As a boy mom, I’ll admit to being a little jealous to the whole Nutcracker Ballet scene at Christmas time. Mothers and daughters dressing up and going to the ballet together, sharing in a lovely family tradition each holiday season. Posting all the precious photos on social media. Not fair!
Then I heard Charlotte Ballet was putting on Peter Pan. Aha!
My boys, ages 7 and 5-year-old twins, love the story of Peter Pan. They went on the Disney ride Peter Pan’s Flight over spring break. They watched “Peter Pan 1” and “Peter Pan 2” movies on the car rides there. And they were just curious enough about the concept of a ballet that I could generate a healthy dose of enthusiasm for a Sunday afternoon trip to the Knight Theatre to see the show.
I was curious to see how they would do following a story with “no words,” especially in the age of screens and short attention spans.
In complete honesty, I learned really quickly that I should have brought noise-cancelling headphones for one of my twins. He just doesn’t do well in loud settings and the music was just loud enough to upset him. I walked out a side door with him for a few minutes, and after an attempt to settle him back into his theatre seat failed, my sister offered to take him out to the lobby. What I didn’t discover until intermission, was that there was a TV in the lobby where they could watch a video version of the ballet. Wesley’s response?
“I loved it,” Wes said. “I really loved it.”
He was in good company. My other two boys, who stayed in their seats, loved seeing the story come to life. My 5-year-old son Johnny kept saying it was “Peter Pan 3,” which cracked me up. It was his way of explaining why the story took twists and turns he didn’t see in the movies.
And speaking of twists and turns, my 7-year-old son Wade said of the show at intermission: “It’s good, and I like the dancing. They do cool things with their legs.”
All three of my boys loved watching the crocodile dancers both the “big one” – an adult dancer – and the little ones – children participating in the ballet – and they were all fantastic.
“Can they breathe?” Wes asked, referring to the extensive headwear the dancers wore.
Yes, I assured them. Impressive though, that they could dance in that headgear, right? And we all enjoyed the fact that the littlest crocodiles were children. And it gave me a chance to explain that the reason why they got to participate in the show was that they took dance classes and worked very hard to get good at it.
As for me, I loved how we got to broaden our artistic horizons as a family. And I was intrigued to see how ballet was used to tell the story of Peter Pan. It wasn’t all traditional ballet moves. Peter Pan and Captain Hook “danced” a sword fight. And Wendy managed to make struggling look graceful when she was kidnapped by Captain Hook.
I was grateful my boys gave me an excuse to go see Peter Pan. I urge both girl and boys moms to go!!! The show runs through Sunday. Don’t miss a chance to see it! For ticket information and show times, click here.
For tonight’s 7:30 p.m. show (Thursday, April 27), Charlotte Ballet is inviting audience members of all ages to dress up in any Peter Pan-inspired costume for a chance to win a Charlotte Ballet swag bag, filled with goodies from their Gift Shop, a $100 gift card to 204 North, a voucher for an infrared sauna for two to Mood House and two complimentary tickets to our June series, Choreographic Lab.
701 N Tryon St.
Charlotte, NC 2820
704-372-3900
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