Back by popular demand, this Valentine’s Day weekend, Feb. 10-12, Ballet Austin presents the audience favorite, Belle REDUX / A Tale of Beauty & the Beast, a sleek, sexy and contemporary take on the centuries-old love story. The production was commissioned by the global innovators at 3M, who challenged Ballet Austin Artistic Director/Choreographer Stephen Mills to produce a new dance work celebrating the magic of innovation.
“Innovation infuses everything we do at 3M, from how we operate our business to how we serve our customers and view the world around us,” said 3M Executive Vice President Joaquin Delgado, who commissioned the work and is the inspiration behind the project. “It’s vital that we never lose sight of the importance innovation plays in our daily lives, and that we as a society constantly seek new and better ways of doing things. This process of continuous improvement is so essential to all of us at 3M that we approached some of the most innovative people in Austin, Stephen Mills and his team of artists and creative professionals at Ballet Austin, to explore the true nature of innovation through dance and create a brand new artwork that reminds us to always innovate.”
Belle REDUX / A Tale of Beauty & the Beast follows the well-known storyline of the French novel La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) first published by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740 and then abridged and re-released by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont six years later. Over two centuries, this tale of a beautiful young woman, who becomes entrapped and then enamored of a prince-turned-beast, has evolved through various art forms.
French filmmaker Jean Cocteau advanced Beauty and the Beast storytelling through his groundbreaking movie La Belle et la Bête in 1946. Fifty years later, Cocteau’s film noir inspired American composer Philip Glass to create an operatic score that serves as an alternative soundtrack for the movie. In 1991, Walt Disney Pictures transformed the story into an Academy Award-winning animated motion picture, which Disney then adapted into a Broadway musical four years later. Over the years, Beauty and the Beast has constantly transformed and is now a case study on innovation.
In 2015, Stephen Mills again innovated the Beauty and the Beast story and its presentation by unveiling a 21st century, multi-media experience that showcases his classically innovative choreography and a haunting new score by award-winning, Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds. Fellow Austinite and freelance designer Michael B. Raiford collaborated with Mills on simple yet dramatic set and costume designs that bring a sense of gravity and mystery to Ballet Austin’s interpretation of this enduring tale.
“Belle REDUX / A Tale of Beauty & the Beast is unlike anything I’ve previously brought to the stage, and much of that has to do with the way this work was conceived,” Mills acknowledged. “In 2011, Joaquin Delegado, who was then running 3M’s Austin businesses, approached me with an idea and a concern. He was worried that young people might grow up in a world where the art of innovation—the act of making something better, more interesting or more useful—would be lost or confused with advancements in technology, which is not the same thing. He wanted Ballet Austin to create an original dance work underscoring the complexity of innovation and how it differs from invention, or creating something from scratch.
“I spent two years exploring this issue, visiting with 3M scientists and engineers in Austin and in the company’s St. Paul, Minn., headquarters where Joaquin is now based. Through that process, I came to really understand the difference between innovation and invention, and how to translate my understanding into a new ballet. I’ve always loved Jean Cocteau’s film, La Belle et la Bête, and as I revisited the original story and its multiple iterations, it was clear that Beauty and the Beast was a study in innovation, ready for yet another evolutionary turn.
“To be sure, Ballet Austin’s version of this story is not a fairy tale,” Mills continued. “This is a very grown-up interpretation that is darker, passionate and more complicated than a bedtime story. I’m thrilled with my collaborators’ work on Belle REDUX, including Graham Reynolds’ poignant score and Michael Raiford’s sophisticated sets and costumes. I want to thank Joaquin Delegado and his team at 3M for challenging me intellectually and artistically with this project and for entrusting the entire Ballet Austin family with the responsibility of bringing this innovative new production to the public.”