Tinker Bell
Michele Saruwatari dances the role of Tinker Bell in a fun, bold Peter Pan — complete with a hip-hop crocodile. Sprinkle on some fairy dust - Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and the captain are flying into the Blaisdell this weekend. It’s Peter Pan, en pointe, complete with flying dancers, sword fights, pirate wenches and a hip-hopping, ticktocking crocodile.
By Alice Keesing
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Sprinkle on some fairy dust - Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and the captain are flying into the Blaisdell this weekend. It’s Peter Pan, en pointe, complete with flying dancers, sword fights, pirate wenches and a hip-hopping, tick-tocking crocodile.
Ballet Hawaii is the only company in the nation that puts on a full-scale production at the end of its summer intensive program, and they call it a summer intensive for a reason: It’s intense. For three weeks, the company’s two studios are packed with students who eat, drink and breathe ballet while being taught by professionals from the international dance community.
They do classes in technique and pointe, they condition their bodies and they study the finer points of conveying character. From the second week, they rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. During breaks, the back room is full of dancers taping their toes, checking their e-mail and even catching a nap.
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“After two days of rehearsal it feels like I’ve had 10 days worth of dance,” says Michele Saruwatari as she comes out of one of the high-energy rehearsals. This 19-year-old dancer does what may be every little girl’s dream - dancing Tinker Bell.
The feisty little fairy was a favorite of Saruwatari’s growing up - and she has the Halloween photos to prove it - so she hopes she does the part justice.
“It’s really difficult,” she says. “It doesn’t look difficult, but it’s very big and expansive with big adagios and big positions.
“This Tinker Bell is a lot more gracious than some other versions. When Wendy is hit by the arrow, she brings her back. And she appears to warn Peter that Wendy and the Lost Boys have been kidnapped by the pirates.”
Saruwatari started taking classes at Ballet Hawaii way back when she was 3. Over the years, she has been in the annual Christmas productions of Nutcracker, dancing everything from a soldier to a snowflake.
She got serious about dance when she was in seventh grade and left home at the age of 17 to complete her senior year in the conservatory environment of the North Carolina School of the Arts. She’s now a trainee at the Boston Ballet, which means she gets to do the corps work for the second company. Among other ballets, the company stages an impressive 32 performances of Nutcracker every Christmas season.
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“I lost track of how many times I did it,” Saruwatari says with a laugh.
Saruwatari is back home for the summer to visit her family and to join Ballet Hawaii’s summer program. For her, it’s a great opportunity to work with professionals of the caliber of guest artistic director Septime Webre, who is at the center of the summer flurry this year. The artistic director of the Washington Ballet, he’s a larger-than-life character, ubiquitously dressed in black, right down to his All-Stars sneakers. Having him work with Hawaii’s dancers is something of a treat, because this Peter Pan is his ballet. Webre choreographed this version of J.M. Barrie’s famous story nine years ago, and it has since been performed by numerous companies across the nation.
Webre admits to nursing a major Peter Pan syndrome himself. And this ballet shows his style. It’s bold, bright and fun. It’s classical ballet with a high-energy contemporary edge.
“There are not really precedents for crocodiles or sheepdogs in the clas-
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