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 Ballet Austin photograph by Kenny Braun
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(L-43) 3002 Guadalupe, 476-2163 / 476-9051.
The old firehouse on Guadalupe has given up its hoses and ladders and determined figures in slickers and boots for mirrors and barres and equally determined figures in leotards and leg warmers. This historic brick facility is headquarters for Ballet Austin, and daily it swarms with dancers of all ages, both the professional members of the BA company, who rehearse and teach in the building's studios, and the aspiring young dancers who study in them. The company rarely performs any of its own work here, but the firehouse is occasionally the site of performances by smaller companies, such as Toni Bravo's KINESIS troupe.
Cafe Dance
(L-46) 3307-B Hancock, 474-2639.
You won't find cappuccino or any other tantalizing caffeinated boosts at this intimate storefront just west of MoPac. Rather, you'll find a wonderful medley of movement classes to ease your mind and body and appease your artistic expressions, including Studio One Corporate Fitness for seniors; Symmetry Yoga; Expanding Paradigms; Hamrick-Warren Modern Dance School; and Michelle Owens-Pierce Modern Dance for Children. Kate Warren, director of Cafe Dance, tops all this off with an appetizing array of modern dance performances by local companies, art openings, and dance history lectures.
Helm Fine Arts Center
(L-53) St. Stephen's School, 2900 Bunny Run, 329-0964.
As you make your way from your car to this multi-purpose cultural center on the campus of St. Stephen's School, you may be tempted not to enter, so spectacular is the vista from the West Austin hillside on which the Helm is perched. But the trip inside rewards the sacrifice; this is an inviting venue, its wood, glass, and limestone providing a natural warmth. The center doubles as the home for the Nancy Wilson Scanlan Gallery (see separate listing) and the Temple Family Theatre, whose proscenium stage has played host to productions from community organizations from the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin and Visions in Rhythm to touring artists such as the José Greco II Flamenco Dance Company.
Lucila's Boutique
(L-24) 1700 S. Lamar, #318, 416-8800.
Step into the enchanting studio of World Dance. Experience the sensual, mysterious, passionate dances and music of the Middle East, South America, and Africa. Talented instructors — led by owner Lucila — help you acquire the movement art of bellydance, tango, salsa, merengue, gypsy flamenco, and others. Experience the gift of traveling to foreign lands by viewing monthly multicultural dance and music events or by enrolling in workshops given by local and national artists at this first-class studio/boutique!
One World Theatre
(L-54) 7701 Bee Caves Rd, 330-9500.
When performers dream about venues, this is the kind of venue they dream about. Originally conceived as a posh West Austin home, this combination concert hall/dance space has the look and ambience of an Italian villa, a sizable open room for performances, close tiered seating for 300, state-of-the-art technical facilities, including fiber optic cables for TV broadcast, a spot for food and drink on the floor below the concert space, and everywhere you look, glimpses of the Hill Country. A venue that is in itself an artistic experience, which ought to magnify the enjoyment of the touring acts being booked there, which range from McCoy Tyner to José Greco II.
Pan-American Hillside Stage
(L-33) 2100 E. Third, 476-9193.
Easily the most colorful and flamboyant of Austin's performing arts venues, wrapped as it is in brightly painted images of Latino history and culture. This outdoor stage, tucked behind the A.B. Cantu/Pan-American Recreation Center, faces a gentle grassy incline on which hundreds of viewers can lounge and take in a dance performance by, say, Ballet East or Aztlan Folk Dance Company, under a sweet starry sky.
Ralph & Ruth McCullough Theatre
(L-17) UT Campus, 23rd & E. Campus Dr., 471-1444.
Good things in small packages. This most petite of PAC theatres (400 seats) is the most charming — a spacious, stylish proscenium with compact and cozy seating before it. Home to most UT Opera Theatre productions and host to fine local and visiting dance companies.
Red Bluff Studio
(L-37) 4907 Red Bluff, 288-3618.
Just off East Cesar Chavez, on a street dominated by hulking warehouses, sits a charmingly incongruous bungalow: pink, with glass bricks making up most of the front facade and a drawing of an arching human body as a sign posted in the yard. This Eastside studio is home base for longtime artist and arts activist Daniel Llanes, who uses it for teaching classes and as a venue for performing his own dances in praise of the natural world.
 Santa Cruz Center for Culture photograph by Kenny Braun
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(L-32) 1805 E. Seventh, 478-9717.
Performance venue which serves as the cultural arts anchor of the new "Olé Mexico!" revitalization district (East Sixth and Seventh streets). The cinderblock walls and school auditorium proscenium may at first promise a cool, sterile artistic experience, but just let it fill up with people; the community for whom this space is a bona fide center warms it up mighty fast and makes a catching a show here as lively as anywhere in town. Home base for the celebrated Aztlan Folk Dance Troupe and frequently the site of productions by Teatro Humanidad and Pro Arts Collective.
Schroeder Performance Hall
(L-39) Concordia University, 3400 N. I-35, 452-7662.
Performing arts fans have more than one central city university at which they can get their fix. On the campus of UT Austin's smaller and more intimate northern neighbor sits the Louise T. Peter Center, a multi-purpose venue one part of which is a concert hall/stage, Schroeder Performance Hall. On a scale apropos to the university it serves, Schroeder's 200-seater makes it an appealing spot to catch a theatrical production by Concordia students or a recital by the Austin Children's Choir.
Scottish Rite Theatre
(L-14) 207 W. 18th, 472-7247.
This venerable theatre dates back to 1871 as a German opera house, and has been available for public rental since the early 1990s. The recently restored antique pine stage floor lends itself to classic stage productions; the theatre seats approximately 300 people and accommodates in-the-round, continental, and row seating. Scottish Rite has been greatly underutilized in favor of places like Saengerrunde Hall, but last year the Temple produced the melodrama Run to the Roundhouse, Nelly, He Can't Corner You There and this year plans for The Drunkard in August.
The Vortex
(L-38) 2307 Manor, 478-5282.
Funky, renovated barn where VORTEX Repertory Company artistic director Bonnie Cullum features new works from the far side of tomorrow. Since its debut in 1994, the Vortex (formerly Planet Theatre) has been a space where intrepid spectators can see drama in its nascence, from VORTEX's cyber-operas and edgy experimental work to nontraditional solo plays to intriguing hybrids such as Rembert Block's Beauty Vultures and the Plague of Sleep. Austin playwrights and producers choose the Vortex to mount original work of all sorts, and out-of-town artists such as Annie Sprinkle and Tim Miller regularly visit it to try out new goods.
Zachary Scott Theatre Center — Whisenhunt Arena Stage
(L-26) 1510 Toomey, 476-0594.
The Zachary Scott Theatre first opened its doors in 1933 as the Austin Civic Theatre but was renamed after famed Austinite Zachary Scott in 1972 when the mainstage facility was built. The Whisenhunt Arena Stage dates from 1991, built with bond monies that also allowed ZSTC to construct new administrative offices and a rehearsal hall. The Arena is a petite 120-seat space as cozy and comfy as your living room, ideal for cabaret but also used to good effect by Zach for full-scale stage plays from August Wilson's The Piano Lesson to Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday to the mystery comedy Shear Madness, which ran for a record 400 perfs in this space. Dance productions by Deborah Hay and Johnson/Long may also be seen here.
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