I recently visited Dawn Springer Dance Projects at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Peck School of the Arts to watch a rehearsal for Sylph. The contemporary ballet premieres October 11 and 12 at the school’s Jan Serr Studio, a modern industrial space with big windows looking out over Lake Michigan. In the space of an hour, I witnessed Springer’s approach to choreography and her dancers, and how Jon Mueller‘s percussive instrumentals drove forward a composition that gave masculine weight to a project that examines femininity in ballet.

Springer’s performances are meant for intimate audiences, which means viewers are treated to an experience that feels exclusive and mesmerizing. For this production, the choreographer is interested in defining and challenging the feminine. This necessitates a vulnerable interaction with the audience, asking that they extend their senses to the dancers—Sejain Bastidas, Itzel Hernandez, Annia Hidalgo, Janel Meindersee, and Natalie Dellutri—at a range much closer than most ballet affords.

The grain of the idea for this production began in 2019 with Mueller’s album Codex Intueri. He had sent Springer a copy and suggested the pair make something that combined music and movement. By the time Springer was ready to take on the project in earnest, it was February 2020. We all know what happened next.

Four years later, Springer’s vision is coming together, and Mueller’s music is fundamental to the experience. “Something about Jon’s music and watching him play live—the exactitude combined with the virtuosity—feels like ballet,” Springer says. “For him to hit the drum in the same place at the exact same time in the exact same way over and over is just the same. It’s the practice and the technique class and being at the barre.”

Mueller’s live score is moody and ceremonial, with fiery escalations and low but consistent pulses. The dancers respond by pressing into one another and mirroring moves, or by slinking from corner to corner in alchemical adaptations to more traditional ballet styles. But there will be no corners in the final show. Sylph will appear “in the round,” giving the audience a fully circular view of the choreography. There will be no nosebleed seats.

“Part of my process is to open up a non-hierarchical way of being in a dance studio,” Springer says. “Depending on your training, that’s not necessarily easy or automatic. The process has to embody what you’re trying to say.”

And the audience is part of this, too. With such an intimate venue that places viewers on a plane about waist-high with the dancers, they will be able to see every minor movement, hear the dancers inhale and exhale, feel every complex movement land beneath their own feet.

Sylph poses questions about embodying a feminine form, being on display, and exhibiting extreme ranges of motion for a consuming public. The mythical sylph is often depicted on her toes, mid-leap or bend, a glinting flirtation in her eye. (I Googled sylph and toggled “images,” which turned up many busty blonde fairy types and a few gem-toned hummingbirds.)

But the effort it takes a dancer to affect the same graceful manner is taxing on both body and mind. Who is gazing at the sylph? Is it harmless to look upon her—this anti-Medusa donned in garments that reveal more than they conceal? Her beauty never fades and her dexterity never falters. She is the perfect ballerina because she cannot be deformed by time. For a real dancer, this myth is particularly salient. Springer has laced this into the fibers of her choreography. The movements in Sylph run a range between extreme demand and gravitational surrender, as if the performers are certain that, if they could only push a little harder, they would fly. Ballet is infamous for its physical toll, rendering most dance careers untenable in young adulthood. In order for dancers to have a lifelong and high-performing career, they would need to be suspended in the sylph-like figure for longer than is possible.

Sylph will only run three times from October 11-12 in the beautiful Jan Serr Studio. Don’t miss this chance to see a demanding performance up close and personal. Tickets ($35) are available HERE. Admission is limited.

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