Rachel Malehorn. Photo: Tom Davenport.
It’s been four years since Milwaukee audiences have had the chance to enjoy Michael Pink’s glamorous ballet adaptation of Bram Stroker’s Dracula. The vampires and their hunters will return Oct. 22-25 to open a 2015-16 Milwaukee Ballet season largely devoted to contemporary dance translations of 19th century literary classics.
The season provides a welcome chance to examine Pink’s choreography with three works that span his career from his years with England’s Northern Ballet where Dracula premiered, through more than a decade as Artistic Director of Milwaukee Ballet. The company’s version of The Nutcracker, running Dec. 12-27, reflects Pink’s particular storytelling genius so completely that it’s easy to forget the narrative actually comes from a tale by E.T. A. Hoffman.
Perhaps the biggest event of the season will be the American premiere of Pink’s newest ballet, Dorian Gray, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s novella about a callow fellow whose sins are reflected in a monstrously magical painted portrait. The ballet will receive an unusually long run of two full weekends, Feb. 12-21, at the Pabst Theater, a place where Wilde would feel immediately at home. Pink will refashion the ballet, commissioned and successfully performed in 2013 by Germany’s Ballet Augsburg, for his own Milwaukee dancers to a brand new score by the internationally celebrated Milwaukee composer Michael Torke. The music will be performed live.
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Kaleidoscope Eyes is the witty title for the program of contemporary works running March 31-April 3 and featuring Trey McIntyre’s A Day in the Life, a work by this exciting American choreographer set to songs by The Beatles. Milwaukee Ballet’s own remarkable resident choreographer Timothy O’Donnell will make his fifth world premiere with the company’s great dancers and Garrett Smith, deserving winner of last month’s Genesis International Choreographic Competition, will make his second.
Lewis Carroll is the inspiration for ALICE (in Wonderland) by guest choreographer Septime Webre, Artistic Director of The Washington Ballet in D.C. Premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2012, the work brings Carroll’s story into the 21st century. The giant cast with include students from the Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy. Performances are May 19-26.
