Milwaukee Dance Year in Review: 2019

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Twenty-nineteen was a big year for Milwaukee’s largest dance institutions.

Milwaukee Ballet celebrated its 50th anniversary in September by moving to its newly built home in the Third Ward, the Baumgartner Center for Dance. Few American dance companies have such a purpose-built facility. Carefully designed to serve the company’s needs, the building also holds classroom, workout, performance and social space for potential use by other groups. Who knows? Some multi-disciplinary, immersive, site-specific, indoor-outdoor show could shine there. Michael Pink has held the company’s artistic directorship longer than any of his predecessors. The Baumgartner Center is a great achievement; a sign of trust in his leadership; a part of his legacy.

Milwaukee Ballet began the year with the “Genesis International Choreographic Competition.” The emphasis this year was less on competition than on giving dancers and audiences the opportunity to experience new work by young international choreographers with something to say. That gift continued in the spring, with premieres by two former Genesis winners, paired with American choreographer Val Caniparoli’s mash-up of classical ballet and African dance, Lambarena.

The ensuing months brought contemporary adaptations of classics—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coppélia and The Nutcracker; the last two by Pink—excellent platforms for outstanding performances. It was an especially good year for dancers Parker Brasser-Vos, Randy Crespo, Marize Fumero, Garrett Glassman, Alana Griffith, Annia Hidalgo, Barry Molina and Lizzie Tripp. The company also expanded services, adding a free performance of The Nutcracker for nearly 2,000 economically disadvantaged Milwaukee school children to its long gift list.

Representing Milwaukee’s Cultural Diversity

The Danceworks organization reconceived its 27-year-old professional company in 2019, doubling in size with the aim of representing Milwaukee’s cultural diversity more completely in its art. Led by artistic director Dani Kuepper, the new Danceworks Performance MKE made a spectacular debut at Saint Kate—The Arts Hotel, performing on the grand staircase, in the art galleries and throughout the lobby to thrilling, live string music by the Tontine Ensemble.

Many of the new company dancers are familiar from work with other companies and the ongoing Danceworks DanceLAB concerts “Ignite: A Hip-Hop Dance Experience,” “Danceworks on Tap” and “Get It Out There.” Together for the first time and combined with the longstanding members, they make for an exciting, new Milwaukee dance company.

Early in 2019, Danceworks Performance Company (as it was still called) presented Torch and Glamour, a sweetly hilarious music and dance collaboration with Ryan Cappleman, Andrea Moser and Zach Schorsch. Carmina Burana, a three-way with Skylight Music Theatre and Milwaukee Opera Theatre, followed. Longtime Danceworks member Christal Wagner proved a consummate performer—singing, dancing and acting in those shows and others around town; some with her Cadance Collective trio. Longtime member Gina Laurenzi choreographed an excellent /,maskə’rād/ in collaboration with composer and Tontine member Allen Russell.

Also celebrating 50 years, Ko-Thi Dance Company made a new home in Nō Studios. Its new, young leaders are working both to carry on the legacy of founder Ferne Yangyeitie Bronson and to create their own. The Ton Ko-Thi children’s company performed this year, but we await a next full company concert.

Offering Inspired Choreography

At 30-something, Debra Loewen’s Wild Space Dance Company offered inspired choreography and dancing in performances that were in part about their environments: the new gallery space at The Warehouse; the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Windhover Hall during the “Nares: Moves” exhibition; and a dramatic Wauwatosa ballroom designed by Alexander Eschweiler. The year also featured the welcome return of dancers Mauriah Kraker and Dan Schuchart. Loewen has one of the finest ensembles in town.

At 40-something, Betty Salamun’s DanceCircus continued its environmental activism. Long focused on water quality and conservation with the audience participative “Splash Dances,” Salamun spent 2019 fashioning The Turbulence Project, a multi-part response to the climate crisis. She’s shown segments of the work in Milwaukee Fieldwork showcases at last summer’s Fringe Festival and just this month at Posy Knight and Kirk Thompson’s new space, 53212 Presents. Both events also offered new works by Schorsch. Keep an eye on Knight.

The 15-year-old Catey Ott Dance Collective’s tender, spiritual works were a hit at 2019’s Fringe Festival, the Haggerty Art Museum and Quasimondo Physical Theatre’s new North Milwaukee Arthaus. Quasimondo co-founder Jenni Reinke danced her acclaimed solo, Mrs. Wrights—portraits of five women intimately tied to the famous Wisconsin architect—at the Charles Allis Art Museum. Maria Gillespie’s Hyperlocal MKE filled the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum with improvised music and dance for another thrilling, immersive performance. Lake Arts Project teamed with military veterans’ theater group Feast of Crispian to create a compassionate ballet, The HeART of War. Choreographers Andrea Burkholder, Daniel Burkholder and Emily Elliott presented new work under Cooperative Performance’s umbrella. Morgan Williams’ contemporary dance company, Water Street Dance MKE, was born. UW-Milwaukee continues to seed the city’s dance scene. Milwaukee Dance Theatre Network tends the garden.