UWM Dance

Spot the difference challenge! 🤣 Last week’s spirt day: dress like someone in the department! This dress up day was so fun it deserved its own post! 💛🖤

Thursday–Sunday, April 30–May 3, 2026 (7:30–9:30 p.m.)

Springdances 2026: We Also Bloom presents world premiere works that explore what it means to grow, persist, and flourish — even in the face of erasure, displacement, and silence. The dances in this program honor the enduring human impulse to take up space, put down roots, and rise. This evening features new works by guest artist Karlies Kelley, and dance faculty Daniel Burkholder, Tiffany Kadani, Dan Schuchart, and Christal Wagner.

The works spanning this evening move between the personal and the political, the historical and the deeply felt. Choreographers draw on stories of marginalized communities celebrating their right to exist, of neighborhoods razed and rebuilt through resistance, of generational trauma transformed in the body, and of individual journeys shaped by what we choose to carry — and what we leave behind. Across every work, a common pulse beats: the insistence on blooming, even in unlikely soil.

Tickets:
https://uwm.edu/arts/event/springdances/

Last week we had the privilege of having back at UWM to teach class! Gina, you are so loved in this department and what a fun class it was having the first years and upperclassmen all together! 💛🖤

Miranda Nichols Braseth presents...

Persistence High

For those near Pittsburgh, mark your calendars!

March 20 & 21, 7:30pm
Attack Theatre
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Ticket link is in our bio!

*This project is guided by UW-Milwaukee's Department of Dance Faculty in partial fulfillment of work towards an MFA in Dance.

Tisiphani Mayfield presents...

Gate 56
A modern day griot telling Black Folk stories through a contemporary dance lens.

If you are in the MKE area, you're going to want to come see this performance!

February 28th, 2026
Wisconsin Black Historical Society
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Tickets at the door, 6pm

*This project is created in conjunction with UW-Milwaukee's Department of Dance Faculty in partial fulfillment of work towards an MFA in Dance.

Surprise, one last Winterdances post! 🥳 We set up a little confessional booth backstage and this is what happened…😆

Some behind the scenes and silly videos from Winterdances: Resilience! A concert that was filled with so much love and joy. Thank you to everyone who came to support the show!💜 It was definitely one for the record books!🌟

Introducing Winterdances: Resilience choreographer, Dawn Springer!

Harps That Once

The creative process for this piece explored youthful pretenses of indestructibility. We considered the maturation process of discovering the structures we exist in (perhaps familial or societal) are often not fixed but constantly shifting.

During the choreographic research, I looked for symbols that held my own sense of infallibility or a time that encapsulates that feeling. That included stories from the paternal side of my family history, Irish poetry, Catholic imagery and culture, and 80s-90s pop music.

The title references the poem The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Halls by Thomas Moore.

As a dancer, Springer had a rich performance career for 10 years in New York City and has worked with award-winning choreographers Helen Simoneau, Camille A. Brown, Sara Hook, Sarah Skaggs, Jeff Slayton, Dahlia Nayar, and Aynsley Vandenbroucke, among others. She was a performing member of Brian Roger’s Theater Et al at The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City, Queens. Her performance career has taken her to renowned venues and international festivals, including Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Venice Biennale Danza, The American Dance Festival, The New York Historical Society, and New York Live Arts. She has also performed at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Dance Place (Washington, DC), the United States Botanic Garden, and The Banff Centre.

She trained on scholarship at the North Carolina School of the Arts, graduating high school with a concentration in ballet and completing her BFA in Contemporary Dance. She earned her MFA in the inaugural class of the Hollins University/American Dance Festival Program, where her thesis performance was called “a standout”. Springer studied choreography intensively with Donna Faye Burchfield, and dance history and theory with Thomas DeFrantz.

Springer is on faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts and with Milwaukee Ballet’s second company, MBII, and in the Pre-Professional Program with the Milwaukee Ballet School.

Opening night is TOMORROW!

UWM dance is in Milwaukee Magazine!

‘Care’ Is In Vogue: Dance Performance Is a Powerful Ode to Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ Community ‘Care: Illuminating Milwaukee’s Q***r and Trans Community,’ is set to be featured in UWM’s Winterdances.

Introducing Winterdances: Resilience choreographer Ishmael Konney!

Ghana Must Go

Inspired by the 1983 expulsion of Ghanaians from Nigeria, Ghana Must Go uses this historical event as a lens to examine the broader human story of movement: forced and unforced migration, relocation, and the search for belonging. Through the metaphor of the body as a bag, the piece explores what we carry with us: memory, identity, and the invisible weight of home.

It also reflects on the human connections that emerge through migration, the encounters, relationships, and shared experiences that form as people move from place to place. In Ghana Must Go, movement becomes both burden and bridge, revealing how displacement can also create new forms of community and resilience.

Ishmael is an interdisciplinary Ghanaian artist hailing from La, a prominent town in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. His artistic journey began with an undergraduate degree in Theatre Arts from the University of Education, Winneba. He was recruited to the United States, where he pursued his academic goals further, earning an M.A. in International Studies from Ohio University, as well as an MFA in Dance with an Interdisciplinary Specialization in Fine Arts from The Ohio State University. Ishmael holds the position of Assistant Professor of Dance at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He contributes his expertise as a Dance Faculty member for the prestigious Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts. Ishmael served as a valued board member for OhioDance, where he actively participated in the Governance committee. Before moving to the United States, Ishmael honed his craft with the National Dance Company of Ghana at the National Theatre of Ghana. His research interests center on the promotion of Ghanaian cultural values, with a keen focus on exploring the intricate relationship and intersectionality between performance and traditional Ghanaian cultural practices. His artistic pursuits delve into the fusion of traditional Ghanaian storytelling with contemporary dance forms, aiming to create immersive communal experiences that celebrate Ghanaian heritage and identity.

Opening night is in 2️⃣ days!