Danceworks Performance MKE Invites Us to Explore ‘The 8th House’

Expand

Image by Christal Wagner

Danceworks - The 8th House (2026) Promo

A promotional creative for Danceworks' 'The 8th House' featuring Zoe Mei Glise

It’s a time of transformation for Danceworks. The organization left its longtime Water Street home last fall to become the newest resident of the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. The company’s spring concert, titled The 8th House, offers dances about questions and hopes. Performances are March 13-15 at Calvary Presbyterian Church.

In astrology, the 8th House governs profound transformation, hidden power, intimacy and rebirth. “I guess we’re trying to manifest something,” says artistic director Christal Wagner. “Honestly, Danceworks has done shows called Mixed Six and Lucky Seven, so I was like what can we do with eight? I was thinking about the mystery of the number 8, the mystery of how our lives unfold and the things we read into that.”

MYAC is home to First Stage and the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra. Wagner hopes for collaborations with those companies, and other youth groups that use the space. “We’ve done shows here in the past in the big Youth Arts Hall,” she says. “Now that we’re here to stay, we hope to get on the calendar for the Goodman theatre-in-the-round.”

Collective Artistic Direction

The 8th House structure represents a second transformation. Wagner believes in collective artistic direction. When co-artistic director Gina Laurenzi left town last year, Wagner asked four company dancers with choreographic experience to share that responsibility with her. This new show, then, is built of pieces separately choreographed by Wagner and her newly appointed “artistic coordinators” Katelyn Altmann, Cuauhtli Ramírez Castro, Ashley Ray Garcia and Zoe Mei Glise, along with guest artist David Roman.

“I did two pieces,” Wagner explains, “one for the main company and one for the apprentice company. Both explore how, as you’re trying to reach for something, you ultimately know what you want the outcome to be. It’s like with the tarot deck, you pull a card and it leads you to think about something important in your life that relates to that card. Or from astrology, your planets anchor you toward certain ideas and you lean into that power. Or with the magic 8-ball, you ask a question, but you already know the answer you want. Through wanting and wishing and asking, you know the path you should take.”

Altmann’s piece, for the main company and apprentice company dancers of equal caliber, was inspired by the labyrinth design on the floor of Calvary Church. “There’s an exit from the ordinary world to the sacred ground that happens within that piece,” she says. “I’ve also made a solo on myself investigating animals I’ve come to, or that came to me.”

God is Alive, Magic is Afoot?

Ramirez Castro will dance a self-created solo set to Buffy St. Marie’s God is Alive, Magic is Afoot. “A lot of terrible stuff is happening in the U.S. and abroad,” he says. “I had an impulse to create a sort of prayer, a ritual, a spell casting, to connect hearts, to wake people up, to really ask ourselves, ‘what are we doing in this world?’ We make the rules. Why are we building it the way we are?”

He’s also created a group improvisation using tarot cards. “There’s 22 major arcana in the deck,” he explains. “I made a dance phrase for each one. Throughout the dance, we pull nine cards, and depending what the card is, that’s the movement. Every performance will be totally different, and a communal tarot reading both for the audience and the collective.”

Garcia made one piece on the apprentices, another on the main company, and a solo for herself. “They all have to do with how we process change,” she says. “Resisting it, accepting it, whether in solitude or with others. It’s based on tarot cards like the devil or the tower, things that seem scary so you want to resist when you should actually accept, because it’s for your greater good. For the apprentices, I’m using a Polish song, and that’s me trying to go back to my Polish roots that my family, when they immigrated, pushed away.”

Domino Effect

Glise’s apprentice company piece, she says, “is about the domino effect. Everything is falling apart, and by the time it’s all collapsed, you’ve forgotten the origin.” Her main company piece “is more chaotic. It’s the space between self-discovery and figuring out where you’re going.” She’s also crafted a solo about personal grief for dancer Greta Jenkins.

Roman’s piece for the main company was inspired by the tarot’s 8 of wands, which represents quick fame. “I was thinking of pop culture,” he explains. “That social media click-bait kind of “look at me, I’m always on my phone. It’s set to David Bowie’s Fame because the lyrics speak to the hunger that fame is. You’re chasing that limo, but what for? It’s all made up.”

Quick tarot readings will be offered preshow and at intermission. “We’d love people to have the full experience,” Wagner says.

Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. on March 13-15 at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 935 W. Wisconsin Ave. For more,visit danceworksmke.org/performance.