Photo courtesy of Peter Stathas Dance
From Where We Ascend/Wake - Peter Stathas Dance
Peter Stathas Dance company performs 'From Where We Ascend/Wake'
I bow to choreographer Peter Stathas for his decision to found a professional dance company at the age of 60. That was in 2016. He and his wife live in Shorewood. His company is based in New York and tours nationally. He travels a lot. If, as I think, he’d like to bring his company home to Milwaukee, he took a beautiful step last weekend with “From Where We Ascend/Wake,” a showcase of his works at the Danceworks’ studio theatre.
He took a first step in 2021 by founding “The Barn Project” in Elkhorn, WI. He converted a barn into a spacious studio for safe dance work during Covid. It’s since become a site for performing artists from far and wide to develop, collaborate and present work.
Stathas started dancing as a college kid at UW-Stephens Point, then transferred to SUNY Purchase in New York, worked with foundational modern dance choreographers like Mark Morris and performed with Jose Limon’s company.
Scientific Knowledge
Thirty years ago, he switched to physical therapy. He established a private practice, Freedom Physical Therapy Services, now with four locations in Greater Milwaukee. His scientific knowledge of the body is everywhere apparent in his choreography.
In the program for “From Where We Ascend/Wake,” he also credits the late Martha Myers, former chair of the UWM Dance Department, for bringing him to the American Dance Festival where he learned “a Laban somatic technique that completely changed the way I moved and performed, and that is carried into the creative work we do and that you are seeing tonight.”
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I arrived about 15 minutes before showtime. As I settled in, a film began at the back of the darkened stage, a preshow treat. That same film, repeated, opened the show. Titled What We Have to Give, it gave me even more on second viewing. Sean Kafer of the UWM Film Department composed it in 2020 via artful editing and intercutting of footage of earlier Stathas’ works performed indoors and outdoors by dancers in different cities and states. We would soon meet several of them live.
The opening dance, Wake, was created last year. Paulina Meneses from Las Vegas and Lauren Twomley from Brooklyn, both in the film, were joined by a third company member, Mariah Gravelin from Connecticut. The accompaniment combined Mass for the Endangered by Sarah Kirikland Synder, a soothing Ralph Van Williams string quartet, and wild electronic and vocal work by Pamela Z.
Souls on the Line
I was very moved by the seriousness of the dancers. Their souls were on the line. They were after something bigger than words, though Pamela Z offered clues: “I would like to think the art itself has a place in it. I would like to think the art itself is enough of a statement.”
From perfect teamwork to tangled struggles, the dance includes live screams. I realized that this is how my daily life feels. It ended spiritually: an embrace from behind, some lifting, and bodies gathered on the floor.
Humanity followed, a solo for dancer Ty Lyons Gaynor, accompanied by Richard Rudis’ Sacred Sound of the Soul. Graynor stems from Huntington, NY. He trained at the Martha Graham School, danced with its second company, performed and taught for the Limon Company, and recently settled in Austin, TX. He’s simply a great dancer.
States of Being
Photo courtesy of Peter Stathas Dance
From Where We Ascend/Wake - Peter Stathas Dance
Ty Lyons Gaynor performs 'From Where We Ascend/Wake' with Peter Stathas Dance
The piece is multimedia. The background is a nature film by Kafer: sped-up clouds; flowers opening; swarms of fish; a mass of bugs. Graynor used a thick rope to suggest human states of being. He was roped. It was so compelling I forgot about the film until, physically and emotionally spent, Graynor backed into a forest scene and merged with it.
After a pause, a Kafer documentary from 2021 titled Measuring Distance filled the screen. We saw the Elkhorn barn and silo, then went inside to watch the dancers we’d just met at work. The camera brought us in as close as partners.
Twomley and Graynor closed the evening with three duets performed back-to-back. Sur la Table is brand new. They sit facing one another at opposite ends of a long table. To throbbing accompaniment, using every movement possibility the set-up provides, they explore this couple’s tense relationship in dancing perfectly controlled and yet so beautifully organic.
Darkness, a violin, then lights up on Kathedra, created in 2022. No table. Repositioned chairs. The same dance style. No story. No knowing where it’s going. It’s many things at once performed with trust and honesty. They stop. They look at us as lights go out. A silent audience. Applause would kill the meditative mood.
They’re now entangled on the floor. This is Assuage from 2018. A distant church bell, high strings, orchestral music. Choreography that’s original and captivating. Partners who are not afraid to show what needs to be assuaged for this relationship to last.
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