Women are the bosses of Milwaukee Ballet's next performances
For the first time ever, Milwaukee Ballet is staging a program of contemporary dance with all works choreographed by women.
"MKE MIX," at the Pabst Theater May 16-19, features the return of popular choreographer Nelly van Bommel, winner of Milwaukee Ballet's 2007 Genesis choreographic competition. Many locals fondly remember "Gelem, Gelem," her high-energy tribute to Roma dancing, which Milwaukee Ballet performed in 2008 and 2023.
"Nadir," her work for "MKE MIX," is set in the 1950s. Van Bommel has a dozen dancers moving to music of that time, much of it pop, from around the Mediterranean including southern France, Italy and Algeria, and a selection from Bizet's opera "The Pearl Fishers." Her title is drawn from a character name in Bizet's "Pearl Fishers," but also reflects the definition of nadir as a low point.
She first staged a work of that title in 2018 at Julliard. Based on van Bommel's description during a recent interview, Milwaukee will see a substantially new work with a different tone. Her father died while she was creating the dance at Juilliard, she said, bringing melancholy into the piece. Now, van Bommel wants "to revisit things with more joy."
Van Bommel, who had a Dutch father and French mother and grew up in France, loved the arts but did not have a traditional ballet education as a girl. She came to the Purchase College Conservatory of Dance in New York state for formal dance training, supporting herself by teaching French, nannying and other side hustles.
"My process is extremely collaborative," she said. "I need to be able to build a team of people working together towards the same goal. A lot of the pieces are really about the group, about the community values."
As a choreographer, van Bommel said she starts with global ideas and main directions first; specific steps are details that come later. She knows that might be challenging for some dancers, when compared to the reconstruction of an established ballet where those details are already worked out.
"In my case, things are blurry for a long time. So people need to be comfortable in that blurriness."
Happily, the Milwaukee Ballet dancers have been open and playful about the process, she said.
Van Bommel enjoys working with Milwaukee Ballet, for starters, simply because she enjoys being here.
"It's a very walkable city," she said. "The environment really makes it much easier to work."
"MKE MIX" also features dances choreographed by Gabrielle Lamb, another Genesis competition winner, and Penny Saunders.
People attending the May 17 performance will get a bonus: Following the show, van Bommel will give a choreographic demonstration onstage, working with teen dancers from the MBII company. Thinking aloud, van Bommel said she may use some "device prompts" she used at the beginning of making "Nadir" with the MBII dancers, working with them on building phrases "so that people get a sense of how movement is generated."
If you go
Milwaukee Ballet performs "MKE MIX" May 16-19 at the Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St. For tickets, visit milwaukeeballet.org/mke-mix or call (414) 902-2103.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Women are the bosses of Milwaukee Ballet's next performances
