Photo Credit: Nathaniel Davauer
It was wrenching to hear live applause as I watched Milwaukee Ballet’s new concert, “To the Pointe,” on my home TV screen. “We’re in the health business,” artistic director Michael Pink told me recently and the city health inspectors agreed. Fifty people were permitted at each performance last week in the company’s intimate Third Ward studio. I promised myself I’d be there next time. On Demand viewing has this consolation, though: I can enjoy the show repeatedly for three days.
The dancers look better than ever, which is saying a lot. Not only have they mastered the demands of this concert’s classical style, they seem to have grown as artists. Maybe that’s because they’ve grappled with so much to make this. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve missed them so much.
The hour-long show included three canonic classical works and two classically-styled contemporary pieces, one of them a welcome revival from 2019 of a dance by resident choreographer Timothy O’Donnell, the other a world premiere by Pink that deserves quick revival. The whole concert deserves that, in fact.
The Pas de Quatre (Dance for Four) by Jules Perrot was a perfect opener for. Pointe shoes were still new in 1845 when Perrot choreographed the dance for four of the best-known ballerinas of his day. Dressed in white calf-length tutus, dancers Marie Harrison-Collins, her twin sister Elizabeth Harrison, Kristen Marshall and Lahna Vanderbush nailed the constant, complicated tip-of-the-toes footwork while their upper bodies moved in a million delicate contrasting ways under designer Marissa Abbot’s rose and lavender lighting.
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The great 19th century Russian choreographer Marius Petipa’s work almost defines classical ballet today. Alana Griffith, Itzel Hernandez and Barry Molina danced his high-spirited act one pas de trois from Swan Lake, mastering every step with solid confidence and no pretention. As townsfolk friends of the prince of that sad tale, they were friends that anyone would treasure.
Had it been possible, Lizzie Tripp and Davit Hovhannisyan would’ve danced O’Donnell’s Chopin Etudes beside a pianist performing that gorgeous music live, as at the work’s premiere. This time, O’Donnell headed the film crew. Knowing the dance intimately, he kept the cameras close on his dancers. Their performances and Chopin’s music made this the most moving of the show’s offerings for me. O’Donnell took what he loves from Petipa-style dance history and shaped it to his own tender purposes. Tripp and Hovhannisyan responded in profound ways.
Annia Hidalgo and Randy Crespo aced the popular pas de deux from Le Corsaire. Recreated by Petipa and others over 165 years, this 2005 version was created in Indianapolis by a former Russian ballet star. It features challenging variations on the classical steps, along with the athletism we’ve come to know and love. The overhead lifts were divine. Hidalgo knocked off 28 (count ‘em) fouettes in time with the driving beat and could have done more. Crespo easily filled the room with soaring grand jetés. There was nothing this pirate’s love for the woman he’d rescued from slavery couldn’t overcome.
I yearn to see Pink’s head-spinning Symphony live. Created for four women and four men against Sergei Prokofiev’s fast-paced Classical Symphony, it mixes classical moves with sexier modern ones, often in a fugue-style that draws your eye from dancer to dancer faster than the cameras could handle. Molina and Griffith return in featured roles and their focused duets worked best in this film version. Pink brings classical style down to earth. I saw the piece as an understandable love letter to his dancers, who also included Hernandez, Tripp, Crespo, Josiah Cook, Francesca Morris and Benjamin Simoen.
