By Kristi Casey Sanders
Perhaps it’s a cliché, but Atlanta Ballet company member Christian Clark is not ashamed to admit he doesn’t want to grow up. “If I wasn’t too tall and a bit older, I’d really want to [dance] Lost Boy again,” he says. This is the first time in the 10 years since he first performed Atlanta Ballet’s Peter Pan that he’s dancing a different part. “This time, I’m a pirate as well as the crocodile. It’s huge – sort of like a mascot for a sports team. The kids love it.”
Clark was a 14-year-old student at the Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance Education when he joined the show’s original cast; in the intervening years, Peter Pan has become a yardstick for several major milestones in his life. In 2000, the show played the Royal Festival in London. “It was the first time I ever went on tour as a dancer,” Clark remembers. “One of the biggest things that happened with Peter Pan is I started dating the girl I’m now engaged to, Naomi Jane Dixon, [during] the second tour. Six years later, I’m about to get married.” Dixon played Wendy to Clark’s Lost Boy; nine years his senior, she retired from Atlanta Ballet this year.
Company member Brian Wallenberg also first performed in Peter Pan as a teenager. “When I was about 13, I was in the musical in Texas,” he says. “The ballet, in my opinion, is a lot more fun; it’s a really wonderful and vibrant telling of the story. I think the musical is a little dated now.”
This month, Wallenberg is dancing the roles of Peter Pan and John, the oldest Darling brother. “John McFall is re-choreographing sections, so there’ll be new choreography and new ideas,” Wallenberg says. “McFall lets the character of Peter evolve so he does show sadness; there is a little more depth to this Peter.”
It’s Peter’s joie de vivre that Wallenberg enjoys most, though. “He’s young at heart … he’s smiling and able to enjoy life. I definitely relate to that. It’s great to get on stage and personify the eternal youth of Peter Pan.”
Part of the thrill for Peter Pan audiences is watching characters soar high above the stage. But, backstage, flying is a complicated and precise art all its own. “Some of the flying is pretty challenging; it’s tricky and not the most comfortable thing,” Wallenberg says. “We have a harness. Part of it goes over our shoulder and part goes around our waist and two strips go between your legs and to a hook on the back that connects to the harness. That’s the uncomfortable part. There’s a little bit of pain, but it’s worth it.”
Clark remembers that during the original production, stagehands were hired to set up the flying wires and to operate the pulley system backstage. “Eventually, the pirates started pulling the ropes,” Clark says. “We understand choreography a lot better, and a lot of it’s about timing. If a dancer’s off, you may want to give them a little more time. If I was flying, I’d rather have my buddies in the ballet pulling the rope than someone I don’t know.”
In this production, as in those past, the Lost Boys are students from the Atlanta Ballet’s school, where Clark now teaches. “I remember when I was in the school and some of the older dancers who encouraged me,” Clark says. “Now, I dance beside some of them. To be able to return that favor with the younger kids in school now is very rewarding.”
Not that Clark has completely grown up. Backstage, he and his friends pull pranks on each other, such as putting Icy Hot in dance belts or masks. And among the ballet students he is known for being able to do as many as 12 pirouettes at one time. “But, I should point out – and this is what they always told me in school – it’s not just about turning,” Clark insists. “It’s an art form. It’s not just about tricks and turns.”
Peter Pan plays The Fabulous Fox Theatre Oct. 25-28.
