Debra Loewen took her Wild Space Dance Company to New York City in March to perform at a major experimental art center in Brooklyn called Roulette. Former Wild Space dancers and several of Loewen’s former UW-Milwaukee students who now reside in NYC took roles. New music saxophonists Duo d’Entre-Deux composed and performed the score. Titled Carried Away, the site-specific, multi-media three-ring circus of a concert, part set, part improvised, took place on and off the stage as large audiences happily moved about the theater. “It’s so satisfying,” Loewen said, “to do what we did there.”
Some of Carried Away will be carried back to Milwaukee in Wild Space’s season closer, Reckless Wonders. Two sections from the New York show will be restaged for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s intimate Stiemke Studio on April 30-May 2, and Loewen will devise an improvisation for this concert’s cast of current and former Wild Space dancers and guests which will echo that trip.
A collaborative performance with Milwaukee’s storytelling collective Ex Fabula will heighten the show’s local character. Ex Fabula facilitates the live telling of true personal stories by interested citizens in its monthly StorySlams and in workshops and community events. Loewen has often deployed spoken words in her dances. Here, she’ll help the chosen storyteller feel comfortable speaking while dancers pull the tale apart in structured improvisations.
“Because of its size and acoustics, the Stiemke is the perfect place for combining talking and dance,” Loewen said. “This could lead to a full evening’s collaboration but we’ll start with something simple. It’s important to choose a story with the right tone. And the dancers will also have their own storytelling moment in the show. It’s a surprise.”
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The fascinating Wild Space choreographer-dancer Mauriah Kraker will present her new solo, Outer Dark. She’ll also partner former company member Katie Sopoci Drake in the duet Clever Hominini by Drake and another former member, Javier Marchan Ramos. Former member Selene Carter will bring dancers from Bloomington, Ind., to perform her duet Katherinette based on George Frideric Handel’s aria “Il delirio amoroso” (The Delirium of Love). Monica Rodero and Dan Schuchart will reprise Sound, a thrilling dance set on them by their friend and mentor, New York choreographer Susan Marshall. The couple performed it beautifully here last fall in a two-person concert Duetted/Connected. They worked on it again with Marshall during Wild Space’s New York visit: one more experience carried home.
Reckless Wonders runs April 30-May 2 at 8 p.m. at the Milwaukee Rep’s Steimke Studio, 108 E. Wells St. General admission is $22; $15 for students and seniors. Call 414-224-9490 or visit wildspacedance.org.
