Preview: Ballet Austin

Dance Magazine, April, 2005 by Sondra Lomax

Artistic director Stephen Mills' world premiere, Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project, touches themes of persecution, racism, and the indomitable human spirit. The contemporary ballet mixes bare feet with raw, athletic moves to portray suffering and survival, morphing into a final section on pointe about hope and salvation. Led by a central female figure, the work evokes shifting emotions through Mills' trademark choreography of seamless, organic movements and complex patterns. Making no literal references to the Holocaust, abstract images-random text, trees, empty buildings--flicker across scrims and the dancers' bodies. A huge column of sand spills onto the floor like an open hourglass in Christopher McCollum's sparse, linear set, framed to music by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Arvo Part. Light culminates a monthlong series of community symposia addressing human rights issues, offered by the Holocaust Museum Houston, the University of Texas-Austin, and the Jewish Community Association, and marks Ballet Austin's biggest premiere to date. April 1-3 at Bass Concert Hall, Austin.

www.balletaustin.org