Disney had a dragon, but vines and an irate fairy are all that keep the prince from the sleeping Aurora in Petipa's 1890 creation for Russia's Imperial Ballet.

"He didn't have a struggle," says Carolina Ballet artistic director Robert Weiss. "He didn't know what he was doing. He becomes like this kind of dumb blond guy who doesn't win her in any way."

Weiss wanted the prince to work harder for the prize. For his "Sleeping Beauty," which uses much of Petipa's choreography but also some of his own, he added a dragon.

A big one.

The dragon puppet created by Saxapahaw-based Paperhand Puppet Intervention takes three dancers to maneuver. And training them for the battle wasn't easy. In one rehearsal Marcelo Martinez, who operates the dragon's head, got a gash in his foot from the prince's sword and had to get two stitches.

But Weiss promises his ballet's climax will be worth the effort.

"That music is fight music," he says of the Tchaikovsky score. "It screams that that's what should happen."

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