Ballet in Las Vegas? It's no mirage - Nevada Ballet Theatre - Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre

Dance Magazine, March, 2003 by Heather Wisner

Las Vegas is a dance town like Los Angeles is a dance town--its art is often overshadowed by its entertainment. The Las Vegas Strip hosts shows that include dancing: Cirque du Soleil's Mystere and O, and showgirl revues such as Jubilee! and the Folies Bergere. And sometimes touring musical theater shows, such as Fosse, come through town. But Vegas's economy is driven by tourists: Drawn by the bright lights, jingling slot machines, and Disneyish architecture, they flock to the Strip not for concert dance so much as big-budget spectacles with long-legged ladies and trained tigers.

So when Nevada Ballet Theatre performs, locals buy most of the tickets. The average out-of-towner isn't likely to hear of Summerlin, a so-called planned community west of the Strip, where the company's headquarters sit. Former Folies Bergere principal dancer Vassili Sulich, with former dancer Nancy Houssels, founded the company in 1972. It began as a volunteer group of local casino dancers who called themselves Nevada Dance Theatre and presented concerts at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas's Judy Bayley Theatre. NDT evolved into NBT, and nearly three years ago, former American Repertory Ballet Managing Director Harris Ferris was named executive director. The company's repertoire is a mix of classics--Don Quixote, Coppelia, Les Sylphides--and more contemporary works by George Balanchine, Choo-San Goh, Bruce Marks, and the company's artistic director, Bruce Steivel, who served as artistic director at Seoul's Universal Ballet before joining NBT in 1997.

One advantage to running a company and school in Las Vegas, NBT administrators say, is the relatively low cost of living, inexpensive housing, and an abundance of tourism-industry jobs, all of which have contributed to a population boom. The company has grown from eight dancers to thirty-five (including apprentices and trainees); the affiliated Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre, overseen by NBT Ballet Master Sveinbjorg Alexanders, has expanded from 80 students in 1998 to 496 students in 2002, according to Steivel. In 1996, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation gave the organization, which had its offices and studios in two separate buildings, a grant to build a new facility. Named for the grantor and built on land donated by the Howard Hughes Corporation, the new building houses scene and costume shops, administrative offices, and seven studios--room enough for company class and rehearsals, plus academy classes. It does not include a theater--in Las Vegas NDT still performs at UNLV, as well as at the Rio Hotel's Samba Theatre.

The academy--where classes are divided into general, pre-professional, and adult categories--offers ballet based on Royal Academy of Dance and Vaganova methods, with annual graded exams on each. The academy's youth company, composed of pre-professional students, performs independently throughout the year, although students may audition for the company's Nutcracker and, later, for the company, which has integrated some former students into its ranks. Like most companies, NDT also offers a summer intensive program. Pre-professional and open-enrollment students can also take Pilates, musical theater, tap and jazz, ballroom dance, and hip-hop. One of the academy's best known (and more colorful) faculty members is its fencing master, Count Guido Roberto Deiro, an accordion-playing aristocrat and accredited moniteur (instructor).

Another advantage to operating in an entertainment town is the variety of interesting characters--like Deiro--who cross the company's path. Professional dancers from touring shows and the Strip occasionally take class at NBT headquarters, and some, like hip-hop dancer Mr. Wiggles, are open to collaboration. Wiggles, a veteran of the Rock Steady Crew and the Electric Boogaloos, came to Las Vegas to help choreograph and perform in a musical revue called MADhattan at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino. After that show closed, he and his wife, also a dancer, decided to stay. ("We could get a nicer house here than we could in the Bronx," he said.)

Wiggles will play a hip-hopper who romances a ballerina in a piece tentatively titled Walk On, for NBT's spring program, "A Salute to Richard Rodgers." Choreographed by former Joffrey Ballet Associate Director Ann Marie DeAngelo and set to Rodgers music, the piece will debut along with a new Steivel work, also set to Rodgers music. Steivel recruited DeAngelo based on her work for the 2002 Career Transition for Dancers gala, "Shall We Dance," which celebrated Rodgers's centennial; she, in turn, recruited Wiggles, with whom she has often worked.

DeAngelo described her new work as "a kind of hip-hop West Side Story," reflecting today's cultural unrest. It's the story of a relationship that doesn't quite stick, told through DeAngelo's signature mix of ballet, gymnastics, modern, and street dance. It's set to Wiggles's arrangement of Rodgers music and recordings of "Little Girl Blue" by Janis Joplin and "You'll Never Walk Alone" by Aretha Franklin--collectively, DeAngelo said, the piece should evoke both nostalgia and a sense of disconnection. Both she and Wiggles, who has collaborated with ballet companies before, are enthusiastic about working with the company.