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En Pointe: Building Appreciation for Wisconsin Ballet

 
Alaina Wendlandt
ballet feet
Karl von Rabenau
 

Milwaukee Ballet II dancer poses as King Louis XIV.

It is not a typical Friday morning at Milwaukee Montessori school, as children are ushered into the church auditorium to prepare for a morning of classical ballet education—a subject stereotypically pinned as yawn-worthy and stuffy.

On this particular morning, however, interactive storytelling and characters in tights and sparkling tutus take the place of musty encyclopedias. The lesson, titled "The King Who Danced," is led by costumed dancers from the Milwaukee Ballet’s second company and Alyson Vivar, director of education for the ballet.

Vivar and her dancing accomplices take the children from the earliest days of the classic dance style, starting with King Louis XIV all the way to Milwaukee ballet today, highlighting time periods when dancers risked their lives to perform as they were suspended in mid-air by wires or set afire when costumes brushed against candles lighting the theater. In the same era, fanatics of famous Italian ballerina Marie Taglioni were rumored to have cooked and eaten her dance shoes as a display of affection.

This narrated performance, part of the Milwaukee Ballet’s city outreach program titled “Ballet-in-a-Box,” elicits poignant responses from its captive, yet critical audience. Kids wrinkle their noses as the first male dancer enters wearing traditional tights. Others give standing ovations to another dancer’s “grand allegro”—an impressive combination of large jumps and turns, requiring a significant level of athleticism and training.

The “Ballet-in-a-Box” tour, which runs four weeks of each year, is not just a chance for the ballet company to entertain children. It represents a shared mission among many classical dance artists around the state to strike down misconceptions that have led to ballet’s dwindled popularity. It is one piece of a collective effort to revive respect for the art in Wisconsin, starting with the children, from the ground up.

Building audiences
One active participant in the collective revival is actively working in Madison to combine outreach programs similar to Milwaukee’s “Ballet-in-a-Box.” Earle Smith, artistic director of Madison Ballet, teaches to instill a love for the art within the city's children. Smith coins the central goal behind what he does as building audiences.

Now in his ninth season as the school’s artistic director, Smith has nurtured the school by elevating artistry and professionalism since 2005. He began by plucking advanced dancers from mom-and-pop studios around the city and training them once a week.

ballet school
Matthew Wisniewski/Curb
 

Students at Madison Ballet’s all-boys class practice their pliées.

 

 

“To [build a dance community] you’ve got to have the artists—the dancers that can perform at a professional level,” Smith said.

Madison Ballet’s goal is to create an institution equivalent to the size and prestige of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Madison Opera. The school is now more than 300 dancers strong and this year—for the first time in city’s history—Madison will have a professional ballet company.
Sixteen dancers, most from the Midwest, will join the ballet to rock its quaint studio walls. Smith's most advanced girls, of high school and junior-high age, will now compete head on with professionals, ultimately stretching them to become better dancers.

The girls are not the only dancers challenged at Madison Ballet. Every Monday night, 12 to 15 boys attend the school’s all-boys ballet class. Most schools of Madison Ballet's size teach a fraction of this number of male students, making Madison Ballet a true rarity in the Midwest.
 
 
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