Milwaukee Ballet Will Present Three Meaningful ‘Originals’

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“This will be our first return to the Pabst Theatre since the pandemic,” Milwaukee Ballet Artistic Director Michael Pink says about Originals, this season’s program of contemporary ballets. “I’m very excited. It showcases us beautifully.”

The Pabst has been the perfect home for Genesis, the company’s biannual international choreographic competition. Part of each winner’s prize is a commission to create a second world premiere with the company. The choreographers for Originals are all Genesiswinners: Nelly van Bommel in 2007; Timothy O’Donnell in 2009; and Price Suddarth in 2022. Each has a keen sense of theatre, a unique style and a meaningful vision.

Running Feb. 9-12, Originals features Suddarth’s new work, a restaging by Van Bommel of her 2008 commission Gelem, Gelem, and the newest of many O’Donnell premieres as Milwaukee Ballet’s Resident Choreographer. It’s a position he’s held since 2012 and from which he’s now resigning. He doesn’t yet know what comes next.  

“I often end up where the wind blows me,” he tells me. “I’m waiting for a gust right now. I don’t want this to be my goodbye to Milwaukee. This organization has been my home for ten years. I have a love affair with all the artists. I’d be heartbroken to never come back and deliver work here.”

The Next Generation

The Kids Have Names is his new work’s title. “It’s a look at how we’re treating the next generation of adults,” he explains. “During COVID, I was on the faculty of the Milwaukee Ballet School. I started noting 12-year-olds with anxiety, and 14 year-olds bleary-eyed from staying up until 4 a.m. after hours of homework. The young people now are exposed to so much more on the internet. Often, they’re each other’s therapists which is problematic in itself.”

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The dance, set to songs by Radiohead, marks a day in an 11th grade classroom.  There’s a section about a young man under pressure from his religious family, another based a photo of a teenage girl with a sign reading ‘I don’t feel safe in school,’ and a comical section on note passing. 

Letting It Out

The finale, set to the song Creep, is “a celebration of letting your inner weirdo out,” O’Donnell says. “To be honest, I just wanted to have an awesome time with the dancers and give them something they’re proud to be part of, and something representative of who I genuinely am as a choreographer.”

Suddarth’s Strangeland is about risk-taking. “You jump off a cliff and land in a world you maybe don’t recognize,” he says. “Maybe it’s everything you’ve dreamed, but what have you lost? That’s what I’m trying to ask.”

There’s a personal aspect. “A career in dance,” he continues, “is something very few people get to experience. It takes a lot from you and also gives you a lot. I just started asking the question of after you achieve your goal, what’s next? It’s applicable to everyone, even if you’re not in the arts. They call it a mid-life crisis.”

A musical theater lover, he started ballet lessons late, at age 15, and loved it. He spent two years at the School of American Ballet in New York City and was hired at age 19 by Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. At 25, he became the Seattle company’s youngest commissioned choreographer. Now, in his 15th season there, he also choreographs for other companies and schools. His Genesis-winning piece, Aftermath, questions what happens to survivors of mass shootings or terrorist attacks. “If we’re shaken to our core,” he asks, “how do we get not just ourselves back, but how do we find each other again? The underlying question in both Aftermath and Strangeland is ‘and then what?’” The original music is by his frequent collaborator Alfonso Peduto.

Childhood Memory

Van Bommel’s Gelem, Gelem was inspired by a childhood memory. Her Dutch parents had moved the family to a home in France that stood beside an empty field where members of the Roma community would camp. She was deeply fascinated by the Roma and their music. 

“A lot of this work is a pure celebration of music and dance, and a way to let audience members really listen to the music,” she explains. “And then there’s the community the dancers create together. This piece needs them to be in tune with each other, to care about each other, to feel the music together, and to look at each other in a deep way.“

“I still don’t know for sure what it’s about. I think it’s a declaration of love for the Roma community, who continue to be discriminated against, and have been discriminated against ever since the world started. It’s an opportunity to show people this beauty and to support people who are very much rejected, especially in Western Europe. And it breaks my heart.”

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 9-11 and 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 12 at the Pabst Theatre, 144 E. Wells St. Call the Milwaukee Ballet Box Office at 414-902-2103 or visit milwaukeeballet.org.