Photos by Rae Zimmerli
PROGRAM
Here and/or There
Choreography: Dan Schuchart and Debra Loewen
Dancers: Katelyn Altmann, Dan Schuchart
Music: Seth Warren Crow, remix by Schuchart
Text: Improvised and based on William Forsythe's Improvisational Technologies
Note: This duet reimagines work from Wild Space's Balancing Forces (2007)
The Other Side
Choreography: Tisiphani Mayfield, in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Dijon Kirkland, Jessica Lueck, Nicole Spence, Shannon Stanczak
Sound Score: Paul Westfahl
Set Design: Tisiphani Mayfield and Dan Schuchart
Note: This dance carries forward questions of transition, the spirit plane, and what lies beyond. Mayfield reimagines site-specific dances from “Everyone is Welcome” performed at Forest Home Cemetery & Arboretum for the proscenium. The Other Side is a journey into the afterlife. What happens when we leave this plane? How do we react on the other side? Will we know one another, or recognize loved ones? It’s a journey into the unknown. The joy and the confusion.
whim & desire
Choreography & Performance: Dan Schuchart
Original Music Composition: Paul Westfahl
Text: Dan Schuchart
Note: “You find yourself in your desire, so do not say that desire is vain.” – Carl Jung
today was once tomorrow
Choreography: Katelyn Altmann, in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Ashley Ray Garcia, Cuauhtli Ramirez Castro, Ida Lucchesi, Nicole Spence, Jasmine Uras
Original Music Composition: Paul Westfahl
Costumes: Katelyn Altmann
Note: This dance weaves iterative loops of reminiscence into a rich tapestry of embodied memory and reinvention. What does it mean to be part of a group but still radically yourself? To live so much in the moment that it doesn’t matter what the outcome is but instead interested in what the group experiences in real time. To relive what once was but experience the present, together.
Set
Choreography: Dan Schuchart, in collaboration with the dancers
Performers: Katelyn Altmann, Ashley Ray Garcia, Gina Laurenzi
Note: Set was devised using simple games and playful strategies to instigate the choreography and small improvisational matches within. Performed in silence, the musicality of the actions is allowed to pace the dance as a visual melody.
Here Again
Improviational Score: Dan Schuchart, in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Company
Music: Zammuto
Interviews with the Choreographers about Process
Katelyn Altmann
Tisiphani Mayfield
A quick “Set”
Meet the Choreographers
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Katelyn Altmann (she/her) is a movement-based artist, choreographer, and improvisor currently residing in Milwaukee, WI. She received her BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts. During that time, Altmann performed in works of Joe Goode, Simone Ferro, Maria Gillespie, Esmé Boyce, Daniel Burkholder, Dawn Springer, Melanie George, Esther Baker-Tarpaga and worked with artists such as Ishmael Huston-Jones, Kathleen Hermesdorf, and Irene Dowd among others. She is a current performance and collaborative artist with Wild Space Dance Company, Hyperlocal MKE, Danceworks, and Li Chiao Ping Dance. Katelyn has presented both her solo and collaborative work throughout Milwaukee, Chicago, Minnesota, Seattle, and New York. She has performed at the Seattle Festival for Dance Improvisation, Dance Masters of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Dance Council, BDF/Gibney Connect NYC, GALLIM S.I., CNADM, MKE Fringe, Danceworks DanceLAB Get it Out There, Moving Queries, and her work was selected to be presented at the American College Dance Association’s North Central Conference. During her time at UW-Milwaukee, Altmann received two Undergraduate Research Fellowships immersed in movement research. Katelyn’s work lives in embodied study, tested and realized through creation processes, improvisational strategies and performance. This takes shape through porous embodiment, visceral play, connection, and attunement.
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Tisiphani Mayfield is a choreographer, dance educator, a seasoned performer, a journalist, writer, mentor coach and mother. Born and raised in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Ms. Mayfield holds a B.S. in journalism and an A.A. from Florida A&M University as well as a B.A. in Dance from UW-Milwaukee. Mayfield’s latest works include the world premiere of “Hoops” a stage play adapted from Nicole Acosta’s internationally acclaimed HOOPS Project comes to the stage. In 2022, Mayfield choreographed as a guest artist for Milwaukee Wild Space “InSites”. Mayfield has graced the stage through many companies such as Mahogany Dance Theater, Milwaukee Bucks Energee! Dance Team, Wild Space Dance Company, Hyperlocal, and Ko-Thi Dance Company. Mayfield is also passionate about teaching dance throughout Milwaukee, especially in the public school system. For more than a decade Mayfield worked in Broadcast Journalism. Mayfield believes that dance and journalism go hand in hand. In both there is passion, fire and responsibility. Through her journalistic and choreographic works Ms. Mayfield shares stories of her life and community that are commonly ignored in the mainstream.
“Art without fear”, is to move with power. My dance, like myself is black, a melting pot of beauty. Strong and focused in the African Diaspora, elegantly flowing through the Caribbean, as diverse as jazz, as rhythmical as tap, with a touch of hard-hitting hip hop all fused authentically into contemporary. To dance is to live life to the fullest. Through my choreography I reveal my truths to the world.
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Dan Schuchart (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Since 2002, Wild Space Dance Company has been his creative home as a company member, choreographer, and now Co-Artistic Director. Wild Space is known for site-specific dance and artistic collaboration. Schuchart’s choreography has been presented from coast to coast and extensively throughout the Midwest, being heralded as, “razzle dazzle of a different sort—intelligence, honesty, psychological insight, and often breathtaking beauty” (Milwaukee Magazine). His interests in dance include collaborative creative process, dance-theatre, improvisation, and contact improvisation with standout performances in work by Susan Marshall and collaborations with the “all-star, all-female band” (Time Out New York) Victoire. Schuchart is a Wisconsin Dance Council board member, advocating for dance performance and education in Wisconsin. In 2013, he earned his MFA in Experimental Choreography from the University of California, Riverside, where he was honored to be a recipient of the 2012-13 Dissertation Year Program Fellowship. Schuchart has BFA degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts in both Dance and Painting/Drawing, and continues to work professionally in both fields. In addition, he earned a Graduate Laban Certificate in Movement Analysis from Columbia College Chicago in 2015, and recently became a Certified Fascial Fitness Trainer. Schuchart is currently Teaching Faculty at the UW-Milwaukee Department of Dance. He has also taught dance and movement studies at Lawrence University, Beloit College, UC Riverside and has been a guest teacher at the Milwaukee Ballet, American College Dance Association Conferences, and in public school outreach programs. Outside of dance, Schuchart has worked as a scenic painter, including for the movie Public Enemies, and scenic charge for the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Florentine Opera, and Skylight Music Theatre.