“It’s terrifying creating a new work,” said Michael Pink, who has created many. “It’s even more terrifying going to an unknown country and an unknown company and beginning work.” Pink did that too, in 2002, when he moved here from England to become Milwaukee Ballet’s artistic director. But, this time, he was empathizing with the three young choreographers who’d just arrived from Spain, Great Britain and Australia to create one-act ballets for the company’s biannual choreographic competition, “Genesis.”
“I think we really are the only truly international one,” Pink continued. “But the competition aspect is somewhat irrelevant. It’s a nice thing for the audience because they get to vote for their favorite. But it’s just the unique experience of having three choreographers work with our dancers, and the impact that has on the art and the organization. It’s not for money; the cash awards are small. It’s about process, opportunity, exposure and the winner coming back and creating another piece. Every now and then I fantasize bringing them all back—all eight years of “Genesis.” I’d love to have a festival like that, recreate all the works, how about that?”
Aleix Mañé (Spain)
Photo Credit: Nathaniel Davauer
Aleix Mane
A native of Catalonia, Aleix Mañé became a dancer with Spain’s National Dance Company in 2006 and a soloist in 2013, worked with many celebrated choreographers, then left the company last summer because, he said, “I’ve been lucky to do all I wanted to do but I want to do more and more. So, I need to improve myself.” He choreographed a solo for a friend to perform in a best emerging dancer competition at London’s Sadlers Wells Theatre. The friend won and Mañé’s choreography was credited. The London audience included Milwaukee Ballet dancer Alana Griffith, who befriended Mañé and urged him to apply for “Genesis.” At first, it seemed too big, he said, “but I need to be brave and try things.”
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He came across a paper he’d written for school at age 11 about his grandparents’ experiences during the Spanish Civil War. His republican great uncle had been executed. Other family members, lovers of democracy, were exiled in France, Miami and Cuba. “As a child, I didn’t understand it as I do now,” Mañé said. “Catalonia was the last of Spain to be conquered, and people suffered hugely. For ‘Genesis,’ I proposed to do a piece for those people, not to be cool or interesting, but to show the hurt and fear.”
Cass Mortimer Eipper (Australia)
Photo Credit: Nathaniel Davauer
Cass Mortimer Eipper
Melbourne-born Cass Mortimer Eipper went to Australian Ballet School with Milwaukee Ballet dancer, resident choreographer and 2009 “Genesis” winner Timothy O’Donnell. They then danced together in West Australian Ballet and, in 2010, co-founded a small contemporary dance company. O’Donnell returned to Milwaukee but Eipper spent three years with that company, writing grants and winning awards. He called it “a mind-opening experience, a kind of grad school.” But he wanted to “utilize any physicality I’d been developing over the years,” as he put it, so he joined the Sydney Dance Company and toured the world. “I pushed myself hard as a dancer. I think that gives me insights now as a choreographer. I know what it’s like on the other side.”
“I’m much more of a contemporary dancer,” he continues. “I trained through ballet, so I may have built a sort of hybrid form. I like a ‘slightly uncoordinated’ look, but the body that’s achieving that needs to feel incredibly coordinated for it to be effective. I composed the music for the piece. It also has some narration. It’s kind of exploring an abstracted notion of the evolution of the universe and consequently what it is to be human or to be alive; kind of humorous, kind of poignant.”
Kenneth Tindall (Great Britain)
Photo Credit: Nathaniel Davauer
Kenneth Tindall
Kenneth Tindall from Dundee, Scotland, danced with Milwaukee Ballet’s Patrick Howell in England’s Northern Ballet where Tindall is now choreographer-in-residence. “It was actually Pat who said to me, ‘why don’t you send your stuff to Michael?’” Tindall said. He sent Pink a tape of his first full-length story ballet, Casanova. “Not for ‘Genesis’, just for feedback from a person that I think is doing narrative well. And Michael wrote me the loveliest email. He took the time to go through the entire two-hour production and give me his thoughts. Then, he said ‘How would you feel about coming to do ‘Genesis’?’”
“I want to be brave in my career, to take chances, and this is a chance to take a chance. I tried to make no choices before I came because I didn’t know the dancers. We’re formulating as we go, which I’ve never done. My piece is completely abstract, but there’s no such thing as an abstract dance. You’re thinking about physicality, but wherever you are in your journey, with your partner, with everything in your life, that’s the creative pool you’re drawing from.”
Genesis: International Choreographic Competition runs Feb. 14-17 at the Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St. Call 414-902-2103 or visit milwaukeeballet.org. Also at the Pabst, Milwaukee Ballet II performs Momentum 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 16.
