Danceworks’ Presents ‘Fables’ for Our Times

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Photo by Christal Wagner

Fables - Danceworks

Cuauhtli Ramirez Castro (left) and Halle Sivertson (right) perform 'Fables'

“Fables from the Wide Sky,” the Danceworks season closer, was a collection of 14 premieres performed back-to-back in the big hall of the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center by Danceworks’ four performance companies, choreographed by company members and one guest, and with live accompaniment at the finale by the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Fables were the basis, but the choreography was focused on their messages. Blackouts between numbers were short and impactful, so turning on a cellphone to read the QR-code program would have been offensive. Yet without the program’s help we couldn’t know what fable had inspired any dance. We could make what we would of the largely abstract contemporary dances, non-specific costuming, and carefully lighted empty playing space. For me, it all began to add up as it went along. I later read the program and compared it with some notes I’d scribbled as I watched.

The opening piece, The Sun and the Wind, was a response by guest choreographer Peter Stathas and the professional Danceworks Performance MKE ensemble to Aesop’s fable about an argument between Sun and Wind over which has more power. My notes: flying, falling, a community divides in two and battles; dancers Christal Wagner and Elisabeth Roskopf wear a single coat; the teams surround them, soon they’re falling, maybe dead; this battle has no winner.

Graceful, Thoughtful

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Photo by Christal Wagner

Fables - Danceworks

Zoe Mei Glise performs in Danceworks' 'Fables'

Next, the Danceworks Intergenerational Company in collaboration with Danceworks co-artistic director Gina Laurenzi and inspired by Aesop’s ‘The Ant and the Dove’ created O, about “the interconnectedness of all living things,” according to the program. Me: graceful, thoughtful, reaching, bending, falling into one another in an interwoven pose; a perfect joining of the generations.

Born and raised in Mexico, Cuauhtli Ramirez-Castro has grown into a leading Milwaukee contemporary dancer and choreographer. He introduced Danceworks co-artistic director Christal Wagner to The Ugly Doll, a song and story by Mexican composer Cri-Cri, and Wagner choreographed a solo for him to dance while humming and singing the song in Spanish. He played the title role, a tossed-away toy. “The song reminds us that love and worth endure, even when we feel discarded,” says the program note. My notes have him happily playing with small invisible creatures that crawl on his “doll-like” body; totally charming. Finally, Wagner (mom?) dragged him offstage amidst appreciative screams from the audience.

Next, the professional company members Ashley Ray Garcia, Greta Jenkins, Gabi Sustache, Elisabeth Roskopf, Kaitlyn Moore, Jessica Lueck, and Halle Sivertson, with Sivertson as choreographer, danced Linger Longer, inspired by Aesop’s Tortoise and Hare. Slow and deliberate versus fast and impulsive, I noted; making fun of difference versus staying true to who you are.

The Power of Us

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Photo by Christal Wagner

Fables - Danceworks

Elisabeth Roskopf performs in 'Fables' with Danceworks

Then Danceworks Youth Performance Company, with choreography by their director Gabi Sustache, danced The Power of Us from Aesop’s ‘Old Man and His Sons,’ about “the importance of working together and supporting each other.” The next generation, I scribbled; they know what they’re doing; you can’t help but care.

Jessica Lueck choreographed Artemis with her colleagues Katelyn Altmann, Zoe Mei Glise, Ramirez-Castro, Garcia, Jenkins, and Wagner. Inspired by the dark myth of Artemis and Orion, this sad dance leaned on the immense charisma of its dancers to portray a tragic murder.

Sustache’s Youth Company returned with Unshaken, Unfolding from Aesop’s ‘Wisest Old Owl’ about “embracing your own unique qualities and strengths,” says the program. These young people did that.

Then Katelyn Altmann’s Brell, for Glise, Lueck, Ramirez-Castro, and Sivertson, opened to the sound of driving rain. Me: “In a scary time, they have each other and a big umbrella to huddle together beneath; this is about America now.” Program note: “In a time when division can feel more present than unity…if we welcome others in, we all stay dry.”

Laurenzi choreographed the love between Aesop’s “Lion and Mouse “as a sweet solo for Garcia titled Until We Meet Again. Garcia choreographed The Wisdom Passed Down for Jenkins, Moore, Roskopf, and Sustache in which Roskopf courageously leapt from a high platform into her colleagues’ arms. Laurenzi’s Venture was a solo for Korean adoptee Roskopf from a Korean folktale. Tessa Ritchey’s Must Have Been Mistaken for her professional colleagues was another Hare and Tortoise tale that “touches on the power within individuals to overcome assumptions.”

Then the Danceworks Apprentice Company performed Laurenzi’s …On the Wall from Aesop’s “Dog and His Reflection” and the story of Narcissus. Me: shadows to drown in.

Finally, We Are the Garden by Ramirez-Castro for the professional company, with masterful accompaniment by the Youth Orchestra, reacted to a true story of monstrous persecution of gay and queer men in Mexico in 1901. It was blessedly comic at no cost to its message which the program describes as “a call for a different ending for these tales of oppression. Let us be part of the waves that push toward collective liberation.”

Me: thanks.