Review: Alluvius by Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson

 

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 A.J. 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 liberation amounted to airy arm-waving and floral blossoming lifts. “Freed to the darkness within” might be a better title for the show. And to be synesthetic about it, many of the passages and themed duets and solos seemed like passages from Ozzie Osborne’s lyrics, “Paranoid” being the immortal example. Many in the audience afterward described the show with the words “passion” and “passionate intensity.”

 

 

 

Contemporary ballet embraces the emotionality of the individual unlike the enforced anonymity of the dancer in classical ballet. Here, the emotions and passions of the dancers rippled across their faces like faces exposed in a wind tunnel. Muscular strain came forward in service to the dance and wasn’t ashamed to show itself. The duet between Ty Graynor, the Incomparable, and Rachael Cox Culver showed emotion to greatest effect. The color of that emotion was pain and coming apart and failing to come apart, and the agony of realizing that sometimes our will and agency are defeated by our emotions and connections. The dancers taught this lesson repeatedly in the dance, to the devastation of the audience, in the sense that the dance touched us so deeply that we entered reveries of similar moments and times in our own personal histories—things we don’t often like to revisit.

 

 

Rachael Hanlon, who would make an exquisite artist’s model, instead applies her talents to the perfection of ballet technique, and she demonstrated it in her black-garbed solo, full of balletic extensions and en pointe balances (I wasn’t looking for it, but Hanlon may have been the only performer who wore toe-shoes). Her character shape-shifted from a flying Black Widow to a sort of La Llorona, who observed other characters dispassionately, or with empathetic care, or with vulpine predatory intent.

 

The smaller pieces proceeded in atmospheres of horror, joy, and frustration. A.J. Garcia-Rameau, who was also the lighting designer, led the group in all these complexities. They seemed to build to the final fiery (lighting color theme: orange and red) full-ensemble dance of great complexity, to sharp, loud, punk-inflected grunge rock. The audience responded in kind, much like an arena rock concert.

 

The longtime Ventana Ballet ensemble performed the complex, difficult show with apparent ease. Dancers Elaine Fields and Kanami Nakabayashi especially were flexible, up to all the tasks given to them. They never lost a step. The rest of the cast, who performed excellently, included Lillie Amdahl, Leo Briggs, Kayla Hoover, and Connor Timpe. Dancer Hannah Christian was noted as injured and did not perform.

 

A special credit goes to Navaji David Nava, who was credited as the assistant director, graphic designer, and set designer. The mysterious doors on stage, on wheels and anything but set pieces, were all his brain children. Well and skillfully done.

 

 

Ventana Ballet has moved far beyond the norms of ballet, and the creative explorations are refreshing. Ventana Ballet, along with Performa/Dance and Red Nightfall Dance Theatre, are the leaders of contemporary ballet in Austin and are well deserving of large followings. Follow them on the usual social media.

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Alluvius
by various, Ventana Ballet
Ventana Ballet

Sept 18 - 27, 2025

East Side Performing Arts Center