Milwaukee Ballet’s ‘Encore’: An Investment in the Future.

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Photo by Rachel Malehorn

Encore, La Bayadere, 2023 - Milwaukee Ballet Company

Milwaukee Ballet Company performs 'La Bayadere' for 'Encore' (2023)

After a painful day of car issues that nearly prevented me from attending the opening night performance of Milwaukee Ballet’s “Encore,” I was blessed with a second-row center seat in the company’s studio theatre, eye-level with the valiant dancers performing just a couple of yards in front of me.

Sure, it’s ennobling to attend a grand ballet with live orchestra, spectacular costumes, sets, and lighting at the Marcus Center. But for me, there’s nothing better than the proximity to these all-giving actor-athletes that this parlor-of-a-theatre provides. It’s as if we were conversing.

In his welcome, artistic director Micheal Pink said that Encore —which revisits memorable passages from the company’s history—provides the newer, younger dancers opportunities to experience bits of that rich history. “They are the company’s future,” he said. “This is an investment in our future.”

Audience Favorites

The show opened with four dances from Vignettes, a group of short pieces choreographed in 2022 for Genesis, the company’s biennial international choreographic competition. The choreographer is DaYoung Jung, a South Korean native who trained in Moscow.

Vignettes won the Audience Favorite Award in 2022. Applications to compete in Genesis arrive from choreographers across the planet. Pink invites three finalists to fashion one-act ballets in three weeks’ time with eight company dancers. The 2026 edition is coming up in March.

Three of Jung’s original eight dancers—Parker Brasser-Vos, Garrett Glassman and Kristen Marshall—recreated their performances, dancing with enormous strength and confidence. They were joined by Mihai Costashe, Carly Jones, Jackson Mitchell and Nanaho Nakajima. Each segment had its own cast and music.

Amazing High Lifts

I loved the way the dancers partnered. Marshall was especially amazing in the high lifts. My favorite was the closing vignette, performed thoughtfully and tenderly by Brasser-Vos and Nakajima. They made the virtuosic steps appear spontaneously improvised and heart driven.

Next, we saw the grand pas de deux from The Talisman by Marius Petipa whose choreography, to quote the program, “defined classical ballet in the 19th century.” For me, it was a lovely introduction to Jennifer Hackbarth, a Milwaukeean trained in the Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy, who left for professional work in New York, Dresden, Sarasota, London and beyond, and then returned as a guest artist for Pink’s Sleeping Beauty. She’s joined the main company this season as a leading artist.

Her performance was an absolute lesson in classical dancing. She made its challenges look easy and fun. Her lucky partner was Ben Zusi, in his third year with the company. He rose to the occasion, as though effortlessly. The dancing was honest: beautiful people moving beautifully, whether separately or in gorgeous partnership. Hackbarth had a ball with the point work in her solo. If Zusi wobbled slightly in his solo, so what? At the jaw-dropping finish, he carried her off in an overhead lift, to well-deserved cheers.

Flynn Stelfox will partner Jacqueline Sugianto, and Emery Meroni will partner Raven Loan in this classical classic as Encore continues through February 8. I know they’ll do wonders.

World Premiere

The evening’s highlight for me was Where the Light Touches, a world premiere choreographed by company dancer Eric Figueredo, native of Brazil. Figueredo also designed the lighting and costumes and danced the piece with leading artist Marize Fumero to gorgeous music by Max Richter.

It breaks all the Petipa boundaries. It’s entirely partnered, no solos. The full-bodied movements, long lines, and non-stop virtuosity held me like a gorgeous sunset. Marshall will dance it with Marko Micov in alternate performances under Figueredo’s direction.

Mikov was a hoot in Napoli, a comic romp by the 19th century Danish master August Bournonville. Together with Loan, Meroni, Stelfox, and leading artists Lizzie Tripp-Molina and Lahna Vanderbush, they played in their pinks and blues for our pleasure, whipping through classical steps I’d struggled with in childhood dance lessons. They’d break into couples but always as equals, members of a genuine community, each a vital character sharing their everyday life.

Radiohead Ballet

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Photo by Rachel Malehorn

Milwaukee Ballet Company - The Kids Have Names (2023)

Milwaukee Ballet Company performs 'The Kids Have Names' (2023)

The Kids Have Names followed intermission. It’s a 20-minute, contemporary story-ballet set to six songs by the ‘90s English rock band Radiohead. The choreographer is Tim O’Donnell, an Australian native, the winner of Genesis 2009, and a much-missed resident dancer and choreographer from 2012-2023. This was his last piece to date for the company.

It’s dedicated to young audience members. “You are seen, you are heard, and you matter,” he tells them in a program note. He was moved to create it by the rise in school shootings. It’s great theatre. Set in a classroom, nine high schoolers demonstrate their individuality until fear of coming to school overwhelms them, and schoolwork becomes secondary.

Most of the cast is original. I’m sure the acting deepened in revival. The choreography is highly original, character-driven, built for these dancers, and still sadly relevant. I hope you can see it.

Encore runs through Sunday, Feb. 8, at the Baumgartner Center for Dance, 128 N. Jackson, in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Visit milwaukeeballet.com or call the box office at (414) 902-2103.