A View From the Brewery
Wild Space opens its season with ‘Milwaukee 360’
You are apt to be quite taken with the
beauty of Downtown Milwaukee and its environs as they appear in a wraparound
panorama from atop the eight-story parking structure of the former Pabst
Brewery, set high on the bluff on west Juneau Avenue between Ninth and 10th
streets. This view will provide the circular backdrop for the open-air finale
of Milwaukee 360, the
new dance by Debra Loewen that opens her Wild Space Dance Company’s 26th
season.
After you’ve savored the view, and chosen
to sit or lean among the various options at varying angles to the bi-level
playing space, you’ll discover a woman lying still on the concrete in the glare
of automobile headlights. To an original score by composer/percussionist Tim
Russell of haunting sounds made by cars, such as doors and trunks being
furtively opened or slammed, the large cast of men and women will make moving
images in this film noir atmosphere, reconfiguring the monumental brewery
forever.
That’s the gift of Loewen’s site-specific
dances. The landscapes, buildings and byways of the city are transformed into
something unexpected and new. Sometimes we can sense the history of the site;
her dancers seem like ghosts of earlier inhabitants. This time she’s exploring
large ideas of identity and space, absence and presence, corners turned. There
will be a taste of a story, she says. Actions have consequences, but no one
will understand or even see it in the same way.
The performance will start in the vast,
high-ceilinged, split-level ground floor of the parking structure, an open
concrete expanse with huge windows that reminded Loewen of giant movie screens.
Dancers will perform inside and outside, alongside the neighborhood street
life. “That space doesn’t know what it is yet,” Loewen says. “We, and the
audience, will be marking in a very striking way.” A middle act will
materialize on the almost lunar grounds outside the building, as the audience
begins its journey to the eighth floor.
For those who want to learn the history,
there’s a 7:15 p.m. pre-show talk each night by Jim Haertel, owner of Best
Place, the tavern just across the street in the amazing castle where Joseph
Pabst once held court. A small charge is required to attend the talk, but the
entire audience is invited to the castle for a nightly post-show reception with
the artists.
Performances begin 8 p.m. Sept. 20-22 at
The Brewery parking structure, 910 W. Juneau Ave. Part of the performance is
outdoors. For more information, call 414-271-0712 or visit
www.wildspacedance.org.



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