 "Photo: Tina Hogue")
Ballet Austin's most recent production is everything you'd expect and more. "Cult of Color: Call to Color" is not an ordinary production but rather a completely original collaboration between a contemporary visual artist, a composer and a choreographer.
From gothic to mystical, even whimsical, the ballet is engaging, spiritual and poetic. The modern musical interludes and unforgettable characters make Ballet Austin's newest venture a sublime experience. To top all that, Austin Ventures Studio Theater is a very intimate space. There's no escaping the collective ambience shared by dancers and audience members alike in a venue that can only fit 275 people.
The collaboration consisted of original music by Austin composer Graham Reynolds, choreography by Ballet Austin's Artistic Director Stephen Mills and a story drawn from Houston-based contemporary visual artist Trenton Hancock's mythology.
"It's about the clashing of perspectives," Hancock said. "Groups of people are trying to preach their version of goodness, and another has their version of what they think is good. They think they're doing the right thing, but in the end we don't know what's right."
The theme revolves around dehumanized vegans living in a world of black and white. A biblical-inspired character called Sesom (Moses spelled backward) befriends the spirit Painter, who leads him to a Mound (another character in Hancock's mythology, representing a human-plant hybrid) from which he eats meat and gets to see color.
"Color vibrates, color is energy," said Stephen Mills. "Lack of color is without life." (It seems color is in vogue, given that major museums like The Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., have exhibitions based on color, like "Color Chart" and "Color as Field" respectively.)
Sesom then returns underground and shows color to a few vegans. They form a cult and build a machine that shoots out colored eggs, ad hoc for spring. The vegans are silly and light-hearted, dancing away to the beats of Reynold's catchy music reminiscent of Bjork's Volta. In the second act, Betto, a traitor within their cult, emerges as a black character and groups other black vegans to fight against the cult of color.
Violence in ballet is so graceful and aesthetic. Dancers parodied ninja kicks and comic book action heroes while incorporating classic steps. An electric guitar solo has the power to pierce you heart and chill your bones in an atmosphere like this. The characters and choreography are silly, out of the ordinary and so much fun.
"It's tremendously good fun," said Ballet Austin's Executive Director Cookie Ruiz. "The costumes are extraordinary, unlike anything one would imagine, but all on classically trained dancers."
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