Review: Rituals of Light by Red Nightfall Dance Theatre
by David Glen Robinson

Dorothy O’Shea Overbey has taken the advantages of the new East Side Arts Complex and with her consistently brilliant choreography pushed the envelope of Austin dance. Her single-minded ambition to create ballet leaves her colleagues and the community in awe. Her current effort, Rituals of Light, is yet another shining step toward her goals and a treasured gift to her capacity audiences.

 

Overbey thinks of Rituals of Light as the first installment of a multicomponent ballet, a performance book of several chapters or perhaps a song cycle in movement danced over a span of years. Overbey creates a world, or culture, or universe, entitled the Crone, a matriarchal society of magical practitioners. Call them witches if you please, but their sworn goal and purpose in life is to create and maintain sacred harmony with nature and enhance it, taking away nothing.

 

 

In her title, Overbey alludes to an aspect of modern philosophy some call New Age, others merely social philosophy. It might also be called the Three Ages of Woman, the last and oldest being the Crone. The crone, referenced also in the I-ching, bears infirmities and the accumulated sorrows of life but also great wisdom born of experience. In modern parlance, she has been nicked but has only come back stronger. Thank you, Nietzsche. Overbey spins the crone into the realm of magic by giving her a society ruled in peace and harmony by crones thoroughly aligned with the forces of nature, never poisoning it through greed, always adapting to it, always thankful for the blessings received from it.

 

Overbey draws on world myth and legend to create elemental archetypes personified by goddesses--crones of the moon, sun, fire, wind, and others we may see in the future. To visualize the beings, Overbey commissioned fashion designers to paint concepts of stage costumes the goddesses might wear. The painted imagery and one mannequined realization adorned the lobby before the theater. In this way, Overbey brought visual art and fashion centrally into the performance.

 

Music integrated thoroughly with the forms of Rituals of Light. Red Nightfall collaborated with pianist Scott Donald to interpret works composed by Navajo/Diné composer Connor Chee, Debussy, Samuel Barber, and Franz Liszt. The musical contribution to the show, their selections, and Donald’s performances were a major fraction of the audience’s overall appreciation of the show.

 

The ballet itself was organized around the music, essentially four dances with different costumes and choreographies. Movement remained true to the forms of classical ballet, expressed by the perfected technique of Overbey’s coterie of dancers. All performed excellently, Red Nightfall’s essential corps being the acknowledged leaders. They are Kanami Nakabayashi-Timpe, Tikiri Shapiro, Rachel Cox Culver, Elaine Fields, and Josh Martinez. Apologies to the additional dance corps unnamed—all were worthy and highly appreciated.

 

Overbey added film to the mix with a well-produced ten-minute film, “Elegy.” It featured two superior male dancers, Navaji David Nava and Ty Graynor, dancing as two archetypal figures in the life of the third, central one, Dorothy O’Shea Overbey. These three are masters of the difficult fine art of ballet, and their performances are to be attended and enjoyed as often as possible. Kudos to all.

 

Overbey has excelled in integrating diverse forms in this inaugural segment of the Crone, which may become a much larger work. Technical Director Stephen Pruitt brought it all together in his usual adroit fashion. In its mastery of this inherent complexity, Red Nightfall Dance Theatre begins to realize the potential of diverse 21st century performing art, which is not one thing but many. The company, of many talents, well upholds its vision statement: “The creation of beauty is not the privilege of the pedigreed, but a birthright to us all.”

 

Follow Red Nightfall Dance Theatre on social media.

 

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Rituals of Light
by Dorothy O'Shea Overby
Red Nightfall Dance Theatre

July 11 and 12, 2025

East Side Performing Arts, 979 Springdale, Austin 78702