Results tagged “stephenmills”

This weekend holds an irresistible opportunity for Shakespeare fans, ballet aficionados and romance-seekers who aren’t bothered by a little morbidity - Ballet Austin will stage Hamlet at the Long Center this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

To those who shun holiday traditions and know no other form of dancing than grinding on your friends at Creekside Lounge, we invite you to consider an intriguingly classy alternative. You may not realize it, but Austin has a hard-working, ambitious and innovative ballet company in its midst, and they have bestowed upon us one of the greatest gifts of all—a fresh, energetic rendering of a classic Christmas show.

Ballet Austin’s Artistic Director, Stephen Mills, and locally based (internationally loved) composer Graham Reynolds are two of the three collaborative masterminds behind Ballet Austin’s presentation of Cult of Color: Call to Color. Along with visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock—who created the sets and designed the costumes, and upon whose painted characters the show is based—Mills and Reynolds have put together an astounding presentation. We spoke with Mills and Graham about creating the show.

There are not enough good words to say about Cult of Color: Call to Color. Attempts to capture the performance will only wind up sounding like some over-hyped ad in the Sunday Times Arts section. But Cult really is: Astonishing! Amazing! Fifty Thumbs Up! Visually Stunning! Musically Breathtaking! and The Dance of a Lifetime! In short, it very much deserves a Run-Don’t-Walk-to-See-It recommendation, this urgency compounded by the fact that the show is only slated for a very short run.

The exhibit traces a two-and-a-half-year collaboration among three Texas-based artists: Trenton Doyle Hancock of Houston and Austinites Graham Reynolds and Stephen Mills. Cult of Color: Call to Color is a chapter in Hancock’s ongoing artistic mythology, which incorporates stories about imaginative creatures like the Mounds and the Vegans. On display will be Hancock’s colorful paintings, notes, and sketches that inspired the design and concept of the ballet, as well as artwork that inspired the backdrop curtains, stage props, and costumes.