50 Artists for 50 Years: Lizzie Tripp

Lizzie Tripp trained at Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy, and attended summer intensives at American Ballet Theatre and Houston Ballet.

As a student, Lizzie performed lead roles in many ballets choreographed by Rolando Yanes and danced alongside Milwaukee Ballet’s corps in Michael Pink’s Swan Lake. She joined Milwaukee Ballet II (Second Company) in 2014, dancing in Pink’s Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, Cinderella, and Dracula, and performed in contemporary works by Timothy O’Donnell, Nadia Thompson, Lee-Wei Chao, Ilya Kozadayev, and Petr Zahradnicek. After being promoted to the Company, Lizzie danced as the Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, originated the role of The Enchantress in the world premiere of Michael Pink’s Beauty and the Beast, and performed the title role in Nicole Teague-Howell’s The Firebird. She has also been featured in numerous contemporary works, most notably by Price Suddarth, Enrico Morelli, Aleix Mané, Dani Rowe, and Cass Mortimer Eipper. Most recently, Lizzie was featured in Pink’s ballets as Odette in Swan Lake, Fleur-de-Lys in Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Wendy Darling in Peter Pan.

What energizes you about the future of the arts in Wisconsin?

I think after having time to reflect during Covid, a lot of people have a new outlook on life and what they want out of it. So many people are now choosing to invest their time and money into experiences rather than physical things. Arts organizations all present their own unique experiences by nature, so if we can tap into this new mindset, we have an opportunity to grow and expand our audiences and to reach new members who would have never previously imagined spending a night doing something like seeing a ballet. Milwaukee Ballet performs a wide range of repertoire, so there really is something for everyone. We present everything from new works, where you can watch an artist get lost in the movement, conveying emotion and humanity without the need to speak, all the way to ballet theatre, where the narrative and characters are so fully drawn out that the audience gets to lose their own selves in the music and story. It provides an escape from the real world for a couple of hours. It’s magic

Is there anything else you would like to share as the Arts Board celebrates the past 50 years?

Milwaukee Ballet extends our heartfelt gratitude to the Wisconsin Arts Board for its dedication to lifting up arts organizations in these especially unpredictable times. Thank you for 50 years of faithful service!