Ballet Austin

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Ballet Austin is the 12th largest classical ballet company in the United States and runs the largest combined training facility tied to a professional ballet company in the country. Each year the company performs works by a wide range of choreographers, including Stephen Mills.

They have performed for the U.S. State Department on a Europe tour and at major venues such as the Joyce Theater in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The Ballet Austin Academy serves over 900 students each year, offering classes from creative movement for ages three and four up to pre-professional training. Students can perform in Ballet Austin's Nutcracker each December—it's been staged for more than 53 years and is the longest-running Nutcracker in Texas. The apprentice company, Ballet Austin II, gives post-high school dancers a chance to develop their skills; it was started in 1999 by associate artistic director Michelle Martin and currently includes 10 dancers.

Founded in 2007, the Butler Center for Dance & Fitness provides year-round classes in styles from ballet to modern, hip hop to hula, as well as jazz and Broadway. The center also runs outreach programs that reach 31 Central Texas school districts and about 200 local nonprofits. Public fitness and dance classes include yoga, Pilates, adult ballet, and various styles like tap and musical theater.

Ballet Austin is housed in a 34,000-square-foot facility called the Butler Dance Education Center in downtown Austin on 3rd Street at San Antonio Street. It includes administrative offices, a box office, eight rehearsal studios, a 1,500-square-foot Pilates studio, and the AustinVentures StudioTheater with 287 seats. Dance Magazine has called the company sleek and sophisticated, while The Washington Post described it as one of the nation’s best-kept ballet secrets. Stephen Mills has been artistic director since 2000; he is an American dancer and choreographer, and his works for Ballet Austin have been described as whimsical and fantastic, effortlessly striking, and meaningful. The company currently has 22 full-time professional dancers recruited from an annual 30-city audition tour.