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Ballet Austin Announces Season of "Classic Innovation"

Updated: Tuesday, February 28 2012, 02:49 AM CST
By Rob Faubion, Austin On Stage www.austinonstage.com

The upcoming season features a restaging of The Taming of the Shrew and Cult of Color: Call to Color, along with the 50th annual The Nutcracker, The Rite of Spring and Giselle.

Ballet Austin has announced the “Classic Innovation" 2012/13 Season, featuring the return of both the critically-acclaimed Cult of Color: Call to Color and The Taming of the Shrew.  The season also includes the iconic ballet classic Giselle, a 100th anniversary celebration of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and the 50th Golden Anniversary staging of Ballet Austin’s production of The Nutcracker.
     
Shakespearean humor opens the season with The Taming of the Shrew, running October 5th through 7th at The Long Center.  Originally commissioned by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., with choreography by Ballet Austin’s Artistic Director Stephen Mills, the commedia dell'Arte styled production was called “warm, fresh, and instantly appealing” by Dance Magazine and “…endlessly ingenious and impressive” with a “rollicking physicality that…[twirls] slapstick into ballet” by The Austin Chronicle.
     
December brings the 50th anniversary of Ballet Austin’s production of The Nutcracker, which has been seen by nearly 2 million Central Texans.  Texas’ longest running production of the holiday classic, audiences can expect a commemoration on a grand scale during the production’s run from December 8 - 23 at The Long Center.
      
Ballet Austin ushers in 2013 with the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking The Rite of Spring, with choreography by Stephen Mills, as a Valentine’s weekend offering running February 15 - 17 at The Long Center.  Stravinsky’s pulsating, rhythmic music will be paired with George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante and the Austin premiere of European choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Requiem for a Rose.
      
The original production Cult of Color: Call to Color (The Art of Trenton Doyle Hancock) will return to the AustinVentures StudioTheater downtown on March 28 - 30 and April 4 - 7.  Mills brings the comic book-style characters of visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, and an original score commissioned score by Graham Reynolds, to life in one of the most unique collaborations in Ballet Austin’s history. 
      
Ballet Austin closes the season closes with Giselle, performed for the first time in more than a decade.  The timeless story of love, betrayal and ultimate forgiveness - and one of the cornerstones of classical ballet history - the production runs Mother’s Day weekend, May 10 - 12 at The Long Center.
    
Season tickets are now on sale at Ballet Austin’s Box Office at 501 W. 3rd Street, by calling (512) 476-2163 and online at www.BalletAustin.org.

(Image courtesy Ballet Austin)
Ballet Austin Announces Season of "Classic Innovation"