Known for his innovative and collaborative choreographic projects, Stephen Mills has created over 60 premieres for Ballet Austin and has works in the repertoires of companies across the United States and around the world.

His inaugural season as artistic director in 2000 attracted national attention with his world-premiere production of Hamlet, hailed by Dance Magazine as “… sleek and sophisticated.” The Washington Post recognized Ballet Austin as “one of the nation’s best kept ballet secrets” in 2004 after Mills’ world premiere of The Taming of the Shrew, commissioned by and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Company’s first Kennedy Center invitation in January of 2002 was to perform Mills’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Ballet Austin presented a variety of Mills’ works at The Joyce Theater (NYC) in 2005 and returned to the Kennedy Center in collaboration with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2008 and for the Ballet Across America Festival in 2013.

In 2005 after two years of extensive research, Mills led a communitywide human rights collaboration that culminated in the world premiere work Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project (Light). In 2006 Light was awarded the Audrey & Raymond Maislin Humanitarian Award by the Anti-Defamation League. The work made its international debut in September 2013, with performances in three cities across Israel and is the subject of the award-winning documentary film, FINDING LIGHT. In October 2016, Mills led the company through a 16-city tour of the People’s Republic of China, concluding in China’s largest city, Shanghai.

READ MORE…

Called “the quintessential modern composer” by the London Independent, Austin, Texas based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds records and performs music for film, theater, dance, television, rock clubs, and concert halls with collaborators across a multitude of disciplines. He recently scored Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (Netflix) with Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, Happy Jail (Netflix), Stop Hitting Yourself (Lincoln Center Theater), Out of Her Mind (BBC), POE / A Tale of Madness (Ballet Austin), and a multi-year commission from Ballroom Marfa, The Marfa Triptych, culminating in his Creative Capital Award winning project Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance, a bilingual cross-border opera created with librettists Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol (Mexico City) and director Shawn Sides (Rude Mechs) and staged in over a dozen cities in North America.

As Artistic Director of the non-profit Golden Hornet, Graham spearheads efforts which draw on both the collaborative spirit of rock bands and the composer-led nature of classical music, with a focus on commissioning new music, fostering young and emerging composers, and presenting adventurous works in non-traditional settings. These endeavors include the The Sound of Science alongside Kronos Quartet’s longtime cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, Insectum with Zeigler and drummer/percussionist Susie Ibarra, and MXTX: A Cross-Border Exchange; a multi-faceted project comprised of a live performance, album, remixes, and open-source audio sample library involving more than 40 artists from Texas and Mexico.

Reynolds leads the jazz-based but far reaching Golden Arm Trio, is a company member with the internationally acclaimed Rude Mechs theater collective, and resident composer with Salvage Vanguard Theater and Forklift Danceworks. His accolades include a Creative Capital Award, an Independent Music Award, two Frederick R. Loewe Music Theatre Awards, ten Austin Critics Table Awards, the John Bustin Award, multiple Austin Chronicle ‘Best Composer’ wins, and a B. Iden Payne Award. MARFA: A Country & Western Big Band Suite (Fall 2019) broke into the top 100 on the NACC radio charts along with a track premiere in Billboard. In 2020, Graham signed with London-based record label Fire Records and released his original score for Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic, The Lodger. His most recent release with Fire, Music for Prophet (Parts 1-4), dropped earlier this year, offering a glimpse into a forthcoming full-length solo album slated for release in 2025.

Michael B. Raiford (Scenic Design) Scenic and Costume designer from Austin, Texas.
For Ballet Austin: The Magic Flute, The Mozart Project, Belle REDUX / A Tale of Beauty & the Beast, Exit Wounds.

Additional Ballet: Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Colorado Ballet.

Upcoming: Oklahoma City And Nevada Ballet. His Designs for Septime Weber’s “Wizard of Oz” Ballet were honored by the “Benois de la Danse” at the Bolshoi Ballet. “Oz” will soon be seen at the Hong Kong Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, and Pittsburgh Ballet.

In Austin: ZACH Theatre, Rude Mechanicals, Hyde Park Theatre, and Zilker Summer Musical.

Additional Credits: Opera Boston, Central City Opera, South Coast Repertory Theatre, The Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), City Theatre (Pittsburgh), Cleveland Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, Playmakers Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Ford’s Theatre (Washington, D.C.), New Victory Theatre (New York), Merrimack Repertory Theatre, The Lyric Theatre (Oklahoma City), Antaeus Company (LA), Shelter VG4 Theatre (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), 20 productions with Actors Theatre of Louisville, and twelve world premieres for the Humana Festival. Director of “Blast: The Music of Disney” in Tokyo, Japan. M.F.A. The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for 10 years. He is a Member of United Scenic Artists.
Visit: michaelraiford.myportfolio.com

Tony Tucci has been resident lighting designer for Ballet Austin’s repertory, for 34 years, lighting designer/director for Ben Stevenson’s Texas Ballet Theater and Bruce Wood Dance. Recently designed Flemming Flindt’s Phaedra Ballet for the Mariinsky Theatre in Vladivostok Russia. Tucci created the lighting designs for Bernstein’s Mass at the Long Center in June 2018. In September 2018, Tucci designed a new production of Cinderella, choreographed by Ben Stevenson for the National Ballet of China. Tucci and has created designs for national and international dance companies: Washington Ballet, Houston Dance Salad, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Colorado Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet West, Cirque Ziva-Golden Dragon Acrobats, Royal Danish Ballet, Winnipeg and Swedish Ballets, Hong Kong Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, Ballet Contemporaneo de Caracas, Christopher Bruce’s Kingdom- Geneva Ballet, Flemming Flindt’s Caroline Mathilde and Lucifer’s Daughter-Royal Danish Ballet. Tucci has designed for musical theater, including Austin productions of Damn Yankees, Carousel, West Side Story, Annie, Gypsy, Jesus Christ Superstar, Music Man, Oklahoma, A Chorus Line, Carousel and Sound of Music as well as Charles Duggan’s productions of Dames at Sea in San Francisco and at the Goodspeed Opera House. For 1996 Summer Olympics, Tucci designed for the Cultural Olympiad, showcasing national and international companies. He is the recipient of two Iden Payne Awards and Critics Table awards for lighting in Austin.