Milwaukee Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream

At Sunday afternoon’s performance of Bruce Wells’ Midsummer at the Milwaukee Ballet, a different vision of love lingered.
Long after the wooded shenanigans have sent the youngsters ricocheting around the forest, Titania and Oberon, king and queen of the fairies, face each other on an empty stage. Since the story has begun, they’ve battled over a child, and Titania has fallen in and out of love with a donkey. But they are still king and queen. Wells’ pas de deux charts the couple’s tenuous journey from chilly formality to genuine intimacy. Slowly, the coldness and empty pomp of the relationship gives way to little flourishes of affection. Always regal figures, Tatiana Jouravel and David Hovhannisyan never lose their statuesque bearing. But in the course of the dance they emerge as full-blooded human beings in the midst of a journey. Passion and gravitas united.

Read the full review at Culture Club. Come on, you know you want to.