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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > April > 07 > Entry
Review: ‘Cult of Color: Call to Color’
Austin deepened the niche that it’s been carving itself on the broader cultural landscape Saturday night with the opening of “Cult of Color: Call to Color,” the brilliant collaboration between Ballet Austin’s Stephen Mills, artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and composer Graham Reynolds.
We’re a city that can support — indeed, cultivate— bold, new creative ventures. And, as “Cult of Color” proved — the ballet is sponsored by Ballet Austin with an accompanying exhibit hosted by Arthouse — those enterprises are done at a smart scale and with a flair that’s utterly unique.
Everything about “Cult of Color” is audacious, starting with Hancock’s odd mythology on which the two-act 70-minute ballet is based. The celebrated Houston-based artist has been unraveling his offbeat cosmology for years in vivid, sprawling, mixed-media paintings that are critically acclaimed and much collected. (The Blanton is just one of more than 20 museums around the world to acquire a Hancock painting). In Hancock’s world self-righteous colorless creatures known as Vegans struggle in their black-and-white cosmos while trying to battle the Mounds, the producers of color, and by implication, love and fulfillment.
To bring those eccentric creatures to the stage, Mills created a movement vocabulary that was wholly and wonderfully otherworldly. Here was ballet-based modern dance that was sensuous, yes, but also simian and earthbound; funky but also feline. Partnering and group movements were sometimes ritualistic and then sometimes urbane. And all of it delighted and surprised.
The troupe pulled it off with energetic flair and considerable personality — not easy given the elaborate and whimsical white Vegan costumes, insectlike with their bulging heads and protruding limbs. Anthony Casati brought a wonderful blustering innocence to Sesom, the Vegan who strives the hardest to bring color to the Vegan world. As the oppositional Betto Watchow, Jim Stein manifested pure sinewy threat.
The brilliant forest that visually defines Hancock’s imaginary world has been writ large in a stunning collage created by the Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia and that serves as a glorious color-filled 60-foot backdrop.
Reynolds’ compelling score drives the emotional and dramatic trajectory of “Cult of Color.” Like in the choreography, here again is an astute and playful combination of juxtapositions. Luscious cinematic orchestral flourishes shift into raucous klezmerlike refrains. Sci-fi movie sound effects weave in and out of rumbling big band rolls. It’s a roller-coaster ride of musical styles deftly and charmingly combined.
“Cult of Color” couldn’t have taken place without the support of a small but forward-thinking group of patrons, most notably Julie and John Thornton. As the premiere performance in Ballet Austin’s new Austin Ventures Studio Theatre (John Thornton is a general partner of Austin Ventures), the 250-seat venue in the organization’s new Butler Dance Education Center, “Cult of Color” epitomizes the groundbreaking possibilities such a venture — backed by risk-taking philanthropists — can produce.
”Cult of Color” continues 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. April 10, 8 p.m. April 11, 2 and 8 p.m. April 12 and 3 p.m. April 13 at Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, Butler Dance Education Center, 501 W. Third St. $50. www.balletaustin.org.
Anthony Casati (left) as Sesom and Alisyn Paino as Painter. Photo by Tony Speilberg.
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