Photo Credit: Mark Frohna
Somewhere in the second break, Milwaukee’s superb new Bill Bonifas Electric Band with jazz trumpeter Brian Lynch began playing. Lighting virtuoso Jason Fassl threw brilliant purple and turquoise beams on the bandstand in front of the Pabst Theatre’s stage. The house lights were up; patrons wandered from the lobby and engaged in lively conversation. Dancers hung out, taking in the scene. The Pabst felt like a nightclub. Cued by light, the audience settled, the dancers took places, some on stage, some beside the band, and the world premiere of Petr Zahradnicek’s Conflux began—the closing number of “MXE Milwaukee Mixed,” Milwaukee Ballet’s cool program of premieres by company choreographers with local composers, musicians and poets. Let ballet elsewhere be tied to the styles of dead men; not here.
Zahradnicek’s four-part work, each in a different groove, was ballet set to jazz. The ballad worked best since the dancers had time to move with feeling. The fast tunes were tougher, all about technique. The swing finale had the dancers almost drunk, I thought, on music, dance, art, love, the city and the best things we can give one another.
In Garrett Glassman’s Affixed, set to a darkly beautiful score by the Tontine Ensemble, video screens are objects of devotion. The dance includes a pas de deux in which a women (Lizzie Tripp) surrenders to a partner’s (Davit Hovhannisyan) screen obsession. No one see anyone. They’re in their minds, isolated.
Nicole Teague-Howell’s Pull is in perfect contrast: The dancers’ faces are hidden by mesh masks. The focus is physicality: tugs and embraces, shared energy, transformation, flight. Expansive, ecstatic music by Luxi encourages a meditative-state, breath, body.
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Amazingly, the dancers in Timothy O’Donnell’s more truth than poetry timed intricate movements to the patterns of Dasha Kelly Hamilton’s live spoken word performance. Unfortunately, I could make no sense of her complex poem. I loved the dancers’ fascinating movements but my effort to follow the poem distracted me. I conclude that I need practice interpreting complex audio and visual information simultaneously, which is to say that I need more experiments like this one. O’Donnell’s work is important.
Neither did I understand the lyrics of The Vitrolum Republic’s songs that accompanied Isaac Sharratt’s Go Roam, but I enjoyed the good beats and warm melodies. This honest, sometimes funny piece was easy to absorb. The dancers gave it lots of personality. It felt like Milwaukee.
