Ballet dancers take flying lessons for 'Peter Pan'

Ballet dancer Orlando Viamontes strikes a pose with his knees bent and a triumphant fist pumped into the air, and then things get all Superman in the Lexington Opera House.

Viamontes quickly rises, spins in the air and then lands, imploring three other dancers — Kelsey Vantine; Jacqulyn Appel, 10; and Sarah Gleeson, 11 — to join him in flight. Eventually they do, the two youngest girls giggling as they glide.

Dancers often compare ballet to flight, but for all the dancers on stage Tuesday afternoon, Kentucky Ballet Theatre's production of Peter Pan is their first time really "flying" in a show.

"I didn't think it would be this scary," says Jacqulyn, who plays Michael, the youngest of the three Darling children who befriend Peter, the boy would never grow up.

"I didn't think it would be this fun," says Sarah, who plays middle child John, noting that she can see the entire theater when she's airborne. "It's so cool. You really do feel like you're flying."

Jacqulyn adds, "Once you're up there, the harness doesn't hurt anymore."

The harness is the major part of the safety gear for this production, which Kentucky Ballet Theatre artistic director Norbe Risco says he knew must have flying.

"There is no Peter Pan without flying," Risco says. "This experience of having the flying is something that we've never had before, and I think it will be something very exciting for the audience to see it. They expect Peter Pan to fly, but the moment that he comes on stage flying, they will go, 'Wow.'"

Risco said that once the troupe programmed Peter Pan, he and other KBT leaders started looking into companies that produced stage-flying effects, including inquiring about a Peter Pan production by the School for Creative and Performing Arts a few years ago. That led them to Louisville-based ZFX, which produces flying effects around the country.

Peter Pan, whether it's a ballet, stage play or musical, is ZFX's No. 1 title to work with.

"I've done on the order of 100 individual productions of Peter Pan," says Brian Owens, ZFX's flying director for KBT's Peter Pan. "That's just me. I don't know how many the company has done, but it's quite a few."

Owens says The Wizard of Oz is the second-most popular title they work on, followed by Beauty and the Beast. Whenever the Broadway hit Wicked, an Oz prequel, becomes available to professional, community and school theaters, Owens says, ZFX expects that the company will become even busier.

Of course, flying effects have become infamous in recent days because of the Broadway production Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which has been plagued by injuries (the most recent was last week) and mechanical failures — some of which have left actors dangling over the audience for several minutes.

"It's an unfortunate situation," says Owens, who notes that ZFX bid on Spider-Man but didn't get the contract. "My sense is there were too many things happening at the same time and there were not enough people there to oversee all the things that they were attempting to do."

In Kentucky Ballet Theatre's Peter Pan, the demands are not as great. Viamontes, who plays Peter Pan, will fly throughout the show, and only three more dancers will fly with Viamontes to and from Neverland in Acts I and III.

"It's very exciting to fly, though it is a little uncomfortable with the harness," Viamontes says of the flying rig, which is strapped on at the shoulders and thighs and wraps around the crotch and torso with a hook at the center of the back. The performers are manually hoisted by men off-stage pulling cables, which go along a track system above the stage, all of which was installed Tuesday morning.

Owens says there are a number of different types of flying systems, including computer-controlled rigs that operate all cables mechanically and can be cued to music.

The dancers in Peter Pan started flying Tuesday afternoon, after first being fitted for their harnesses and being hoisted for the first time. The initial flights were to get used to the somewhat powerless feeling of flying.

"Every once in a while you get someone who gets scared and just can't do it," Owens says. "But most actors get used to it after a time or too."

The hands hoisting the dancers take cues much like musicians in an orchestra, particularly in critical moments like the first flight, when Wendy (played by Vantine), John and Michael join hands and ascend. Risco handles Viamontes' cable because he is most familiar with the leading man's choreography. After a break in the rehearsal, the dancers reassemble to start putting drama and choreography into their aerial acts.

"You just have to breathe, relax and think about your part," Vantine says.

Owens says he feels an obligation to be extra careful with dancers, particularly because landings can be hardest on the ankles. Dancers, he says, start a few steps ahead of the game.

"What's nice about working with a ballet company is you have people who already understand movement, so you're not trying to simultaneously teach them how to fly and teach them how to move their bodies," Owens says. "We start off with a very common language, and we get to adapt that and put it up in the air."

This story was originally published March 25, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Ballet dancers take flying lessons for 'Peter Pan'."