Milwaukee deserves a powerhouse contemporary company and Water Street Dance seeks to take up that mantle.
In less than five years, which included the pandemic, Water Street Dance Milwaukee has emerged as a leading force in the city’s dance scene. Their petit two-night summer concert called Illuminate took place at Broadway Theatre Center Friday and Saturday night. In a “no rest for the weary” move, the company also appeared in Saturday’s multi-genre Nō Studios Dance Fest in Bayshore.
While Water Street desires to be a repertory company, they rely on artistic director Morgan Williams for much of that rep. Fortunately, Williams has a lot to say; his three contributions of the four on the evening capture a wide range of tempos and moods. A world premiere from guest artist Annie Franklin completes the program.
A Chicago native, Williams trained at the prestigious Chicago Academy for the Performing Arts. He danced a stint with the Indianapolis company Kaleidoscope and for a gaggle of Chicago companies including Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Visceral Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash. Those influences – classical and contemporary training plus a dash of hip-hop and a commercial polish honed from experience on So You Think You Can Dance – are clear. But Williams is not looking to imitate his mentors. His is a slightly new, curious and creative formula. I hope Milwaukee continues to embrace this Chicago expat, who has started over after SueMo Dance Company, which he co-founded, fell apart. Williams has now planted firmer roots, opening his studio in north suburban Cedarburg to house the company. That alone signals that he intends to stay awhile. It’s not Hubbard Street. It’s Water Street.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Still, elements of Illuminate were rather rough around the edges, despite superior production value and a top shelf crop of dancers. The professional company was filled out with post-secondary trainees to create a large ensemble of up to 15 dancers in moments—a distinction that, unfortunately, was obvious, if only because the pro dancers are so, so good.
With just four pieces spanning nearly two-and-a-half hours, the night dragged and felt equal parts intermission and dancing. Several performers appeared in every piece; that plus production demands forced long pauses between pieces. Williams is still growing curatorially as he learns to shape an evening, but that should not discourage anyone from supporting this company on the rise as they work out the kinks.
Williams’ Birds of Paradise opens with small piles of dancers arranged in tableaux, their coiffed hands and necks posed in ornamental shapes. At first, one could think these “birds” are meant to depict the tropical flower; all mystery is dispelled quickly when a single dancer starts “ca-cawing.” Others soon join in on this avian call-and-response.
The piece really takes shape when the “birds,” dressed in black pants and crisp white tops, come to standing. They face the downstage left corner and, in silence, gently flap their arms with a deep undulation through the back. Two flaps, then a relevé; knee to chest then a beautiful, high arabesque—all 12 dancers moving perfectly in unison. A corps de ballet.
Get it now? This is Williams’ Swan Lake. The score is not Tchaikovsky, but a mixtape of various manifestations of Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp Minor for Violin and Piano and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Those unfamiliar with the canonical ballet may not pick up on all its hints – some subtle, some not. Take for example a section near the end that nods to the 19th century ballet’s divertissements. Blink and you might miss a keen reference to the four cygnets before the ensemble lines up next to the wings, posing apathetically with tongue-in-cheek finger snaps to signal applause at the end of a solo or duet.
Franklin’s trio, Umbra, features strong performances from Kata Alava, Sami Frost and Teresa Noonan, whose bodies reverberate through physical tongue-twisters resembling a cat’s cradle of limbs. The title refers to shadows produced during a lunar eclipse; I didn’t really see that; rather, “Umbra” feels a bit stuck in its dirgy tempo, dictated by music from Lorn and Dolor.
Birds of Paradise is Williams’ strongest work conceptually, though his other two offerings, Goodbye and Fragmented offer as much in the way of bold, technical dancing. Together, those two create a nice contrast, with Goodbye, steeped in amber hues and gorgeous—I mean, gorgeous—incandescent bulbs dangling above the stage and the tenderest moments of the night.
After intermission, the curtain opens to reveal a three-sided wooden lattice the company climbs on and swings from in Williams’ ambitious Fragmented. Overall, the piece lives up to its title and feels quite disconnected but has several moments of brilliance. It begins with a hip-hop ensemble section, followed by several minutes of micro-scenes divided by blackouts. By the end of these, it almost feels like a slow-motion version of Fight Club, with dancers dressed in all black sweat suits taking turns in duets that are equal parts combative and nurturing. These pas de deux are surrounded by that wooden wrestling ring and a half-circle of dancers watching.
Poet Brooklyn then emerges to offer spoken word, with a handful of faceless dancers acting out the verse. They sometimes depict his words literally, forming tables, seats and altars with their bodies as Brooklyn talks of healing and letting go. But they also match the tempo and timbre of his voice with various abstract gesticulations.
In Fragmented’s final section, a set of filmy, mylar mirrors on wheels are rolled out on stage, creating a striking fun house effect in which the dancers are forced to face and really look at themselves. In what I assume is a happy accident, at one point the mirrors are lined up on the diagonal. It reveals a reflection of Williams, seated attentively backstage on a headset—a not-so-subtle reminder that Water Street Dance Milwaukee is just getting started.
