BY EVAN MUSIL AND LAUREN WARNECKE
Reap the Harvest
Everything is choreography, even farming. That explains why this month, in the idyllic fields of Sauk County, over a dozen tractors will dance a six-act ballet. They’ll spread, rake and bale hay in tight coordination, set to a chamber orchestra playing Tchaikovsky. The performance is three years in the making from creator Sarah Gordon Butler, who worked closely with the farmers driving the tractors. “She’s taking principles of classical dance and choreography, and applying them to this machinery,” says Philip Matthews of Wormfarm Institute, which is producing the performance.
See: Make Hay While the Sun Shines in Sauk County on Sept. 12.
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Editor’s Picks
Nō Studios Dance Fest | Oct. 3 | Marcus Performing Arts Center
A showcase of dance – from breaking to Irish – the fifth edition of this festival hits the Peck Pavilion outdoor stage during the day and the theater at night. Local troupes include Water Street Dance and Dawn Springer Projects.
InSIte: En Route | Oct. 9-10 | Pulaski Park
Milwaukee’s Wild Space Dance Company brings a site-specific performance to this South Side park to perform a unique piece of choreography for the newly refreshed space.
Clarity & Connection (Nova Linea Dance) | Nov. 13-14 | Marcus Performing Arts Center
Based on a poetry book of the same name, this piece from the contemporary dance company Nova Linea explores relationships that start with a strong sense of self. As such, each dance takes a different, individual perspective.
A Delicious Backstory
Milwaukee Ballet’s Mirror Mirror could be called a wordless fan fiction – imagining how Snow White’s stepmother got so evil.
“An awful lot happened before Snow White bit the apple,” says artistic director and choreographer Michael Pink of the ballet, which runs for just four performances this fall. “Disney is littered with all these evil-looking stepmothers but doesn’t take a second to tell you why they’re the way they are.”
On the heels of Mirror Mirror’s success after its 2014 premiere, the company revived it just three years later, but it’s been sitting in the vault ever since. It employs a design team whom Pink has stuck with over the years – sets and costumes by Todd Ivins, lighting by David Grill and a cinematic score by composer Philip Feeney, which brings live music back into the orchestra pit this fall.
Of all his ballets, Pink says Mirror Mirror remains among his favorites. “It’s very mesmeric and captivating,” he says, in part because it paints good and evil not in black and white, but shades of gray.
Then there’s the size and scale of the piece, which Pink says has prevented the ballet from being performed by other companies, despite its deceiving simplicity. Mirrored panels and other set pieces fill the cavernous Marcus Center stage, creating a jungle gym for the dancers to dodge through, over and around in Ivins’ gorgeous, gothic garments.
See: Mirror Mirror at the Marcus Performing Arts Center from Nov. 6-8.
