Your Mother Dances says Merry Christmas

Tableau from “2 Good 2 Last,” as performed in 2010. YMD photo.

Choreographer Elizabeth Johnson’s satirical, edgy shows with her Your Mother Dances company made an impact in Milwaukee since 2006. No one around here is quite like Johnson, who once did a solo to her own (very premature) obituary.

Johnson has been teaching on a one-year appointment at UNC-Greensboro, but is back in Milwaukee this weekend – not only for the holidays but also to mount Got It/Get Out of Town/In Transition at UWM. She and the dancers worked on Gerald Casel’s Save the Robots (2008), Johnson’s 2 Good 2 Last (2010) and the premiere of her Petty Things over the summer and again during a visit in October.

Johnson consulted by phone in her absence. Casel, who moved to California State University-Long Beach after a year at UWM, weighed in via Skype during rehearsals this week. He watched rehearsal via streaming video and gave the dancers some notes the same way. The process has been challenging, but Johnson was feeling pretty good about the results after rehearsal Tuesday (Dec. 18).

“It all looked pretty good when I came back in October,” Johnson said. “Maryhelen Wesner and Jaimi Patterson sort of took the lead on it. They’re all such pros. We’re just doing a little tweaking now.”

Five songs by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers accompany the new work.

“I’d put it in the ‘romp’ category,” Johnson said. “It’s high energy. The dance sometimes relates to the words of the songs, but it’s mostly dance for dance’s sake, somewhere on the line between modern and jazz. I’m not trying to be a choreographic genius here, just have some fun. It’s sassy and cheeky – you know: my thing.”

In a press release, Johnson described Casel’s Save the Robots! as “a response to the loss of artistic expression and integrity brought on by gentrification. Set on YMD dancers Sarah Bromann, Beth Engel, Annette Grefig, Steven LaFond, Jaimi Patterson, Kayla Schroepfer, Megan Zintek, and Maryhelen Wesner will dance it.

2 Good 2 Last, to songs from an old Harry Belafonte Christmas album, premiered about this time of year in 2010. This sweet, poignant dance, with its nativity-scene cradling and gentle embraces, was especially disarming coming from the Johnson.

“Oh, I have a sweet side,” she said, with a smile. “I’m multi-faceted.

“There’s no irony at all in this piece. My Christmases were naive and warm. I believe in the soulfulness, the joy and gentleness of the season.”

One of Johnson’s children is away at his first year in college. Luc Vanier, Johnson’s husband and a dance professor at UWM, has tended to the other two – teens at that – while Mom has been in Carolina. She’s very glad to be in Milwaukee for the holidays and to be putting on 2 Good 2 Last.

“Especially this week,” she said, “the world’s been very hard. This is a soft place, where people can hold on to each other.”

Got It/Get Out of Town/In Transition starts at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Dec. 20-22, and runs approximately one hour with no intermission. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Mitchell Hall, Room 254, 3203 N. Downer Ave., at Kenwood Boulevard.

Reserved seating: $25; General: $20; Seniors, Students, and Children: $15. Tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets at the door; cash or check only. Seating is limited. For questions about the performances, e-mail mom@yourmotherdances.com.

Your Mother Dances… 2 Good 2 Last, Sunday clips for TCD from Keith Knox on Vimeo.

Going to a Christmas show? TCD’s seen it first. All of our Christmas-show reviews link right here.