Dance Milissa Payne Project

Published on August 1st, 2013 | by Setsu Uzume

1

Taking Classical Ballet to New Heights

Milissa Payne ProjectMilissa Payne Bradley takes classical ballet to new heights in her most ambitious work, Up in the Air, showing at this summer’s sixth annual Summer Performance Festival in San Francisco. The piece transforms grounded, classical movement into flight, inviting the audience on a majestic and exhilarating journey. Nine dancers balance the technique of classical ballet while weaving in contemporary dance vocabulary.

“A critic wrote that I ‘speak the language of classical ballet with fluency and a modern accent,'” Bradley said.

The critic went on to write that much of Bradley’s vocabulary is traditional, but her sentence construction and punctuation is delightfully quirky and offbeat; essentially, she is E.E. Cummings of ballet.

Milissa Payne Project“Since I founded the Milissa Payne Project in 2010, a narrative has driven most of my work,” Bradley said. “However, for this project, I am trying to express the feeling of flight in all of its related meanings: lightness, freedom, uncertainty, abandonment, the strength needed to escape gravity, and so on.”

In bringing us Up in the Air, Bradley relinquished her cherished role as storyteller and invites the audience to take away their own interpretations.

Bradley’s greatest lesson from her experience as a dancer is to know and honor her roots. She has studied other styles of dance, from jazz to modern, swing to tango; but her passion and love remain with ballet, its history, evolution, and foundational role in Western dance.

Milissa Payne Project“Many choreographers whose work is grounded in classical technique deliberately downplay or sabotage certain elements of technique as a way of rebelling against the constraints of tradition,” Bradley said.

However, rebellion only goes so far; it has almost become expected of contemporary choreographers. Rather than rebel, Bradley prefers to perfect and explore the existing form.

“I do not find it constraining but, rather, liberating,” Bradley said. “It gives me a rich palette and vocabulary, into which I weave elements of contemporary dance forms and everyday gestures.”

Learn more about the Milissa Payne Project at milissapayne.com. See Up in the Air at the Summer Performance Festival at the ODC Theater in San Francisco on August 17 and 18. To purchase tickets online, visit odcdance.org, or call the box office at 415-863-9834. Box office is open Monday through Friday from 12-3pm.


About the Author

Shot from New York like a bat out of hell, Setsu is a writer and collector of stories. She recently graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Chinese Language & Literature. Her coursework included a stint at a monastery in rural China, where she studied swordplay and Daoist philosophy. Setsu is a co-founder of writing groups in Seattle and San Francisco, where new writers can take their first steps toward publication. She has dabbled in many arts, but only martial arts and writing seem to have stuck. Visit her blog at KatanaPen.wordpress.com

Related Posts



One Response to Taking Classical Ballet to New Heights

  1. Pingback: [Art Animal] Taking Classical Ballet to New Heights | Milissa Payne

Back to Top ↑