Video from the studio

Every other year, the Milwaukee Ballet stages the Genesis International Choreography Competition. This is the year, and now’s the time.

Choreographers Gabrielle Lamb, James Gregg and Lauren Edson, this year’s finalists, have been with the company since Jan. 14, creating new dances. Each has four men and for women to work with.

The three dances will premiere at the Pabst Theater Feb. 7-10. A panel of judges will declare a winner, and the winner will return to create a second dance for the company’s 2014 series at the Pabst. Cash is also at stake. The audience gets to vote, too, for a special award.

TCD videographers Val Danculovich and Lacy Landre spent an afternoon at the studio as the dancers and choreographers worked together. Jenna Kashou, narrator for the Pfister Hotel and a staffer at 88.9 Radio Milwaukee, interviewed dancers Valerie Harmon, Tim O’Donnell and Rachel Malehorn about the competition and their work with their assigned choreographers.

Kashou will also take on her DJKash persona in order to DJ the Milwaukee Ballet’s Pints Before Pointe party, pre-show Feb. 7 at the InterContinental Hotel, just across the Milwaukee Center rotunda from the Pabst. (Marcus Hotels operates both the Pfister and the InterCon, so it’s all in the family.) Hosted by the Milwaukee Ballet Young Partners.

Pints Before Pointe details:
6 p.m. Doors Open in the Lobby Salon at the Intercontinental Hotel
6:30 p.m. Hear from the Choreographers
7 p.m. Be seated at The Pabst Theater
7:30 p.m. Curtain Time
NEW THIS YEAR: Hors d’ouevres courtesy of InterContinental Hotel

$35 includes ticket to the concert: RSVP to Leslie Rivers at 414 902-2102 or via e-mail, LRivers@milwaukeeballet.org.

Lead image on the TCD home page: James Gregg, at the Milwaukee Ballet studio. All photos by Lacy Landre for ThirdCoast Digest.