Flying by Foy,<\/a> a leading specialist in aerial effects, for the rigging, tracks and winches, and aerial designers Gwyneth Larsen and Billy Mulholland.<\/p>\n\u201cIt took so much fine-tuning to get to where we are,\u201d says Yalango-Grant. \u201cAnd I\u2019m just so proud of the work of all of us because it took every single person to make this look how it looks now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re the OG vamps\u2019<\/p>\n
Grant and Yalango-Grant began their careers as dancers, met while auditioning for the same dance company, Pilobolus, and then toured for eight years. They’re married and have a 5-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n
It made sense that if they were going to ask performers to put on harnesses and soar 60 feet up, they’d do it first. \u201cWe\u2019re the OG vamps,\u201d says Yalango-Grant, laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, as dancers, we already have this intuitive nature of understanding how our bodies operate and move, and then just applying that in a different way to flying wasn\u2019t that much more difficult,\u201d says Grant.<\/p>\n
None of the performers had any aerial skills so the choreographers had to start with the basics: Each was assigned a X taped on the stage where they needed to stand before their flights and ensure their wires were hanging perfectly vertical. Eating a full meal before a performance turns out to be a bad idea.<\/p>\n
Each flight is carefully coordinated with music, sets and lighting cues and run by stage managers using computers. Producers gave the teams one of the most valuable resources to get it right: time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can rehearse all you want. You can talk about it all you want. But until you\u2019re in the harness in the air, you just don\u2019t know. So they allowed us to start training with the guys early on,\u201d says Yalango-Grant.<\/p>\n
Harnesses and quick-releases<\/p>\n
Speaking of harnesses, fliers put on a base layer like compression shorts to protect from rubbing, and costume designer Ryan Park designed clothes to hide and accommodate the harnesses. He also designed a quick-release way to detach from the wire, leaving audiences amazed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to unclip with their pointer finger and their thumb and we just drilled it. We drilled it so it became muscle memory and as easy as brushing your hair behind your ear,\u201d says Yalango-Grant. \u201cIt\u2019s like a magic trick. It\u2019s a sleight of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The harnesses aren’t that comfortable, but the actors aren’t in them all night. The musical has been mapped out to allow each actor time to put them on, get checked, fly and then remove the harness.<\/p>\n
Ali Louis Bourzgui, who earned a Tony nomination as the leader of the vampires, says it took a while to condition his body to fly, requiring strength training and months of practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a totally different movement pattern,\u201d he says. \u201cYour hips suddenly become your axis point of how you turn and how you move.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and his fellow vampires have become best buds, and there are times during performances when he looks over and really believes they’re all flying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is kind of a magical experience,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty fun for us for the most part. The harnesses that we\u2019re wearing, not so fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news4jax.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 For their third Broadway show, husband-and-wife choreographing team Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher \u201cCree\u201d Grant faced a high-stakes challenge: They were asked to make vampires fly. Not just fly, but also fight and hang upside-down, 60 feet off the stage. Not just that but also make it effortless, like gliding. And, of course, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2440194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[405002,478994,382128,21741,478995,405000,478993],"class_list":["post-2440193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-ali-louis-bourzgui","tag-billy-mulholland","tag-corey-haim","tag-entertainment","tag-gwyneth-larsen","tag-jason-patric","tag-lauren-yalango"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/How-do-you-make-vampires-fly-effortlessly-on-Broadway-Strong.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2440193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2440195,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440193\/revisions\/2440195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2440194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2440193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2440193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2440193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}