More Originality from Milwaukee Ballet in ‘Originals’

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Photo: milwaukeeballet.org

Milwaukee Ballet's 'Originals'

Milwaukee Ballet's 'Originals'

It’s an entire season of originals at Milwaukee Ballet, most of them created by Michael Pink during his 20 years as artistic director. And “Originals” was the title of last weekend’s program of two world premieres and the return of a third, all by choreographers originally picked by Pink to compete in “Genesis,” the biannual international choreographic contest he created soon after he assumed directorship in 2002. 

I never thought to ask him why he started “Genesis” or why he’s kept it going. Every two years, he chooses three young choreographers on the basis of the work submitted in their application. I like to think he sees it as a way to stay in touch with the concerns and visions of the next generation. Maybe it helps him remember his own journey. It’s also for his dancers, of course. They’re of that same next generation. 

He brings each winner back to make a second piece, I think, to strengthen the relationship. That happened in 2008 with the young French choreographer Nelly van Bommel, whose Gelem, Gelem he’s always wanted to reprise and finally did. It happened in 2010 with the young Australian Timothy O’Donnell, whom Pink invited soon to join the company as resident choreographer. It certainly must have happened this year with the Indiana-born Price Suddarth, last year’s winner whose return work, Strangeland, premiered last weekend. 

The Kids Have Names is the title of O’Donnell’s new piece. It will be his last work as resident choreographer. He’s leaving the company in search of new adventure.  

Dancing to Radiohead

His recent teaching experience in the Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy inspired the piece. To songs by the English rock band Radiohead, nine dancers played contemporary high school students. You couldn’t watch the piece without considering what teenaged Americans have lived through these past few years, and what might be in store for them. 

The choreography is big, fast and splashy, befitting these teens’ high energy and anxiety. Challenging lifts, turns, jumps and balances are less about grace and beauty than about the need for comradeship, trust, and self-expression. The now-famous photo of a schoolgirl with a sign that reads “I don’t feel safe in school” is used in haunting fashion. Every acting challenge was more than met by the dancers. I found Josiah Cook especially touching as a questioning kid with a little silver crucifix around his neck. 

The power of Suddarth’s Strangeland was absolutely at one with his collaborator Alfonso Peduto’s amazing electronic score. The music kept a steady, driving pulse with ever-changing orchestration, melody and dynamics. Nine superb dancers played the dancers they are, in groups, partnerships and solos, exploring with serious purpose a big range of pure dance movements. 

Physical Challenge

Suddarth’s love for the physical challenge of classical ballet is evident in the unique steps he designs. His dancers do amazing things but never for the sake of showing off. Price’s aim, he told me, is to question what’s lost when you leap into a new chapter of your life. For ballet dancers, what’s potentially lost was on vivid display in this piece; namely, access and ability to perform this kind of art. Shout outs to the dancers: Parker Brasser-Vos, Lizzie Tripp, Barry Molina, Alana Griffith, Randy Crespo, Marie Harrison-Collins, Annia Hidalgo, Hailee Rodriguez and Alyssa Schilke.

It’s true, as Van Bommel said in an interview, that there’s not a great variety of steps in Gelem, Gelem, her utterly charming celebration of Roma culture. It’s her use of the steps, and the dancers’ commitment to them, that had the audience laughing happily throughout the performance.

Women are in charge in this good-natured onstage tribe of 12. It’s an exotic community whose members love to squat, bounce, prance and dazzle one another, both in silence and to thrilling songs. You really hear the music when it comes. There’s a delightful section, in fact, in which a woman dancer plays the singer of a passionate Gypsy song while another community member tries to hold a microphone in the vicinity of her lips. The problem is she’s carried in radical fashion by other celebrants, so mic to mouth is hard to manage. Gelem, Gelem is fun and funny, but never mocking. It honors the culture that inspired it.

Altogether, Originals was another highlight in Pink’s exciting 20th anniversary season. How many cities have a major ballet company so devoted to new and boundary-pushing works and so capable of executing them at this high level? Milwaukee can be very proud.