Tom Davenport
Dancers from Madison Ballet’s Re:Imagine.
Madison Ballet’s Re:Imagine will feature choreography by Ja’ Malik.
Cello rock, electronic pop, metal apocalypticism, R&B — and ballet? What might appear to be a wild hodgepodge of genres is a glimpse into ballet in Madison this fall. Blending expected classical styles with unexpected music, Kanopy Dance Company’s Puppet Master and Madison Ballet’s Re:Imagine – Rock the Ballet are reshaping how ballet is performed and, the companies hope, received.
Kanopy Artistic Director Robert Cleary has always been drawn to the eclectic.
“I’ll listen to anything and think, ‘Why not?’ Music and dance can always be intertwined in some interesting way.”
Although he trained in classical ballet and is a lover of classical composers, Cleary always welcomes the chance to choreograph ballets to different genres of music. While working in a Madison restaurant in the early 2000s, a co-worker gave him a CD featuring the music of Apocalyptica, a Finnish cello metal band covering Metallica’s greatest hits. That unlikely fusion of metal and symphony ultimately inspired him to begin creating Puppet Master.
Puppet Master is set in an Alice in Wonderland-like “netherworld” of the peculiar and bizarre, says Cleary. The show follows “Mohawk Man” — a dancer adorned with a multi-colored headpiece — as he is held captive and haunted by the ominous villain “Puppet Master.” Dancing his way through a strange surreal world, Mohawk Man interacts with uncanny China dolls, veiled shrouds, and an eerie Greek chorus to the metallic symphonic sounds of Apocalyptica.
“Puppet Master is about escaping from reality, and it comes at a perfect time,” says Susanne Voeltz, Kanopy’s associate director. “We all need respite. We all need a fun diversion.”
The costumes of Puppet Master are designed with leather, spandex, studs, glitter, chains and straitjackets, which adds to its theatrical appeal, says Cleary. The audiences will be invited to dress in heavy-metal-inspired garb to match the performers, and dancing is welcome — Cleary says he hopes that makes the ballet more approachable and fun for newcomers.
“It’s sometimes hard for audiences to approach dance because it’s abstract, but we want to illustrate how dance can tell stories,” says Voeltz. “We want to create and invite people into a different reality, and we want people to laugh.” Puppet Master will run from Oct. 2-5 at the Overture Center’s Promenade Hall.
Madison Ballet’s Artistic and Executive Director Ja’ Malik is also focused on reframing how Madisonians interpret ballet. Re:Imagine – Rock the Ballet, running Oct. 10-12 at the MYArts Starlight Theater, is about diversifying the type of music used for ballet performances and creating a program that is inclusive, says Ja’ Malik.
Shawn Harper
Dancers in Kanopy Dance’s 'Puppet Master.'
Kanopy’s 'Puppet Master' goes for approachable and fun.
“We want to expand the mind of what [people] think ballet is. People tend to think ballet is for a specific elite group of people, but I believe ballet is for everyone,” says Ja’ Malik. “We are using classical ballet technique, but it can be to R&B, it can be to rock, and pop, and jazz. I try to keep in mind the community we are serving. I want to make sure everyone can find something they love in the program.”
Re:Imagine — Rock the Ballet will feature Ja’ Malik’s choreography to Rhapsody in Blue, a crowd favorite from last season. For Rock the Ballet, Ja’ Malik developed original choreography set to a recomposition of the Gershwin score by Mr. Chair, a Madison-based experimental piano trio that will join the dancers on stage.
“Mr. Chair took this classic 100-year-old piece and recomposed it, made it a little more modern, a little more hip. It has a lot of current influences in it,” says Ja’ Malik. “It’s interesting, it’s new, and I was really excited to create something with it.”
Also on the program is Richard Walters’ Parallax, set to a spacey and otherworldly electronic score. In Parallax, Walters — Madison Ballet’s rehearsal instructor — ventures away from the classical ballet vocabulary and explores new ways of moving, which Ja’ Malik hopes audiences new and old will enjoy.
To round out the program, Ja’ Malik invited choreographers Meredith Rainey and Yury Yanowsky to develop two additional ballets. Ja’ Malik is giving Rainey and Yanowsky full creative freedom in terms of choreography and music choice, bringing an element of surprise to how the program will ultimately take shape.
“I trust these artists,” says Ja’ Malik. “The only stipulation I gave them was that the music has to be something that’s out of the box of what we normally hear.”
Underlying Re:Imagine – Rock the Ballet is an element of inclusivity, which will extend across the entire season and for years to come, he adds.
“Ballet came to America in the 1940s and ’50s in an almost segregated way, as it was for a specific group of people who had class and status,” says Ja’ Malik. “But I’m sitting here as a Black queer person in America as a director of a ballet company,” he says, looking out his office window at Madison Ballet at a class of dancers outside. “I want to make sure that the ballet is reflective of the actual people that are in it,” he continues. “That the ballet is a direct reflection of the people in the Madison community.”
