Next weekend, the Appalachian Ballet Company, based in Maryville at the Van Metre School of Dance, will bring the classic tale of Peter Pan to the live stage in a full-length ballet as part of their 47th season.
The non-profit company puts on several shows a year: A contemporary performance in the fall, the “Nutcracker” in the winter and usually a more child-friendly ballet in the spring. This year’s spring choice, “Peter Pan,” is principal ballerina Kylie Morton Berry’s favorite of the company’s spring productions.
Berry has danced for 26 years. In addition to holding the position of principal ballerina of the Company, she is a choreographer, rehearsal mistress and dance instructor, and she says that she loves every minute of it.
“It’s not easy to make this your career, so it was something that I’ve definitely had a joy for from a young age,” Berry said. “But now dance is my life. There’s not much else that I would have wanted to do with my career. I love to dance. I love the art.”
Berry is the daughter of the company’s artistic director, Amy Morton Vaughn. Berry grew up training in Knoxville at her mother’s school and eventually began dancing professionally in North Carolina. After suffering an injury, Berry moved back to the Knoxville area and decided to remain at the Appalachian Ballet Company with her mother.
“I love the family aspect of it the most,” Berry said. “(The dancers) are together all the time, and I’ve seen this growing up as a dancer in the company and I’m now seeing it as an instructor. I’ve kind of gotten to be on both sides now, and we really are just a big family.”
Rehearsals for Peter Pan began in December just after the Company finished performing the Nutcracker. This production will be the third time that the Appalachian Ballet Company has performed the show, but this year’s performance will feature more than just ballet: Not only will Berry appear as a flying Peter Pan, but the show will also be accompanied musically by a local flutist and local men and women performing in a live drum circle.
“Even if people have seen our Peter Pan before, each time they see it I make changes; I’ve added some new costumes and some new elements,” Vaughn said.
The Appalachian Ballet Company’s production of Peter Pan has been growing, evolving and changing since its conception. Vaughn transformed what originally began as a recital for the Van Metre School into a 45-minute-long ballet in 2010. The ballerinas were to perform in the newly-built Clayton Center for the Arts, so Vaughn wanted to put on a memorable production to represent the Center’s opening.
“I started thinking, wow, wouldn’t it be wonderful to fly Peter Pan in our new theatre as sort of an inaugural event, so I took it and sort of got it to the next level,” Vaughn said.
The elements added for the 2019 performance of Peter Pan have morphed the production into a unique show that includes other aspects of the Knoxville community. In recent years, the company has collaborated with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and other local artists. This interaction between the local community and the company is valuable to Berry.
“I would love to see more collaborative efforts between us and our community,” said Berry. “I feel that’s a great exposure for both audiences, whether it’s the Appalachian audience or it’s the KSO audience or whomever, to see something that they enjoy mixed with something that maybe they didn’t know about. So it’s really great exposure, and it’s fun, it’s exciting.”
Vaughn also views this public collaboration as a chance to excite the public about the company’s art. “Anything I can to get people turned on to enjoying ballet, that’s what I’m gonna do,” said Vaughn.
The company will perform Peter Pan on March 23, starting at 7:30 p.m., and March 24, starting at 3:00p.m., at the Clayton Center for the Arts.
