Ballet Austin presents The Seventh Night Sky

Ballet Austin brings The Seventh Night Sky to the AustinVentures StudioTheater starting Saturday, October 10. It's a one-hour ballet for kids and families, and it's the third chapter of Fables of the World, a series Ballet Austin TWO has been building that takes young audiences around the world through dance, music, and storytelling, with a choreographer native to each country featured.

This one looks at the Vietnamese Double Seventh Festival, the legend of Altair, the Cowherd, and Vega, the Weaver Girl—two lovers separated by the Milky Way who only reunite once a year on the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, across a bridge of magpies. The piece opens on that festival, full of lanterns, music, and dance, and follows a grieving protagonist navigating the celebration after the loss of his beloved. While the story unfolds, Altair and Vega are brought to life through shadow, light, and puppetry, though they also appear as dancers. The choreography, by Thang Dao, blends classical ballet, contemporary movement, and Vietnamese dance vocabulary, and the original score by Duy Tran and James G. Lindsay balances the joy of the festival with the wonder of the night sky.

It's part of Ballet Austin TWO, which is endowed by Sarah and Ernest Butler through the Ballet Austin Foundation, and this specific piece was commissioned by The Bancroft Initiative / Clara and Paul Bancroft. The show runs over two weekends: Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11, and then Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18. There are two performances each day, at 2 PM and 4:30 PM—eight matinees in total—so it's easy to fit in with a family schedule. All tickets are $25, and the theater is at 501 West 3rd St.