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MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL ARTICLE SELECT
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Have yacht, will dance
Luxury boat owner offers up his vessel to give outdoor dance program an unusual opening
By TOM STRINI
Journal Sentinel dance critic
Posted: Sept. 19, 2007 - JSOnline.com
VIEW AUDIO SLIDESHOW
| Wild Space Dancers |
Photo/Michael Sears
Members of the Wild Space Dance Company rehearse an outdoor dance titled "Sight Specific/Vanishing Line" at Lakeshore State Park. Fifteen dancers will arrive by yacht to the park and use the outdoors and city skyline as backdrops for the performances this weekend.
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Photo/Michael Sears
The Wild Space Dance Company performance will start at the boat slips near Pier
Wisconsin and wind through the hills, paths and lagoons of Lakeshore State Park.
More Photos: Audio Slideshow |
IF YOU GO
Who: Wild Space Dance Company
What: Debra Loewen's "Sight Specific/Vanishing Line"
Where: Lakeshore State Park (directly south of Pier Wisconsin)
When: Dusk (about 7:15 p.m.) Friday and Saturday
How much: Admission to the performance is free, but a VIP package is available for Friday evening's show. The $45 fee includes appetizers at Rip Tide restaurant, a talk by historian John Gurda and a boat ride to the performance site.
Note: "Vanishing Line" moves about the park, and the audience moves with it. Wear walking shoes and dress for the weather. In a light drizzle, the show will go on; in a raging storm, it won't. |
A big, beautiful sailing yacht drew close to the shore in the little harbor by Pier Wisconsin as Debra Loewen and her Wild Space dancers rehearsed a few weeks ago. Loewen gazed at the impressive sight. Then the boat sailed away.
A day or two later, she got a call from Curt Crain. The 77-foot Altair is his boat. He wondered if Loewen might find his sailing ketch useful in her new outdoor dance, "Sight Specific/Vanishing Line."
Performance of the piece will start at the boat slips near Pier Wisconsin and wind through the rolling hills, curving paths and lagoons of Lakeshore State Park. Glorious views of Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee skyline will serve as backdrops. The audience follows along with the action.
On top of all that natural and architectural beauty, Loewen suddenly had a $3 million yacht to play with - for free.
"It could be a dressing room and a bathroom for us," Loewen said. (Facilities at the site are limited.) "That's what I went for first."
Then she started thinking about how dramatic it could be to have the Altair glide into the channel and make a hard port-side turn into Pier Wisconsin with her 13 dancers onboard. Loewen and dancers Katie Sopoci and Laura Murphy visited Crain on the Altair in McKinley Marina on a brilliant day last week, to see if such a scheme would be practical.
They found long, broad decks that make excellent platforms for dancing and posing and lots of rigging for climbing, hanging and swinging.
"I don't want to make more work for you at this late date," Crain said to Loewen, "but you can do whatever you want."
"Ooh - you mean we get to dance on the boat?" Murphy said.
"Down, girl," Loewen said.
Dancing at dockside
Loewen still wasn't sure how the Altair might fit into "Vanishing Line," which, after all, was not only complete but also mainly about Lakeshore State Park. She hadn't decided whether the boat would become an important part of the piece or serve merely as a glamorous dancer-delivery vehicle.
In either case, the dancers would have to find a graceful way to get off the boat and onto the pier. Crain suggested that they grasp the steel cable that serves as the handrail on the boat, stand on the running board on the hull as Altair approaches the pier, and then hop down. Loewen was skeptical and thought the dancers might balk at such a stunt.
"What do you think - can you do it?" she asked Murphy and Sopoci.
"Well, yeah!" Murphy exclaimed, while perched on the running board. She and Sopoci commenced romping about the boat like agile second-graders on a jungle gym.
When she saw the ease with which they moved, Loewen was sold. Altair would be part of the piece.
"I didn't realize how big it is until I got on it," Loewen said. "We could do a whole show on this boat."
Meanwhile, Crain and lighting designer Jan Kellogg discussed options for illuminating the dancers while they were onboard in the early part of "Sight Specific/Vanishing Line."
They had plenty to talk about. Crain, as it turns out, worked as a professional stagehand for decades before becoming a painting contractor and, as of last year, a luxury charter owner/captain. His father, the late Curtis Crain Sr., worked backstage in television in Milwaukee and Los Angeles, and was technical director for Melody Top Theater and the Milwaukee Symphony.
Crain knew of Loewen and Wild Space. He'd seen and loved their piece last fall on the Holton St. Marsupial Bridge over the Milwaukee River, which involved a small boat. He started thinking about possible involvement when he read the Wild Space season announcement in the Journal Sentinel and learned about the upcoming Lake Michigan piece. He and Loewen had never met before he made the call.
"I didn't want to be pushy," Crain said. "I just saw the piece at the bridge and read about this piece, and I thought, 'That's fun.' I just wanted to be able to help somehow."
E-mail Tom Strini at tstrini@journalsentinel.com.
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