Five things I’ve been meaning to tell you (12/22)

On Dec. 11, I saw and reviewed the Milwaukee Ballet‘s The Nutcracker, with Valerie Harmon and David Hovhannisyan as Marie and Karl, the big, romantic dancing roles. I revisited The Nutcracker, by Michael Pink, on Dec. 21 and saw a very different show with Yuki Clark and Alexandre Ferreira in those roles. Harmon and Hovhannisyan’s athletic exuberance contrasts sharply with Clark and Ferreira’s exquisite delicacy. The first couple bowls you over; the second couple draws you in. I loved Harmon and Hovhannisyan and Clark and Ferreira equally, but in different ways. I’m very glad to have gone back and would recommend a second visit to see another cast. The differences are illuminating

I am happy to report that 11 days into the run, the entire company has maintained its bright energy. Pink has allowed his rotating casts a measure of creativity, especially with the comic business. The apparent result is that they’re having fun with the show rather than growing weary of it, so we have fun, too. That includes the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, which under Pasquale Laurino is playing as if it just loves doing Tchaikovsky over and over.

More Milwaukee Ballet: The Harmony Initiative, a joint effort with the Medical College of Wisconsin and the UWM Peck School of the Arts, continues to progress. The initiative, announced in 2009, would put the Milwaukee Ballet in a new home Downtown. The partners have settled on a site, the one now occupied by the Marcus Center’s crumbling parking structure, just north across State Street from Uihlein Hall. Last week, the Milwaukee County board voted to pursue the redevelopment of the site with the Harmony Initiative. The partners have filed papers for a new, non-profit Harmony entity to run the facility as an independent entity.

In an interview Thursday (Dec. 22), Buehler said that city and county officials, Marcus Center staff and the partners are making rapid progress on the project.

“We still have a way to go, but we are expanding and deepening our relationships,” Buehler said. “Now we have to sit down and discuss methods.”

The facility would include a parking structure, studios and offices for the ballet and its school, a theater in the 300-seat range, all shared in some way with UWM, and a sports medicine facility.

More Peck School of the Arts: We don’t usually review student shows, but I caught the UWM Theater Department’s staging of Shakepeare’s As You Like It on Dec. 8, the Dance Department’s New Dancemakers undergrad choreography show on Dec. 9 and the Department of Art and Design BFA show on Dec 16.

The students showed very high levels of craft in all three shows. The artists handled materials expertly. The dancers’ technique and athleticism impressed. The young actors needed about 10 minutes to hit their stride, in terms of pacing and scale, but once they did they made Shakespeare natural and laugh-out-loud funny.

But I have a note for the choreographers: Lighten up. Just one in 13 over two programs showed a sense of humor. Way too much post-adolescent angst for one night. Choreographers, try to keep this in mind the next time around: Art is not about expressing yourself. Art is about making something that might engage someone who isn’t you.

Paul Goldberger spoke at the Milwaukee Art Museum Nov. 30, in conjunction with MAM’s celebration of Santiago Calatrava’s annex to

the museum. Goldberger, a celebrated writer on the subject of architecture, turned out to be a witty and illuminating speaker, as well. This was not his first visit to the building; Goldberger, formerly of the New York Times and currently of the New Yorker magazine, wrote about the new wing 10 years ago and seems to have given it considerable thought since.

He spoke with great insight and no condescension about the building’s iconic status for the city: “Milwaukee is small enough that a single building can stand for the aspirations of a city.”

Goldberger pointed out that our museum is part of a trend throughout the Western world of museum buildings taking on larger roles as civic symbols.

“Museums have become cities’ calling cards,” he said. “Once, it was the cathedral. Museums are now unique and conspicuous, not just containers of art, but artworks themselves.”

Goldberger, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is very well known, but his fascinating talk did not even half-fill the museum’s auditorium. Many of these museum talks are very good and deserve a larger audience. So take one in when you can; you can keep track of them here.

Finally, I want to share a little Christmas gift with you: We’ve become friendly with Cathy and Mario Costantini, owners of the La Lune Collection line of furniture. Mario is the force behind the Mad Hot Ballroom idea, which caught fire in Milwaukee when Danceworks ran with it. I knew Mario a little through the Danceworks connection, and have come to know him better since we moved to Weil Street, just up the block from La Lune’s factory and offices. A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang and a La Lune employee dropped off a holiday gift, the Mad Hot and bold Blend from Alterra Coffee (another business neighbor, two blocks away at Chambers and Humboldt.) Thanks, Cathy and Mario. You two do everything in high style.