Daniel Burkholder, from DC to UWM to Danceworks

Like most students in UWM’s MFA program in dance, Daniel Burkholder is no kid. He’s 42, has a kid of his own, and has run his own pick-up company in Washington, D.C. for years.

Burkholder will complete his MFA this summer. Every year, the UWM dance faculty and Danceworks present one graduating MFA student at the Danceworks studio theater, as a particular honor. Burkholder’s the one this summer. A little grant money is available for expenses; Burkholder is using it to bring in three members of PlayGround, his company. The four of them will dance (one will also sing) in Burkholder’s The Chemistry of Lime Trees at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 15-16.

Burkholder started dancing at 9, by default. His parents wanted him to do something physical, but the little league in his burgeoning suburban Michigan town had no spots available.

“The karate school was way too serious,” he said. “But the local dance school had a jazz dance class just for boys. Then I just kept going.”

It wasn’t such a stretch. His parents were competitive ballroom dancers, and his grandfather and then his father became avid square dancers.

“I come from a lineage of men who dance,” Burkholder said.

He majored in dance at Sarah Lawrence College and moved to Washington upon graduation. He earned an M.A. there at American University. Like most dancers and choreographers, he’s led an eclectic, entrepreneurial career.

Burkholder has taught as an adjunct at George Washington University, at the University of Maryland, and innumerable teen classes in various places. He also is a lighting designer, and spent eight years primarily in that capacity at Dance Place, Washington’s equivalent of Milwaukee’s Danceworks.

“I was assistant technical director at a place that presented 45 weekends a year,” he said. “I saw hundreds of shows — world dance, modern, performance art, everything. It was a great education.”

He spent 2003-2005 in San Francisco, then returned to DC. His company there dances in theaters, but PlayGround might be better know for site-specific works. Recent projects include Scenic Route, a three-hour hike interspersed with site specific performances along the Potomac River. In addition, PlayGround is the dance company in residence at Georgetown University Hospital.

“I started working in the arts and humanities program in the cancer wing, where I worked with staff and patients,” he said. “Now it’s expanding to the whole hospital. We’re there eight hours a week or so. We’ll do performances in the atrium, but we also do things like go to waiting rooms, where people sit for hours. We say hi and get them out of their chairs for a five-minute stretch. At first, they think we must be insane. But about 50% of them do it. We do staff support; movement breaks for nurses is really popular. We’re developing more creative interactions.”

PlayGround comprises Burkholder and six dancers he works with again and again. His method calls for steady relationships.

“Process is really important,” he said. “In some ways, I’m an improvisor at heart. I usually have some improvisational elements in my dances. I’m interested in modes of collaboration.”

Burkholder collaborated closely with Kathryn Harris Banks on the first half of the Milwaukee concert and with Susan Oetgen on the second. The first is about a Russian would-be immigrant. The young woman, sponsored by a distant bridegroom she has never met, arrives on Ellis Island. The young man looks her over from afar, reneges on his promise, and leaves her stranded. The second half is about Bosko Brkic and Admira Ismic, the young Christian-Muslim couple killed by a sniper during the civil strife in the Balkans in 1993.

“I’m interested in stories,” Burkholder said. “These are both border stories. The first one, as we do it, is more abstract. But it does have a Russian folk song and a Russian folk dance [choreographed by Katya Denisova]. We’re much more specific in the second one. Their relationship is clear. This level of theatricality is new to me. I’m a little nervous about it.”

Burkholder started work on She arrived, alone, the first piece, during his first summer in Milwaukee, in 2009. He and Harris Banks have been refining and expanding it ever since.

“UWM offered me the opportunity to deepen investigations into things that already interested me, but would have taken longer,” he said. “It helped me develop as an artist and a company director.”

Daniel Burkholder and PlayGround will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 15-16, at the Danceworks Studio Theater, 1661 N. Water St. Tickets are $25 and $20, $15 for students and seniors. Call 414 277-8480 or visit the Danceworks website.

Also of interest: Current grad students in the UWM MFA program will show works in progress and more finished progress at the summer Dancemakers program, set for 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 29-30 at the Mainstage Theater on the UWM Campus. Emma Draves, Lisa Giobbi, Scott Lyons, Angie Yetzke, April Sellers and Maxine Steinman will show work. Tickets are $12, $10 for seniors and students and UWM alums and faculty. Call the Peck School of the Arts box offcie, 414 229-4308. More details at the UWM website.