and Lost Boys and putting them through intricately lively choreography, the production is teaching the company’s dancers to fly or to help their cohorts soar.
“There’s creative things that you can do with choreography to emulate flight. But I would say, especially for children, to see a human body in front of you just be lifted through the air and start to fly … it’s pretty cool,” Mills said. “It’s something that we can do to make it just a little more exciting, a little more magical, a little more realistic.”
Creating the magic and excitement isn’t without its challenges. As a dancer, Mills said he got the opportunity to ascend playing John Darling, one of Wendy’s brothers, in a different version of “Peter Pan.”
“It was actually a really fun experience when I did it. It was one of my more memorable moments out of my career, because it was just out of the ordinary. It’s something that you not only don’t get to see very often, but you don’t get to do very often,” he said.
“It’s actually very uncomfortable, because underneath your costume you have this harness, and the entire weight of your body is being lifted from your crotch, essentially.”
‘Special privilege’
As the high-flying title character, Martin will wear a harness the entire show, while the dancers playing Wendy, John, Michael and Tinker Bell don them for part of the performances.
“There’s so much discomfort in ballet in general that I feel like we go in accepting that,” Martin said with a laugh. “I’m sure, in the moment, you’re, ‘Oh, that’s new,’ but then you get used to it like anything else.”
Although Martin said he has done wire work once, company dancer Autumn Klein, who plays Wendy, has clocked more flight time. While at Houston Ballet, she played one of the flying cooks in that company’s production of “The Nutcracker.”
“Being in the air, just a little movement will send you careening or twisting. You
ON STAGE
OKLAHOMA CITY BALLET’S ‘PETER PAN’
When:
8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. April 17.
Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N
Walker.
Before all performances, children can make Tinker Bell’s wand or a pirate’s hook in the south lobby, courtesy of Oklahoma Contemporary. After matinee performances, OKC Ballet dancers will be in the lobby for a meet and greet, with milk, punch and cookies provided by Braum’s.
www.okcballet.com. Go Code LTOF
Flying lessons
848-8637 or To see a video about Oklahoma City Ballet’s “Peter Pan,” go to Oklahoman.com and enter the Go Code above. only want to spin when you want to spin. You don’t want to be like wildly swinging,” she said.
“I’m so excited. This is my favorite thing I’ve ever done so far. I can’t wait. We have kind of unique careers anyway, but you normally would not get to do that even in our jobs. So, it’s a special privilege.”
For soloist DaYoung Jung, Tinker Bell’s flight will mark her first airborne dance experience.
“That’s the scariest part of this ballet,” she said.
Although the company has been rehearsing for the past few weeks with Allison Zamorski, ballet master for Nashville Ballet, the flying dancers won’t don their harnesses for the first time until Tuesday, when rehearsals shift to the Civic Center.
“It’s quite an intense period when we get into the space … and it’s a quick turnaround. This extra element of flying, it does make it even more intense. But we make it work,” said Mills, adding that the company has previously used flying effects in its production of “The Wizard of Oz.”
“It’s a challenge to be inside that apparatus and to create balletic positioning … as you’re being moved around the stage. It takes a while to figure out exactly what you have to be doing with the weight of your body so that you can actually face the direction that they’re taking you. You have to be in control of that.”
The challenges aren’t just limited to the dancers in the air: Several dancers have been learning the cues and counts so that they can operate the ropes and pulleys that will send their colleagues soaring.
“We have to coordinate with the other dancers, too. … We have to make it look like they’re not just pulling us up and we’re, like, hanging. We have to look like we’re jumping off the ground — and we want it to be graceful,” Klein said.
“It’s dancing, but I feel like it’s a whole new kind of dancing. … It’s going to an adventure, that’s for sure.”