Reviews for Ventana Ballet Performances
Review: ALLUVIUS by Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 27, 2025
Ventana Ballet's ALLUVIUS tears a rip in the envelope of contemporary ballet and floats through to the outer darkness of artistic innovation.
Ventana Ballet escaped its own bubble, tore a rip in the envelope of contemporary ballet, and floated through to the outer darkness of artistic innovation, darker than the lighting design and set of their current show, ALLUVIUS. Co-choreographers AJ Garcia-Rameau and Ty Graynor sought the liberation of dancing to unconventional (popular) music, and they achieved it in this show with 90s and early 2000s music, pieces from Metallica, Korn, TOOL, Disturbed, and others. Not that …
Review: Kaleidoscope (2025) by Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 10, 2025
With their flashing kaleidoscope of dance Ventana Ballet and Austin Camerata have again raised the bar of ballet performance and show production in Austin.
The third annual edition of Ventana Ballet’s Kaleidoscope has just taken place at the Draylen Mason Music Studio in the still-new KMFA radio station near Austin's Lady Bird Lake. The sampler of ballet pieces by different choreographers informed and delighted, as always. Aptly named, the seasons turned round, and the views through the looking glass of dance revealed fresh new performances. The quality of the offerings seemed even higher than those of the previous year …
Review: The Watchmaker's Song by Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 28, 2024
The two vibrant companies collaborating in the now annual holiday performances of THE WATCHMAKER'S SONG continue to offer light and inspiration to the community. Follow them, support them, believe.
Austin is strewn with treasures of all kinds. The arts are especially rich, with crowds of skilled artists who offer their wealth to the citizenry for the paltry price of a ticket. One such atelier of treasure and magic is home to Ventana Ballet and Red Nightfall Dance Theatre, who have co-produced The Watchmaker’s Song, their holiday show, now in its seventh iteration. The show varies in its content and for that reason it remains …
Review: Kaleidoscope (2024) by Ventana Ballet and Austin Camerata
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 26, 2024
In the second edition of KALEIDOSCOPE these talented companies and gifted performers emphasized the intersections that exist between music, dance, and with other artistic media. Let's hope they establish KALEIDOSCOPE as an enduring annual event.
Kaleidoscope is a collaboration between Ventana Ballet and Austin Camerata music, but duality has little to do with it. In Kaleidoscope, each click-twist of the tube tumbled every movement and note into new intersections and visions of dance and modern music, never to be repeated exactly in the world of art. This quality placed a high premium on the eye-witness experience, well worth the ticket. The Draylen Mason Music Studio in the KMFA studios is …
Review: The Watchmaker's Song by Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 11, 2023
The collaborative THE WATCHMAKER'S SONG, now annual, offers even more magic and diversity than its core story of The Nutcracker, in a setting that evokes dark times in Texas and a shift toward the light.
In The Watchmaker’s Song by Ventana Ballet and Red Nightfall Dance Theatre, the sugar plums are sprinkled with extra magic and the flavor is tasted in our imaginations. In hoary ancient times, a curse was leveled against a hero (Aidan DeWitt), who became the robotic and mysterious nutcracker. The Watchmaker, an equally mysterious supernatural being played by Navaji David Nava, makes a magic watch to counteract the evil. As we might expect, the Watchmaker’s superpower …
Review: KOMOREBI by Navaji David Nava and Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 27, 2023
Influenced by many world traditions, Navaji David Nava's KOMOREBI dances were intensely beautiful, stamping us with the expansiveness of the brilliant choreographer's spiritual journey.
Ventana Ballet is one of those new advanced ballet companies in our dance-rich town. Along with PerformaDance and Ballet Austin, it pushes the envelope of dance and the meaning of ballet for the fine arts. They try new forms and ideas, unrestrained by the ballet canon. Rarely do they wear toe shoes onstage. At the same time, they insist that what they create is ballet, nothing less, nothing more. Their own acceptance of that seeming …