Joffrey’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Turns Matchless Dance into Phenomenal Theater

Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman seems hardwired never to limit his imagination.  His drive to test the elasticity of dance’s boundaries may have been awakened in his mid-teens while dancing professionally with the Royal Swedish Ballet.  By his early twenties, he was creating his own dances and freelancing as a professional choreographer.  Although the types of dances he designs and the themes that inspire them may vary considerably, certain stylistic characteristics do reoccur.  Organic, smooth and beautifully conceived, his transitions will likely be some of the most memorable and beautiful you’ll ever see.  Pacing is often fast.   And through his dances, you’ll likely feel as if you’ve entered a different, often fantastical, world.  With a declared aversion to realism, creating alternative dimensions of life stands as a perennial objective for the choreographer.  The return engagement of his Midsummer Night’s Dream with Joffrey Ballet Chicago this week at the Lyric luxuriates in all three of these attributes.   

Although the dance’s title alludes to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by dropping the first letter, Ekman’s Midsummer Night’s Dream distances itself from its namesake.  That they both venture into the mystery of other realms may be their most striking similarity. Structurally, too, Ekman’s effort is as much a theatrical performance told in two parts as it is a dance. 

An epic and spectacular endeavor, celebration fuels this commemoration of the summer solstice; a central holiday in Scandinavian cultures.  Pagan traditions of Nordic countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark designated the longest day on the calendar, June 21^st, as a time to pray for abundant harvests.  Maypoles were raised and people wore garlands of flowers in their hair to connect with nature and in deference to its beauty and bounty.    Hundreds of years later, those traditions are still observed today and the first half of Midsummer’s Night Dream revels magnificently in its spirit. 

Awash in dancers wearing modest earth toned costumes, the stage pulses with an irrepressible energy that radiates expectation and joy.  It’s not only the vitality of the dance that generates these reactions, it’s also the music that’s charging the air with its own kinetic electricity.  Since 2012, composer Mikael Karlsson has frequently collaborated with Ekman and worked with the choreographer on some of his most acclaimed dances.  The synergy between the music and dance the two create together stands unrivaled for the excitement it generates and its natural seamlessness.  Rather than using pre-existing music as inspiration for dance, choreographer and composer work together to tailor the music to fit a specific creative intent.   In Midsummer Night’s Dream, the results are astonishing.

Testifying to an adventurous outlook and approach to musical composition, Karlsson’s influences extend well beyond the classical world to absorb folk traditions and very contemporary components.  In this project, he and the choreographer also recruited another “accomplice”, a singer, to give the effort additional texture and another layer of artistic interest.  Known for her contributions to indie rock, art pop and drone music, it’s impossible to consider Midsummer Night’s Dream possible without Anna von Hausswolff’s timeless and exquisite voice.   Musicians may appear briefly on stage, but Hausswolff’s physical presence is woven throughout the progression of the production and acts as a crucial connector between the audience and the dance’s narrative. 

The second part of the program saw a dramatic shift.  One that explores dreams from a very different perspective.  It’s here Ekman transports the audience to a plain of the imagination that brings the murky impossibility of dreams to life. Through a series of set pieces, dancers inhabit a world where trees grow downward from the sky, beds float suspended in thin air and giant fish hang like dirigibles in the clouds.  The outlandishness of these visual cues is matched by the incredible inventiveness happening on the stage’s floor. 

Spanning the primal to the ethereal, Karlsson’s music provides the ideal template for Ekman to show how well ballet adapts to creative innovation.  Endowing dancer’s with personality turns them into dramatic performers whose feelings are exposed through their movements.  Often, it’s a playful boldness that comes through in the dancers.  At other times, it’s raw sensuousness that rises from their dance.  In one sequence, three pairs of couples move in slow motion, each mirroring the movements of the other two.  Rather than dancing in perfect synchronization, they mimic one another at staggered intervals, amplifying the impact and beauty of the piece. Given time to fully exploit the dramatic tension it’s generating, the episode is a story within a story that rejoices in the extreme physical virtuosity of premier dancers.  Sometimes describing himself as a man who doesn’t believe in rules, this segment, among many others in the work, reveals the wonders Ekman can create when he dispenses with them.  Wisps of hip hop could be spotted in his dance as well as the silliness of vaudeville.  Headless dancers toast one another with wine glasses one moment and then spar with each other in mock battle the next. Like so much of the spectacle that fills the dance, it’s precisely the kind of imagery you’d find in a dream. In this excursion through our subconscious visions, Ekman doesn’t dwell on darkness.  Instead, he highlights the beauty and exhilaration found in their mystery; creating a tour de force in the process.

Midsummer Night’s Dream

Through May 5^th, 2024

Joffrey Ballet Chicago

Venue:  Civic Opera House

20 N. Wacker Drive

Chicago, IL  60606

https://joffrey.org/performances-and-tickets/23-24-season/midsummer-night-s-dream/