Review: Night Birds by Ventana Ballet

by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 04, 2023

Ventana Ballet's consistently themed NIGHT BIRDS, virtually perfect, was an emotionally high-toned confection for a sultry summer evening in Austin.

Ventana Ballet presented another in their Night Birds series of ballets at The Cathedral ATX, the former Landmark Missionary Baptist Church on 16th Street, repurposed as an event center and art gallery. If exquisitely choreographed and well-performed dances weren’t enough to entice a general audience, then Ventana’s strategy of presenting the dances accompanied by cello music certainly completed the evening to great satisfaction. The cello artistry was provided by Daniel Kopp and his friends Cory …

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Review: Kaleidoscope by Ventana Ballet and Austin Camerata

by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 16, 2023

KALEIDOSCOPE: Five not so easy pieces. HAIKU: In a studio / music becomes the dancers / the night tastes it all

Dance in Austin is said to exist in a state of underfunded flux. Some say it is dying out, an artifact of twentieth century fine arts having no claim on the twenty-first. Ventana Ballet says no to all that, producing dance in ballet and contemporary technique and blends of the two. Ballet purists take note; widen your horizons a smidge by giving some creative attention to Ventana Ballet. Ventana’s show Kaleidoscope gives us a powerful, …

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