An Okotoks tween may be one of the youngest performers in her aerial company’s upcoming show, but she has the toughest role.
Spectacle Blue Circus School aerialist Brianna McLean is not only tasked to take on the role of three characters in its production of Peter Pan this weekend, she has also been selected to narrate it.
"I’m running constantly up and down the stairs and having to perform, then talk right after,” she said of rehearsals. "It’s a lot of multi-tasking and memorizing.”
This is McLean’s first year in the company and second as an aerialist with Spectacle Blue. She said she took on the extra responsibilities of being in the company, which means more classes and performances, because she loved it so much.
"I wanted to be there more often,” she said. "I thought it would be really fun to be a part of that.”
The company has McLean taking classes in conditioning, acrobatics, aerial and dance.
For McLean, the performance of Peter Pan is the icing on the cake.
"It’s going to be amazing,” she said. "We’ve worked so hard on it and all the techniques are there and it’s perfect.”
Perfecting her own parts required a lot of rehearsing and watching videos of the rehearsals, said McLean. Besides narrating, she plays a mermaid, pirate and cocktail party guest.
"I have to do a lot of dancing and acro and I have to go on a low hoop and on the hammock and other apparatuses,” she said. "It’s been difficult, especially focusing on doing the moves correctly while acting and counting to the music in your head.”
Creative director Robin Szuch said she knew McLean would be perfect for the role.
"She’s not only great in terms of aerial and movement, she’s also a great public speaker,” she said.
Szuch calls Peter Pan one of Spectacle Blue’s most challenging performances due to its length, requiring three acts, need for narration and storyline.
Performances take place May 11 at 8 p.m. and May 12 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Spectacle Blue studio.
"With the team of performers that we have this year I really felt that we were able to take on a project as big as Peter Pan,” she said, adding the 11 performers range in age from nine to 18. "It’s a lot of story.”
What makes the show unique is it’s the first time a Spectacle Blue performance has had spoken word, said Szuch.
"We’ve been telling the stories through movement and imagery but sometimes it’s convenient to have a little bit of written guidance,” she said.
"For example, if you go to the ballet and see Cinderella, in your program there’s a description that tells you what’s going to happen in each act and what the dances are portraying.”
Szuch said that in Peter Pan there is so much information and the writing is so vivid and language so beautiful that she wanted to keep as much as she could.
"We don’t want to lose elements of the story so we are telling them through our narrator,” she said. "I tried to stay quite true to the text and include as much as I could. We took some things out but the narrator helps guide that along.”
Spectacle Blue’s interpretation focuses on Peter’s journey through Neverland and the adventures with Wendy, Michael and John including meeting the lost boys and fighting pirates with swords. The young girls portray the story through dancing, aerial and silks.
Tickets to Peter Pan are $15 each. Seniors will be charged $10 for the matinee show. Tickets can be purchased by calling 403-601-3474 or going to www.spectacleblue.ca
