By Kristen Peterson

Published Friday, Jan. 11, 2008 | 10:53 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 | 10:15 a.m.

Nevada Ballet Theatre just announced that artistic director Bruce Steivel will be leaving the company after 10 years.

Steivel's departure comes at a time when Nevada Ballet is growing its institution and preparing to move into the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which is scheduled to open in 2011. The move will likely raise the profile of the 36-year-old company that formed in the 1970s as a way to provide artist forms of dance for performers on the Strip.

Steivel, Nevada Ballet's second artist director, who succeeded founding artistic director, Vassili Sulich, brought a slew of new and more contemporary ballet works, bringing in prominent choreographers and guest

artists, including Peter Anastos, Val Caniparoli and Kathryn Posin. More than 30 ballets were added to its repertoire during Steivel's tenure. Seventeen were created by Steivel.

The company says it will begin an international search for a new artistic director.

It's another big move for a local performing art institution. This season the Las Vegas Philharmonic replaced founding music director Hal Weller with David Itkin. Weller, who retired, says he felt it was time to take the orchestra in another director.