Ballet’s Luz San Miguel ready for curtain call
Renowned dancer will become company’s ballet master
You could say that Luz San Miguel is to the Milwaukee Ballet what Robin Yount was to the Milwaukee Brewers: A star, a fan favorite, a paragon of longevity, a face of the franchise. And after this weekend’s performances of “Dracula,” San Miguel will be like Yount in one more way: retired from performing. She’s ending full circle, performing the same role of Lucy Harkness that launched her Milwaukee Ballet career in October 2005.
“Your brain knows it’s the right time. Your heart is never ready,” San Miguel said.
“I’ve danced pretty much everything that I wanted to dance in my life and, you know, the body” is not getting younger, she said.
“I want my audience and everybody to remember me at the top and think, ‘Oh, she could have done more,’ rather than, ‘Oh, she should have retired.’”
Yount was 38 when he hung up his spikes. San Miguel politely declined to share her age. But she’s still impressing
people.
Earlier this year, when fellow Milwaukee Ballet dancer Annia Hidalgo’s mother visited from Cuba, the first rehearsal she saw featured San Miguel. The excited mother raved about San Miguel’s performance, leading Hidalgo to playfully complain to her colleague: “My mom is telling me that you dance with your heart, blah blah blah.”
Happily for local balletomanes, San Miguel is transitioning to a full-
time role as a ballet master for artistic director Michael Pink, an artistic coach who teaches company classes and works with dancers. She’ll continue to be a force in a city that she once needed a map to find.
Madrid to Milwaukee
Born in Madrid, Spain, San Miguel began dancing at 8, studying ballet there through age 17, when she left on scholarship for a Belgian school. She began her professional career in Germany, dancing first in Leipzig and then in Dresden.
Hearing about “this amazing ‘Dracula’ from Michael Pink” at the Northern Ballet, she auditioned for that company in Leeds, England, and won a job. But when she was told Pink had left and a new director was coming in, she turned Northern down and came to the United States instead.
After dancing in Tulsa, Charleston and Columbus, San Miguel learned that Pink was now in Milwaukee. “So I had to look at the map — there’s no Google Maps at that time. Where is Milwaukee? I’m going there.”
She felt at home here “pretty much right away,” liking both the company artistically and the friendliness of local people. “I will never get used to the winters, coming from Spain,” she said, adding that friends tease her about the enormous down coat she wears.
“It became obvious very early on that Luz had a magical quality about her,” Pink said.
“She’s an actress, she makes you believe,” he said.
Known for creating full-length story ballets, Pink looks for dancers who can create characters and express emotions as well as dance beautifully. That made San Miguel a perfect fit in his company.
“For me, it was like magical,” she said. “I always felt like I had to restrain myself with other directors.”
Consider, for example, her expressive performance in Milwaukee Bal-
let’s “Coppélia” (2011) as a young woman whose beau has become smitten with a mechanical doll. In my review I wrote, “If eyes were fists, her glares would have pummeled Franz beyond recognition.”
Character comes before technique, San Miguel said. For example, if she thought only technically about some steps she had to take in the role of Lucy in “Dracula,” it might be awkward.
“But if you think from the acting point of view why is she doing this, and maybe twisting this way makes sense because she’s looking at Arthur, if you follow the story, the steps make sense.”
“I’m just going to soak it in, enjoy every single moment on stage. … Whatever happens, happens. Let myself feel every single moment.” Luz San Miguel, retiring dancer for Milwaukee Ballet
Swans, princesses, Juliet
During her Milwaukee years, San Miguel has danced the big roles that even casual fans know: Clara and Marie in “The Nutcracker,” both Odile (Black Swan) and Odette (White Swan) in “Swan Lake,” the title roles in “Cinderella” and “Giselle.”
Often, she has been paired with Davit Hovhannisyan, whose support she values.
“I think we’ve seen them become as one on stage,” Pink said. “Obviously that started with ‘Romeo and Juliet.’”
Without hesitation, San Miguel said that Juliet is her favorite role.
When she was a little girl in Spain, her teacher Carmina Ocaña showed her many ballet videos. “When I saw ‘Romeo and Juliet’ from Kenneth MacMillan, I just fell in love,” she said. San Miguel told her teacher, “I want to do Juliet. She just laughed.”
She’s performed it twice in Milwaukee, loving how the character grows from a little girl to a woman. “For me, it’s the best role for a female person,” she said.
Feeling every moment
San Miguel has found a home in Milwaukee, but not without bruises. Just ask her medical file.
Once, long ago, a doctor looking at her X-ray told San Miguel she had the knee of a 60-year-old woman.
“I was 20 at that time. Thank you,” she said.
Among other injuries, she’s torn up her shoulder and subluxed her kneecap.
“I always say I’m like an old car I have to get going. The moment I stop, I don’t think I can start it again,” San Miguel said, laughing.
More seriously, she said that injury is “the most terrible thing” a dancer experiences. “I always say that dancers are the … only creatures that apologize for being hurt.”
Recovering from injury is much harder mentally than physically, she said: “There’s uncertainty. Am I going to heal from this? Am I going to dance the same way?”
Even healthy dancers live with insecurity, she said. “You’re constantly in front of the mirror listening to corrections.”
Stepping into new role
Now, as a company ballet master, San Miguel will be correcting others. But her fundamental advice to younger dancers is not complicated. “Keep working. Work really hard. My teacher used to say talent without work is useless.”
Speaking of her childhood teacher, Carmina Ocaña is traveling from Spain to see San Miguel’s final performance Oct. 27. It will be the first time Ocaña has seen San Miguel perform in Milwaukee.
“She’s been more than a teacher. She was my mentor. She was my support. She was like my second mother.”
Pink said he was “very sad that the day has come when she is hanging up her shoes. But so delighted that she is going to be here as my ballet master.”
When San Miguel steps on that Marcus Center stage for the last time, “I’m just going to soak it in, enjoy every single moment on stage. … Whatever happens, happens. Let myself feel every single moment.”