Photo Credit: Mark Frohna
In an act of great confidence or remarkable hutzpah, Milwaukee Ballet artistic director Michael Pink challenged three of his company’s dance artists—including two with limited choreographic experience—to “reimagine” modernist works created by legendary Paris-based company Ballets Russes early in the last century. To music by one of that troupe’s house composers, Igor Stravinsky, each choreographer was to create an original one-act ballet with company dancers.
The results are truly unforgettable. With imaginative nods to Ballets Russes, all the new works are actually more indebted to Pink’s world-class story ballets, known in their bones to the choreographers Nicole Teague-Howell, Garrett Glassman and Timothy O’Donnell. Ballet Russe Reimagined was a portrait of Milwaukee Ballet in its 50th season.
Teague-Howell has starred in many of Pink’s fairytale adaptations. In The Firebird: Rise, she’s created a deeply felt parable of female empowerment. Lahna Vanderbush was excellent as a woman whose self-worth is shattered by an abusive partner, bravely danced by Josiah Cook. Vanderbush’s character is buoyed by the charismatic Lizzie Tripp, in stunning command of her body, who’s found the strength to rise from a similar defeat. A sisterhood of beautifully choreographed women joins the recovery process. Can Vanderbush trust a new partnership with a prince of a fellow, the charming Randy Crespo? The dance doesn’t end with their romantic duet (that’s earlier) but with knowing women and good energy.
Glassman excels in highly theatrical roles. In I Do, Don’t I?, he’s set five men into hilarious motion: fast (until it’s hyper-slow), athletic, physical theater with masterful slapstick and dazzling ensemble work. Four drunken groomsmen descend on an anxious groom the night before his wedding for a nearly catastrophic bachelor party. Male dancers the world over would love performing this, I’m sure, but they couldn’t do it better. With his natural gravitas, Davit Hovhannisyan was the perfect straight man. Parker Brasser-Vos, Marko Micov, Ben Simoens and especially Patrick Howell were screamingly funny.
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To music from The Rite of Spring, resident choreographer O’Donnell staged the tragic story of the Ballets Russes’ dancer and choreographer, Vaclav Nijinsky. In what must be the high point of his career to date, Barry Molina danced the harrowing role sublimely; likewise, Ransom Wilkes-Davis as Ballets Russes founder, Sergei Diaghilev, who both used and abandoned Nijinsky. Alana Griffith also shone as Nijinsky’s sacrificing wife. I hope O’Donnell’s ambitious, important Sacre joins Pink’s ballets in the company’s repertory.
