Dancing Peter Pan

I made it through the Easter weekend and today would be a bit of a slug day if I didn't have errands to run (groceries!) and some house cleaning to do because tomorrow morning's my semi-annual AC/furnace check-up and I need to make it easy for them to access the units. I did let myself sleep until nearly 10 this morning to make up for yesterday's very early morning and interrupted nap.

I also want to get back to work after a lost week last week. I think my head will be back in the game by tomorrow.

I spent my Easter afternoon watching a ballet version of Peter Pan on PBS. It seemed to be an original score, not using either the Disney or the stage musical music, and story-wise, they seemed to be sticking with the original story, though seemingly set in a different time period. I came in about 7 minutes late, and it seemed to be in the middle of an air raid, and the adult characters in the Darling household were wearing 1940s-ish clothes. That didn't seem to factor into the plot at all (and they were definitely not observing blackout procedures). It may just have been because it's a lot easier to do ballet in a swingy knee-length skirt than in Edwardian attire. I found the costumes interesting, in general, because they were more "theatrical" than "ballet." The costumes, aside from the pointe shoes on the women, would have worked in a regular dramatic or musical production. The men were dressed like pirates, Lost Boys, etc., in loose or baggy pants rather than in the traditional ballet tights. The closest thing to a tutu was Tinkerbelle's outfit. I think the costume design was largely based on the original illustrations in the book, so very non-Disney.

Unlike in the stage musical, Peter Pan was played by an adult male dancer (instead of a woman). Wendy was also danced by an adult, which lent a very interesting (and a little uncomfortable) vibe to things. They had a pas de deux that wasn't all that romantic -- it was romantic from her part, but not so much from his. And then Tiger Lily also danced with Peter, this time getting kind of sexy. There was another pas de deux with Tiger Lily and Captain Hook, but more angry than romantic, and I was impressed that he was able to partner her with one hand. He held the hook hand out of the way.

It was a fairly interesting take on the story, though with far too much pantomime for the amount of dancing. They spent most of the time walking around and gesturing. Ever since Once Upon a Time turned Peter Pan into a villain, I've found the character kind of creepy, even as originally written, so I was very skeptical of him here. As they do in the stage musical, the same person played the Darling father and Captain Hook. He was kind of hot as the dad, but since this was a more traditional Captain Hook, he wasn't nearly as hot as the TV version.

I'm hoping I feel up to dancing tomorrow night because watching this made me want to dance.