Photo: Gillespie + Nguyên + Williamson
Gillespie + Nguyên + Williamson: ‘to get there from here’
Gillespie + Nguyên + Williamson: ‘to get there from here’
Maria Gillespie is a choreographer, performance artist, associate professor and director of the graduate dance program at UWM. I’m a huge fan of her Milwaukee collaborative performance ventures, MG/The Collaboratory and Hyperlocal MKE. Somehow, she’s also maintained an ongoing 20-year-long dance theater collaboration with two other choreographer/performer/professors based in Los Angeles, Nguyên Nguyên and Kevin Williamson. L.A. was Gillespie’s hometown before UWM hired her in 2012.
She’s bringing a new performance by this L.A. trio to Milwaukee on Friday, April 5. It’s titled to get there from here, which is also the title of the performance, a multimedia adventure the trio created in 2022 in L.A. and have performed at festivals around the country. This Milwaukee showing will also include a new, related work-in-progress titled Wild Tongue.
The exciting venue is Daync Academy, located at 504 W. National Avenue in the Fifth Ward. It’s the former home of Milwaukee Ballet. I’ve watched many ballet rehearsals there. It’s a big, high-ceilinged room with mirrors on one of its walls. The audience will sit along the walls, I’m guessing, in a single row so that sightlines will be perfect. We’ll be close to the performers. The three non-mirrored walls will be filled, floor-to-ceiling, with gorgeous videography created for this show.
The floor space will include a pile of black dirt that’s important to the action. The musical accompaniment is recorded. There’s a meditative Asian flavor to the bits I’ve heard. Nguyên is a Vietnamese refugee. Gillespie comes from Latiné ancestry. Williamson has come to grips with being queer. The directions their histories have led them to take are their subject.
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Gillespie sent me a fascinating 3½ minute video trailer of to get there from here, taken from a September 2022 performance for a largely student audience at Scripps College in L.A. where Nguyên is a dance professor. It’s theatrical choreography, a kind of contemporary expressionism, a translation of thought and feeling into action that’s compelling, skillful, deliberate and provocative. The three partners grapple with memories and identities.
Here’s the link: togettherefromhere.org.
Gillespie writes that it’s “a rare opportunity to have renowned Los Angeles contemporary performers share their work in Milwaukee, and also rare for us to be able to share the latest fruits from our 20-year collaboration here in the Third Coast.”
And from the press release: “Audiences will experience embodied storytelling through highly kinetic dancing that delves into our three histories and our desire to continue seeking refuge. Ultimately, rather than finding refuge at a fixed destination, we find refuge through our journey together. It feels incredibly important now more than ever to contemplate the profound impact on our bodies and communities created by oppression and the physical and psychological displacement it creates.”
If that sounds a bit academic, the show as shown in the trailer is raw and real. I believe it will be a privilege to share that room with these performers’ newest works.
The 90 minute performance is at 7:30 pm on April 6 at Daync Academy, 504 W. National Avenue. Tickets are available on Eventbrite at www.eventbrite.com/e/gillespie-nguyen-williamson-to-get-there-from-here-tickets-791092838977. General admission is $18, $12 for students and seniors, $5 for children. Seating is limited, so advance ticket purchases are recommended.
