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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2011 > March > 29 > Entry
Review: Ballet Austin’s ‘Studio Theater Project’
Mixing it up can be a good thing.
Ballet Austin makes it work with the “Studio Theater Project,” the mixed repertory program playing through Sunday in the Austin Ventures Studio Theater, the intimate venue inside the company’s downtown headquarters.
Nicolo Fonte’s vigorous, intelligent “Lasting Imprint” brought out both a hard-edged physicality and cool intellectualism in the company’s dancers, something not always seen.
Fonte’s piece — the last of three dances presented and the most stunning — began with the dancers in half light, moving with an almost Butoh-like slowness, then halting to form sharp angled poses. The static hiss of brown noise was the only sound accompaniment. A riveting Paul Michael Bloodgood emerged as the lead in opposition to the corps, his body taut and fluid, his movements more pronounced than others in the pattern of movement and stillness. Then without transition or warning, the frenzy of Steve Reich’s ‘Triple Quartet’ broke the silence, red light flooded the stage and the movement accelerated into continuous rush of dancing. Then it stopped it again. The slowness and silence returning yet this time with a more world-weary tone.
With “Silence Within Silence,” Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills created a jewel of a short dance. Set to Brahms’ stirring, romantic Four Ballades for solo piano — and beautifully yet sharply danced — “Silence” found four couples working through the intricacies and vicissitudes of love. Movement fluctuated — sometimes sensuous and sometimes shot through with athleticism, each duet ending with a striking, inventive pose. “Silence” enters the company’s repertoire as a thoughtful, sensual pas de deux showcase.
Mills’ “Luminaria,” getting its Austin premiere after being made for San Antonio’s festival of the same name, was spirited and simple romp to the gorgeous sounds of Jordi Savall’s interpretations of Spanish New World baroque music.
“Studio Theater Project” continues 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Austin Ventures Studio Theater, Ballet Austin, 501 W. Third St. $45. www.balletaustin.org
Photo by Tony Spielberg.
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