Photo by Adalais Burkholder
Andrea Chastant Burkholder is an aerial dancer. Her husband Daniel’s specialty is dance improvisation. The couple arrived in Milwaukee last August from Maryland as new members of the UW-Milwaukee dance faculty. In May, they inaugurated “Real Time,” a monthly 8:30-9:30 p.m. performance series at Danceworks Studio. The success of these pay-what-you-will events on the first Friday of the month has encouraged the couple to extend the series through next May. A special, site-specific performance of aerial dance and improvisation will take place at the swing park under the Holton Street Bridge on North Water Street on Friday, Aug. 7.
Why “Real Time”?
Andrea: Looking at bus schedules after we moved here, I thought about how much time people spend waiting for buses or waiting in lines. I wanted to know, what if we made art more like these everyday tasks that people are willing to spend their time on. We decided it was important to keep it to a time frame in which people could be most with us, about 45 minutes. It had to be on a regular schedule that people count on. Cost could not be an issue; the only prerequisite is that you want to come. In improvisation, you have to exist right in that moment to make the dance happen. We want the audience to be as truly present, so we make it a point to meet people when they come in, to exchange names if not have a small conversation. We happen to go on stage and they happen to sit. We serve wine and seltzer water afterwards. People stand where we just performed. It’s a shared space for the whole hour.
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Daniel: We try to make it slightly more mundane. That’s not usual in dance, which is seen as removed, as high art. My grandfather was a master bricklayer. He built complicated fireplaces, for example. He was a problem-solving, creative person but a laborer at the same time. I often think of myself in the same way: Here’s some time and space; make a dance.
Andrea: Every new audience member gets a thank-you letter. We want each person to know that they matter to us. We have to do that more, in general, because the way to make things happen is to build communities.
How’s life in Milwaukee?
Daniel: I feel like we’re still getting to know the community. At UWM, the students and faculty are quite wonderful—open, inquisitive, interested, engaged. It seems like these same characteristics are present in the dance community.
Andrea: When I contacted Kim Johnson at Danceworks, she said, “Here’s rehearsal space any time.” I can’t tell you how hard I struggled for that in Maryland. Not all dance communities are that supportive; they don’t come to each other’s shows, for example. That’s not the case here. And people here are very open to collaboration with other dancers, other disciplines and spaces.
Why the swing park?
Daniel: It speaks to our interest in site-specific work as a way of enlivening our investigation, bringing meaning, creating community, having a more casual, more flexible relationship to the audience and the ways we move around one another.
Andrea: To see how many ways we can share a set amount of time and space with people.
Do you go high in your aerial dances?
Andrea: The highest I’ve gone is 25 feet. There are many more lower spaces than higher spaces that you can get permission to perform in. I always perform without a net. Each space comes alive in different ways.
Is improvisation art?
Daniel: There’s a balance between structure and freedom. You need to be able to work from a structure that allows you the ability to be in the present moment and fully respond. Without a pre-determined structure or the ability to create structure in the moment, the performance can get lost or muddy. But structure can mean a lot of things. That’s where experience comes in.
