Ballet Austin debuts at the new Long Center with 'Don Quixote'

All classical ballets rely on spectacle, but "Don Quixote" redefines balletic spectacle — in many productions, the cast includes a live donkey. The scale makes it an appropriate choice for Ballet Austin's Long Center debut this weekend.

"I wanted something big and splashy with gorgeous sets and costumes — a real celebratory event," says Stephen Mills, Ballet Austin's artistic director. Mills staged Austin's production, a hybrid of choreography passed down from the original 19th-century Russian "Don Quixote" ballet and its best-known American version, staged for American Ballet Theatre by Mikhail Baryshnikov.

For dancers, spectacle translates into virtuosic technique. "Don Quixote" closes with one of the best-known pas de deux in dance history, the grand pas de deux for lead characters Kitri and Basilio. (In Ballet Austin's production, Michelle Thompson and Ashley Lynn share the role of Kitri; Frank Shott and Jim Stein alternate as Basilio.) "Don Quixote's" solo variations and pas de deux are vital to many ballet students' training. Variation classes in summer preprofessional ballet programs overflow with adolescent dancers figuring out how to execute the precise footwork of Kitri's third-act variation while hanging on to an ornate Spanish fan.

"When you learn the variations in summer programs, you don't know how they fit into the story," Lynn says. "You're just smiling, but there's a lot of emotion to develop when you're doing the variation within the character."

Creating Kitri and Basilio through technically demanding variations does not necessarily require adding to technique. The format of classical pas de deux — a slow adagio for the man and woman, then solos by first the man, then the woman and finally, a showy coda — works well with the relationship building between Kitri and Basilio throughout the ballet.

Shott describes the feisty lovers as engaged in a "constant one-upmanship" of each other. Kitri and Basilio use turns and jumps to compete and flirt. But "Don Quixote's" lead dancers can never entirely disappear into their characters. Showing off for the audience is a prime concern in classical ballet.

Mills compares variations in "Don Quixote" to songs in Mozart's opera, pointing out that neither do much to advance the plot.  "Once Kitri and Basilio get to the grand pas de deux, the audience knows they're in love," Mills says. "There's no reason for them to dance; the audience knows they're going to get married. It's all about technical prowess at that point."

Even though no dancer can forget about the long series of turns waiting at the end of the grand pas, Lynn says that the progression of the character throughout the ballet helps her get through the final blast of technique.

By the time the couples take the stage for the pas de deux, they have survived several prior variations, two and a half acts of dancing and mime and complex, often one-handed partnering sequences.

"The third act is demanding, but by the time you're there, Kitri has an inner calm to her," Lynn says. "I just have to remember to keep breathing."

When Jim Stein performs as Basilio, the audience will include Stein's Austin-based fans and his family. His four brothers, parents, and grandmothers will have traveled from Illinois and Oregon to see his last ballet performance.

Stein and three other longtime Ballet Austin stalwarts — Gina Patterson, Eric Midgley and Tony Casati — will retire after 'Don Quixote.'  All four say that ending the daily grind of a ballet company will allow them more personal and artistic freedom. Stein and Casati plan to focus more on family, and Stein will become a full-time Pilates teacher. Patterson will continue to choreograph, including making new work with her husband, Midgley.

Midgley already has two additional careers, working as a digital designer and as a sleep and wellness consultant.

New opportunities don't stifle the dancers' sense that they will miss Ballet Austin.

'Ballet Austin attracts not just people that are good at their jobs, but deep thinkers who are considerate, sensitive, and play well with others,' Casati says.

Moving on doesn't mean leaving dance. Like most dancers, the four retirees began dancing young and say they will continue.

'I will always be involved with dance, my favorite art,' Midgley says. 'I will still be performing, creating, teaching, coaching and being raw material for my wife's choreographic genius.'

The four dancers have provided much material for artistic director Stephen Mills.

'When I made my first ballet, I made it on Gina,' Mills says. 'Making dance for dancers is a really intimate act. I'm going to miss my friends.' — Clare Croft