MILWAUKEE — There's a show in Milwaukee that's unlike anything that the city has seen.
The performance is experimental. The theater, which is really just a studio, only has space for eight audience members. The storyline is abstract. Introducing the dance performance, Something Familiar. It's a contemporary dance performance about life, family, memory, and relationships in the Ozark region.
“So I was looking at different memories and thinking about memory and how sometimes that is accurate, and sometimes it is not," Dawn Springer, the choreographer and artistic director, said.
Something Familiar is about her grandmother's experience living in the Ozarks. Memory is interpretive. A bit like this type of contemporary dance. What’s for certain, though, you feel an emotion.
“Much in the same way as you might read a poem and it evokes a feeling, but you’re not quite sure if - but you’re not even really sure what that feeling is yet, and it takes some time to process," Springer said.
The storyline of the performance can be difficult to follow at times. At moments, there are clear narratives to grasp onto, and other times it's more abstract. That's all intentional. Rather than a clear story like the Nutcracker, Springer focuses on choreographing poetic movements.
"Be open to the experience and know that it's okay if you're not necessarily getting everything all at once. But it might take a few days afterwards, and you might never really get there. And that's all fine," Springer said.
While the story is sometimes hard to follow, audience members won't miss a bit of the action. They are seated just inches away from the dancers.
“I will say this is the smallest room I have performed in," Janel Meindersee, one of the dancers, said.
That means there is no room for stage tricks or errors. Being that close to the audience is unforgiving for a performer. However, that doesn't scare these dances. In fact, they embrace it.
“For a piece like this, it doesn’t have to look effortless. You can, you know, we can be free to let people see the exertion," Meindersee, who has a background in classical ballet, said.
Unlike a ballet, this is designed to be raw and authentic. It's okay to show the effort that it takes to put on this type of performance.
Watch the video to see what the performance Something Familiar looks like...
The show is inside the One-Off Exhibitions studios. It's an arts space on Mitchell Street in Milwaukee. Normally, it’s used for contemporary art galleries. But in the spirit of artistic endeavors, the curator decided to challenge the dancers to give audiences a show they’ve never seen.
“Hope that it would spark this creativity in exhibition design and also sort of be a sort of low-stakes experimental space for artists," Tina Schinabeck, the director and curator for One-Off Exhibitions, said
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but a show with only eight seats sells out fast. That means audiences will just have to wait until a new show is announced.
While you can't see a live performance, you can see a video recording of the dance on Feb. 20 from 11 am - 4 pm at One-Off Exhibitions.
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