Photo Credit: Tom Davenport
This season’s Nancy Einhorn Milwaukee Ballet II company includes 14 women and six men, average age 20, from Brazil, Japan, Scotland, Canada, Central American and several of the states. There’s even one Milwaukeean. MBII, as it’s known, helps dancers cross the chasm from student to professional by casting them in Milwaukee Ballet’s mainstage shows, and in community outreach performances of classical works taught by distinguished répétiteurs and original works by resident and guest choreographers. Each class also presents its own mainstage showcase under the title Momentum. This year’s version inspired passionate cheering throughout its premiere on Saturday afternoon at the Pabst Theater. It was lovely, touching and flashy, by turns. For an extra treat, the dancers introduced themselves and answered questions in a post-show talk-back.
The program’s most heralded dance was George Balanchine’s first American creation, “Serenade”. Balanchine, of course, moved to the U.S. from Russia in 1933 and put American ballet on the international map. This is his dance response to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. As is often the case with Balanchine, women are celebrated rather more as ideas than as complex individuals. Anna Gonzalez, Francesca Morris and Tessa Hogge aced the principal roles. Hunter Solomon and Richard Marks confidently partnered them. The other women formed a flawless sorority with and without male courtiers. While old-fashioned in ways, the choreography remains compelling, formally lovely and sometimes really surprising.
“…But My Soul Drew Back” by Joel Hathaway (an MBII member from 2008-2010) was a cool excursion for six men set to the breathy wordless rhythmic vocalizations of Caroline Shaw’s Partita for Eight Voices. This dance had currency; unselfconscious same sex partnering, for one thing. Hathaway gave the young men serious dance challenges, well met by Isaac Allen, Scot Baldie, Zach Bennett, Diego Garcia Castillo and the younger Milwaukee Ballet Schoolers Alberto Andrade and Christopher Damle. A perilously difficult classical “Pas de Trois” by Marius Petipa followed, a timeless display of skill en pointe danced with real charm by Hogge, Ayuko Ogino and Hikari Uemura.
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Now, I’ve no room to describe Connie Mathot’s adorable “Clockwork Romances; Gears & Cogs” for four couples in party hats; Isaac Sharratt’s dear “Keepsakes”, warmly danced by Jessica Lopez with Sharratt; or the grin-inducing group spectacle of Timothy O’Donnell’s well-titled “Momentum”.
Momentum will return for evening performances at Cardinal Stritch University on Feb. 23 and the Schauer Arts Center on March 21. Bring the whole family.
