Photo Credit: Mark Frohna
“Momentum” is the catch-all title of the annual performance by the Nancy Einhorn Milwaukee Ballet II, or MBII, as this international company of dancers at the start of their professional careers is always called. These artists, carefully chosen through highly competitive auditions, are spending the season with Milwaukee Ballet in preparation for professional careers around the world. One or two may be invited back next season and, if positions open and the stars align, may even join the main company. Nine of the current Milwaukee Ballet dancers emerged from MBII.
If “Momentum” is meant to provide career momentum to emerging professionals, it’s also a chance for dedicated Milwaukee Ballet audiences to encounter some artists they might wind up watching for years. This season’s group is outstanding, and you can still catch their performance on Saturday, March 14, at Cardinal Stritch University. It includes a flawless Act Two from Swan Lake and four sparkling contemporary works made for these performers by strong choreographers who understand Milwaukee Ballet’s values.
Mireille Favarel, the program’s artistic director, spent 11 years as a Milwaukee Ballet principal dancer. She knows Swan Lake inside and out. Under her direction, each dancer’s technical mastery and musicality was celebrated. It’s no small achievement, for example, for twenty-four women to move beautifully in perfect unison, especially while balanced on the tips of point shoes. But more than that, this was the first Swan Lake in which I felt close to every swan. My eyes were drawn to every face. I was involved with each individual dancer’s portrait of a woman forever trapped in bird-form. My ability to do that was greatly facilitated by the intimacy of the studio theater in the new Baumgartner Center for Dance. This was the first public performance there, a thrill in itself. I imagine this was how courtiers felt in the early years of the art form.
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Yuri Tamagawa from Japan and Craig Freigang from Wisconsin were the excellent leads. The despair of Tamagawa’s swan queen was a sorrow beyond words. Freigang’s glimpse of a better life than princedom visibly transformed him. The risks each took in partnering each other felt profound. Alberto Andrade made a spectacular villain and Michael Rinderle an endearing friend. After intermission, freed from point shoes and classical ballet’s confines, the company’s full range was paraded in a carnival of premieres by Tania Vergara, Adam McKinney, Thom Dancy and Kristopher Estes-Brown.
Momentum will be repeated at Cardinal Stritch University on March 14. For more information, visit milwaukeballet.org.
