Peter Pan

A Ballet British Columbia production. At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday, April 19. No remaining performances

The magic of Ballet B.C.’s Peter Pan is that it gives you the surreal sensation that these folks have been into Tinkerbell’s private stash. Forget the minimalistic sets and abstract moving sculptures the company made its name on, this high-flying winner unfolds like a Kool-Aid–coloured dream set in Never Never Land. From the moment the curtain lifted, we got lush living-storybook stagecraft, gravity-defying dancers, and a tick-tocking crocodile whose moves had more to do with B-boys than Balanchine.

But beyond the pirates and pixie dust, Washington Ballet artistic director Septime Webre’s Peter Pan is actually the perfect fit for Ballet B.C.’s first family-oriented fare. That’s because it feels so contemporary, from Cincinnati Ballet music director Carmon DeLeone’s dreamily melodic (albeit recorded) score to Webre’s fresh, witty, and technically gruelling choreography. All the warped ensembles move differently, from the loosey-goosey, rag-tag Lost Boys to the peg-leg pirates to the exotic Tiger Lily Maidens. The innovatively crafted numbers are pumped with battering batteries, whipsawing fouettés, and gravity-defying jumps.

As for the leads, Shannon Smith is so boyish and spritely that he seems born to play Peter Pan. He was as athletically airborne in his jetés as he was in his high-wire aerobatics (save for one clunk into a crown moulding). South African import Marianne Bauer Grobbelaar’s Wendy was warm and girlish, with effortless jumps and graceful arabesques. Makaila Wallace has rare star power, moving like liquid mercury in Tiger Lily’s shimmery dress. And Edmond Kilpatrick’s Captain Hook was a bumbling buffoon who’d catch his metal appendage in his long lacy cuffs. He and Smith pulled off one of the show’s funniest scenes, and one of its many smart send-ups of classical repertoire: a cross-dressing Peter Pan lured Hook into a hammy pas de deux to draw his attention away from an imprisoned Tiger Lily.

To compete with the Nutcrackers and the Sleeping Beautys, you have to pull out all the stops and create a spectacle. Ballet B.C.’s risk paid off: the biggest reward in Peter Pan was its sheer wonder, thanks in large part to the original sets from Cincinnati Ballet. Rooftops melted into stars as Wendy and the gang took their first flight over the city; Peter Pan floated weightlessly outside that iconic, bedroom picture window. They’re the sort of moments that kids will remember well into adulthood, and that might even inspire some of them to strap on pointe shoes one day. But this ballet is as appealing to the Prada set as the Please Mum set: at this performance, hordes of young professionals were vying for the few remaining seats at the ticket window.

The audience also served up a standing O, as the well-loved Kilpatrick took his final bow with the company. He joined nine years ago, at a time when its spare, abstract pieces were at their height. Back then, he probably never thought he’d end his tenure by tangoing with a ticking crocodile. That he did so—and with his artistic integrity intact—says a lot about how Ballet B.C. has evolved.