Reality Undisguised in Dawn Springer Dance Projects’ ‘Sylph’

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Photo by Rachel Malehorn

Dancer in 'Sylph'

Dancer in 'Sylph'

Every viewer had a front row seat last weekend for Sylph, a new avant-garde ballet by choreographer Dawn Springer and a distinguished cast of five women ballet dancers. The floor of the giant stage in the Jan Serr Studio in UWM’s Kenilworth building was almost entirely covered by a slightly elevated rectangular dance floor dressed in white material and lined on all sides with a single row of audience seating.  

The ever-awesome feature of this theater, on the building’s sixth floor, is its two-storied glass wall facing Downtown Milwaukee. Whatever dream you’re watching in performance, you can see exactly where you actually are. Add that for Sylph every viewer had a gently lighted view of every other viewer during the entire 54-minute performance. That full exposure—reality undisguised—describes this dance’s style.  

Sylph told no story, preached no message, but its values were clear, among them skill, courage, honesty, time for thought, and care for fellow travelers. These women who’d danced ballet from childhood performed as the people they are. At issue was the way each managed the challenges of the choreography in close-up, fully aware of traditional norms and expectations regarding women onstage in ballet.  

The show’s title is wry. A sylph is an inhuman creature of the air. We saw real people. I’m painfully aware as I struggle to describe their performance that my words fall far short of the experience.  

Virtuosity, Exactitude 

We heard a whistle, then a low male voice humming. The accompaniment was by Jon Mueller, Springer’s years’ long collaborator. She told me that she cherishes the fact that Mueller’s work is “virtuosity combined with exactitude; and that, to me, has always felt like ballet.” Sylph was a stellar example in both music and choreography. 

Dancer Annia Hidalgo appeared center stage wearing black pants and shirt with a big puffy bubble of white net fabric around her neck, the material of ballet’s traditional tutu. Mueller’s soundtrack thickened with ringing and what sounded like an electronic harp. Dancer Janel Meindersee appeared in a floor-length white net skirt over black clothes, and dancer Itzel Hernandez appeared burdened by a full skirt and blouse of that fabric over black. All wore ballet slippers. The look was deliberately cheesy. 

The three dancers met center stage and joined hands. Meindersee and Hernandez supported Hidalgo as she balanced in a high arabesque. They lifted her into the air and began to spin, then brought her to the floor to balance on her toes at length, supporting when she’d start to tip. Again, they lifted her high in the air, and carried her spinning through the full space as the soundtrack grew to orchestral level. As the airy action ended, silence fell. Hidalgo and Hernandez ditched their netting in our presence and then disappeared offstage. Meindersee filled the space in a highly skilled series of turns, her arms wide like wings. 

Rattle, Hum and Gong 

A rattle, a hum and a gong built a rhythm for the second of Sylph’s six uninterrupted movements. Dancer Sejain Bastidas watched Hernandez return, sans netting. With Meindersee, all three engaged in powerful leaps, bends, and balances, none of it classical, nothing petite, just a team of remarkable dancers.  

A gripping 10-minute solo by Hidalgo followed. At one with the movement and never a show-off, she executed strings of virtuosic full-bodied ballet steps. She’d sometimes stand still, completely vulnerable, transparent and aflame. At two points, she walked with deep focus along the perimeter of the playing space, first in the narrow space between the audience and platform, nearly touching us, then later on the edge of the raised platform, exposed, serious, with Mueller’s score explosive. Ballet doesn’t look like this. 

Dancer Natalie Dellutri, youngest of the five, arrived with the others to help Hidalgo finish, then form a quartet with the rest for a slow, graceful, dreamy next section. I’ll never forget Hernandez lying on the floor on her back, knees up, legs bare in a black skirt slit up the sides, breathing deeply, visibly, and at length. Later, in bright light, she’d take off in strings of movement, announcing each flight with a loud cry.  

Teaching Ballet 

Three cast members—Meindersee, Hidalgo and Hernandez—pent years as Milwaukee Ballet dancers. Hidalgo was a leading artist. Bastidas and Dellutri are currently teachers in the Milwaukee Ballet School, where Springer met them. Bastidas is Venezuelan. She danced with the National Ballets of Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru. She recently moved to Milwaukee with her American husband, a UWM graduate, when he accepted a job here. Dellutri danced professionally in Chicago. Springer brought each of them back to the stage. 

In the final scene, they danced touching forehead to forehead. They were doing their jobs, working so beautifully together. They represented, I thought, humankind. And at the close, Hidalgo looked worried for all of them.