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Milwaukee Ballet’s 'MKE Mix'

Milwaukee Ballet’s MKE Mix program of contemporary ballets, running through Sunday, February 16, was for me a very joyful 90 minutes of beauty, warmth, humanity, passion, humor, intelligence and skill. I’d guess we all need that badly right now. 

Each of its three works was made by a company dancer, with and for their fellow dancers. I’m sure each piece could win first place in Milwaukee Ballet’s Genesis International Choreographic Competition. And Garrett Glassman’s deeply funny story ballet would likely win the prize for audience favorite, as well. 

It helps that this show takes place in the company’s home theatre, the Baumgartner Center for Dance in the Third Ward. Every seat there is close to the dancers. It’s as if you’re with them in their living room. They’ve created these performances here. You see them as the people they are. You can watch their faces, the better to care for them when you see them next on that distant giant stage at the Marcus Performing Arts Center.  

Community of Motion 

Each of the program’s three choreographers also dances in the work of one of their fellows. Each takes a bow as a dancer, not as a choreographer. This is a show about a community, not rank. 

Company artist Amanda Lewis choreographed the opening piece, This Little Life. To beautiful music by Tomás Almeida, lights came up on six women and six men, beautifully posed in identical sky-blue gowns with long net skirts, all shoed for a classical ballet. They moved and danced as couples in beautiful classical style. Colin Gawronski did the lighting. Mary Piering did the costumes. Everything was beautiful. 

Then Garrett Glassman entered alone, the 13th dancer! How could he fit in? He looked miffed.  

The room grew silent. The voice of poet Michael Crean was heard. He spoke of his curiosity about folk who’d never seen the sea or known its wonders. He’s grown on the coast. He wanted to know these very different folks, but his voice was drowned in new music.  

Changing Steps and Styles 

So much happened as the dancing continued but interwoven were sly changes of fashion, steps and style. Glassman remained the outsider, our representative, always behind the trends. Then at last, the now barefoot and skirt-less company of 12 found it fashionable to add a 13th member. The result was a glorious finale set to a really moving orchestral piece by Cyrus Reynolds titled “Brotherhood.” There’s hope for us. At least, that’s how I saw it. 

Company artist Glassman was choreographer for the second piece, titled I Do, Don’t I? It’s a reworking of a piece he made five years ago, when Artistic Director Michael Pink appointed him to choreograph a contemporary take on a ballet of his choosing by the famed Russian company Ballets Russes to the music of Igor Stravinsky. The ballet Glassman chose to update told the story of an anxious bride on the eve of her marriage to a fellow she wasn’t in love with, a marriage arranged by her father. 

Bachelor Party Antics 

Updated to our time, Glassman wisely switched genders. It’s the groom-to-be that’s worried on the night before the wedding. We spend some time with him before his very drunken best man and three groomsmen interrupt his meditation on the major turn his life is taking. They drag him into very funny, very challenging, and highly acrobatic bachelor party antics.  

Five years ago, I found this dance hilarious. I did again but I think Glassman’s deepened it. Eric Figueredo’s groom seemed much more than a sober foil for the comedians, who were sensationally danced and acted by Randy Crespo, Alexander Koulos, Marko Micov, and Barry Molina. Although we don’t learn much about the bride, played quietly by Lewis, we can tell she also feels how serious this step is. The groomsmen may be giddy, but the wedding couple knows it won’t be easy.  

Among the many highlights are a long slow-motion toast by the guys and some disasters that strike when the best man swallows the wedding ring and when they oversleep. I hate to single any of them out because they’ll all so good, but Randy Crespo’s best man killed me. 

Company artist Figueredo choreographed the final piece, titled “INTERLACE.”  It’s pure dance, a fully abstract work in contemporary classical style, set to driving instrumental music, full of fast virtuosic movements that inspired applause at every pause from the spellbound audience.  

Crespo and Micov danced the piece with Marie Harrison-Collins, Josiah Cook, Daniela Maarraoui, Kristen Marshall, Troy Santulli and Jacqueline Sugianto. 

Figueredo is Brazilian, the only member of his family in America. Milwaukee Ballet is maybe a new family. He told me in an interview that he’s been deeply moved by the emotional support all the company members show to one another, especially in difficult times. You’ll see that in this dance. 

MKE Mix runs through Sunday, Feb. 16 at the Baumgartner Center for Dance, 128 N. Jackson St. Visit milwaukeeballet.org or call (414) 902-2100.