Today we’d like to introduce you to AJ Garcia-Rameau.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Hi! My name is AJ. I started Ventana Ballet for two reasons: to create paid opportunities for performing artists in the Austin area and also to produce accessible performance art within our community. It’s an unfortunate and recurring theme that performing artists are not only underpaid but “called” for more uncompensated rehearsal time than was originally set forth in their contracts. In addition, it’s also too common that ticket prices are too high for many audiences to see these great artists perform. So, Ventana Ballet breaks the mold, and we decided to address these two hot topics in our world by offering short-term, well-paid contracts and also offering ticket prices at lower-than-industry-standard fees to our audiences. I started the company in 2018, and our debut performance was “The Watchmaker’s Song,” an immersive Nutcracker experience at the historic Neill-Cochran House Museum. Since then, we’ve found our niche in Austin as a professional immersive performing arts company. From our annual Dracula/Halloween-themed “Undead” performances at the iconic Spider House Café to mixed repertory contemporary ballet productions at our home base, the Mexican-American Cultural Center, our productions range in theme and setting. At Ventana Ballet, we pride ourselves on our ability to adapt to uncommon performance spaces and appealing to different audience styles, all while offering high quality, professional, and next-generation performance art. Our audiences enjoy adults-only date nights at the bar, semi-traditional performances at the theater, and even an interactive kid’s show with the Sugar Plum Fairy in the winter. Our rotating roster of artists consists of dancers, actors, musicians, writers, lighting designers, costume designers, sound designers, engineers, photographers, videographers, and so many more. COVID-19 has brought a tremendous amount of shutdown, cancellations, revenue loss, artist paycheck loss, and overall business trepidation for the performing arts industry. As a small company, Ventana Ballet is proud to have had the opportunity to present work to the community during this awful time.
In 2020, Ventana Ballet produced 23 shows, paid over 58 artist contracts, and welcomed over 52% new audience members to its community. Thanks to its dedicated and innovative team, Ventana Ballet produced, for the first time ever, several “drive-in” performances where the audience viewed the performance from the comfort and safety of their own vehicles. The dancers performed outdoors, on the concrete, “on the ground,” with music piped into the attendees’ cars via an in-house FM transmitter. Ventana Ballet prides itself on being “crafty,” and I’m proud and humbled to surround myself with a scrappy artistic team such as this one and a community that is hungry for freshness. Thank you, ATX, for supporting this family of artists, and we hope we can keep bringing you new and innovative performing art!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Smooth road? No way. I’m sure that any start-up owner would say something similar. Capital- and other dollar-related challenges aside, building a company is not a “smooth” exercise. However, I’m humbled by the creative team that has formed in this company – a community of go-getter artists willing to do more than the job for which they were originally commissioned. You don’t always see a cellist moving their own bench or a ballerina directing traffic, but this company of artists is a team, actually a family, that picks up the slack where it’s needed. This team certainly enjoys several backstage celebratory “cheers” opportunities for the work that they put in! The other obstacle is, of course, finding your target audience. Austin is a beautiful city of art – in so many forms. Ventana Ballet is but a humble participant in that myriad of artistic offerings. Still, it helps to make solid partnerships with folks who can teach you a thing or two in sectors with which you have no experience (site: social media posting culture, grant-writing effectiveness, how to issue a 1099…. geez, the list goes on). I’m always up to learn new things, get my hands dirty, make sh*t happen, and then get on that stage. This is true, the DREAM.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
You know, I think my path here is a bit unorthodox. I grew up in the great H-town just two and a half hours east(ish) of Austin, and I received some pretty amazing ballet training there at the Houston Academy of Dance. I still speak somewhat regularly with my former coaches there: Ken Epting, Ginger Herrera, Naomi Schwiethale, and Evelyn Ireton. I hopped over to UT after high school as a Chemical Engineering student, and I was fortunate to graduate as a ChemE with a minor in Dance in 2011. During that time, I danced under the coaching of Jennifer Felkner at the Austin School of Classical Ballet. She remains my most revered coach to get my developpe a la seconde in line. I won’t bore you here with my resume, but there were several other cool moments in my ballet training and career. I lived in Michigan and Delaware during that time, working for a major tech company, then transitioned back down to Texas as a semiconductor field service engineer. I still enjoy this work, and sometimes I find myself applying some of my learnings in the field to my experience as a leader at Ventana Ballet. Even still, my stance remains…. you have to keep learning to get better. I will never stop learning.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most to me…. PEOPLE. My relationships with my people are my most cherished investments. From colleagues, to employees, to customers – this makes Ventana Ballet tick as a company, as a family. Safety and health are at the forefront of all Ventana Ballet rehearsals and performances. But how can we forget… entertainment! This is what we do, and we can’t do it “right” without considering the feedback and needs of our audiences. I mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again… adaptability. This company of artists is used to changing things up at the last minute to make for a better audience experience. This company of artists puts hospitality at the top of mind, whether it’s in the studio or in the theater. Bringing our community together is our number one priority, so our company of artists puts respect for others at the top of the list. We like to break the barrier between the audience member and artist… sometimes, this looks like an open invitation to join us in the studio for rehearsal, and sometimes this looks like a post-show cheer and mingling in the lobby. These relationships are the fuel for this fire.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@Ventanaballet.com
- Website: www.ventanaballet.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ventanaballet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ventanaballetco
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-d7FaxQu1k-hER1AItZwg
- Other: ventanaballet.eventbrite.com
Image Credits
Farid Zarrinabadi Lynn Lane Daniel De Leon
