Wild Space Dance Company Knits ‘Skip Stitch’ at Eagleknit

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Photo via Wild Space Dance Company - wildspacedance.org

Wild Space Dance Company's ‘Skip Stitch’

Wild Space Dance Company's ‘Skip Stitch’

Your adventure will start at the southeastern entrance to Eagleknit Converge, a huge, abandoned factory at 507 S. Second Street. From 1928 to 1991, it was Milwaukee’s premiere knitting mill, a workspace for 700 employees. 

“It was one of the factories that kept their employees on salary though the Great Depression,” Dan Schuchart, artistic director of Wild Space Dance Company, tells me as he and choreographer/dancer Katelyn Altmann give me a tour of the giant fourth floor workspace. “If you worked there, you had security. It’s such a beautiful space, and in true Wild Space fashion we want people to experience it from many vantage points and get a real sense of what it was like to be in here.”

Wild Space is famous for 40 years of site-specific dance creations, works that respond to the realities and histories of whatever spot of earth they’re staged on. This is Schuchart’s first such endeavor as co-artistic director, a position he shares with his wife, Monica Rodero. Altmann is co-choreographer. They’re knitting it together. The title is Skip Stitch.

Once inside, you’ll take the elevator to the fourth floor with its glorious view across the former factory district to the harbor and Hoan Bridge. From there, you’ll enter a stunning expanse with a forest of narrow wood pillars, high ceiling, and three walls of windows. To the west, the setting sun will cast its glow across the wood floor. To the north, Downtown Milwaukee will light up as Skip Stitch unfolds, while the lighted Hoan Bridge decorates the eastern view. 

Anywhere the Spirit Moves

Percussion genius Paul Westfahl will manipulate his electronics from a corner but can travel with his hand-held sound-makers anywhere the spirit moves him. You’ll move through the space, as well. Skip Stitch will unfold in three “rounds.” Each will offer a different viewpoint. 

In the opening segment, you’ll be seated facing the towers of downtown Milwaukee as glimpsed through far away windows across the space. “There’s this interesting dynamic,” Schuchart explains, “between proximity and intimacy with dancers, and the vastness of the space in which you’re able to see multiple things at once. Part one has this really beautiful solo that Katelyn made and performs.”

Altmann explains that her solo was born in the company’s Choreo Kitchenperformance in April. Schuchart describes these highly improvisational events as “incubators for different creative projects.” He credits choreography devised by company artists Jessica Lueck and Gina Laurenzi in that April edition as inspiration for different Skip Stitch passages.

Altmann’s self-choreographed solo, she says, “combines my personal experience with ideas from knitting books. In my heart, it’s about the messy nature of letting go, of things crumpling, and the opening of new things.” For Schuchart, it’s “much like watching someone make something, and seeing how engaged they are in figuring out what they’re doing. It’s that process of seeing it unfold for the artist as they’re making it.”

Speaking of the entire concert, Schuchart says, “We’ve been thinking about knitting as a craft. You have this material, and then it’s through following a pattern that the beauty of the form reveals itself. I often like to consider other fields and how they correlate to dance making. So we’ll have a single phrase of material, and that’s our yarn. Then it’s the beauty of how you end up stitching that material into a pattern.”

There will be real yarn in the show, he says, “for literal and metaphorical purposes.” Altmann notes the value of the room’s pillars for purposes of weaving in and out of view.

Switching Sides

In the second part, you’ll be invited to the middle of the space where the entire audience will be divided into two groups, one facing west, the other east. A different dance will appear on each side. The audience will then switch sides to see the dance they missed.

Such an event is also a characteristic of Wild Space site performances. Part of the fun is hearing bits of what’s happening behind you while enjoying something fascinating on its own, feeling that dual energy; and then knowing, after you switch, what the folks behind you are experiencing, and wondering how it all adds up.

In round three, you’ll see your empty chair at the far end of the giant space. With the downtown lights behind you, you’ll watch—in addition to the group finale—Milwaukee choreographer and soloist Dawn Springer in a reconsideration of her 2009 work Try, Try Again, the bookend to Altmann’s round one solo.

As Altmann says, “We’re working with the history of the building, and tying in our own histories. I have this beautiful white knit blanket from my grandma and my great grandma. It’s super heavy, like this building is super huge and rich. The show is based on all that.”

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. May 9-11 on the fourth floor of the Eagleknit building, 507 S. Second St. in Walker’s Point. Reservations are encouraged. Visit wildspacedance.org or call 414-271-0307.