GRIMM TALES: Meet the collaborators
By Eva Kahn
Collaboration is a hot topic nowadays. Gone is the era of the lonely individual’s struggle for self-expression. Ballet Austin’s Artistic Director Stephen Mills is currently in the thick of the collaboration process, leading a creative team from across the country to produce a new world-premiere dance work, GRIMM TALES, which debuts March 29–31 in Austin, Texas. Mills, who’s no stranger to collaborating on major productions, explains, “As a choreographer, I’m always looking for new ways to think about what I do, new work to present to an audience, new ways to push the form that I work in forward, for the field but also for myself.”
If two minds are indeed better than one, what happens when six critically-acclaimed artistic minds come together to create one ballet?
Early in 2016, Mills visited the Brothers Grimm exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art. The bold color of visual artist Natalie Frank’s drawings caught his eye and after a closer look, he discovered a distinctive narrative present in her work that he thought would lend itself well to dance. Mills telephoned Frank to propose the idea of a collaboration, and she was thrilled at the opportunity to bring her two-dimensional world to life through dance. The two bonded over a love of epic works of literature and the inspiration they provide and agreed to partner on Mills’ latest creation, Grimm Tales.
Frank, originally from Austin but now living and working in New York, contacted two other New York-based artists whose work she thought would benefit the project. Constance Hoffman, a costume designer well versed in collaboration by the nature of her craft, anticipates creating a new language with her costumes, one that combines the elements of text, visual work, and movement. Stage designer George Tsypin, like Hoffman, has extensive experience working in theater and opera.
Back in Austin, Mills reached out to a long-time friend and collaborator, music composer Graham Reynolds. Reynolds looks forward to creating alongside a visual artist whose work does not exist in time, the way music and movement do.
Before Mills could step into the studio with his dancers, he also recruited dramaturg Edward Carey, an English fairy tale expert living in Austin, to extract themes from the three chosen stories to be portrayed through dance: The Frog King, Snow White, and The Juniper Tree. And so through a series of existing connections, a new all-star creative team took shape.
During a recent visit to Austin, Mills met with three members of the creative team — Frank, Hoffman, and Reynolds — to discuss the collaborative process and how each approaches their individual craft while working in a team environment. Click on the video link below to hear their conversation!
GRIMM TALES | World Premiere | March 29–31 @ the Long Center
Made possible through the generous support of the
Butler New Choreography Endowment
CONCEPT AND CHOREOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN MILLS
INSPIRED BY THE ARTWORK OF NATALIE FRANK
MUSIC: Graham Reynolds
DRAWINGS: Natalie Frank
SCENIC/PROP DESIGN: George Tsypin
COSTUME DESIGN: Constance Hoffman
LIGHTING DESIGN: Tony Tucci
PROJECTION DESIGN: Howard Werner
STORY: Edward Carey
For information and tickets, visit https://balletaustin.org/performances/grimmtales2019
