City fills schedule with artistic offerings

Kimberley McGee

Friday, Sept. 14, 2001 | 8:46 a.m.

SCHEDULE

A complete schedule of events sponsored by the city of Las Vegas Cultural and Community Affairs Division can be obtained by calling the ArtsLine at 229-5430 or visiting the city's website at ci.las-vegas.nv.us.

The city of Las Vegas' 2001-2002 cultural season begins Saturday evening with Nevada Ballet Theatre's "Handel Celebration" at the Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza.

The large ballet production, set to composer Handel's "Water Music," is a classic program to kick off the city's 25th season of art, music and dance.

But it is what lies beneath the large productions and dances, which highlight this season, that continues to offer creative outlets to a community hungry for culture, said Patricia Harris, acting cultural supervisor for the city of Las Vegas Cultural and Community Affairs Division.

"We have a lot of cultures represented this year in our (large) shows," Harris said. "But definitely the community centers are a big part of what we are about."

The city's new season is rich with national acts, she said, such as the R. Carlos Nakai Quartet, a Native-American jazz band, and the Lagun Onak Las Vegas Basque Festival at the Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza, both in October.

But this year it could be said that the focus of the city's season is within the small courses taught at the community centers, each of which offers a different cultural experience to the community, Harris said.

"They cater to what their communities are looking for in their neighborhood," Harris said.

Included in the standard mix of craft, music and ballet classes are colorful courses such as Hawaiian hula -- for beginning and advanced-level dancers -- loom weaving, African drumming and belly dancing.

The Charleston Heights Arts Center, at 800 S. Brush St., offers many programs but concentrates on movies and ballroom dancing.

"What we offer has a lot to do with the space that we have," Joanne Lentino, Charleston Heights center coordinator, said. "Reed Whipple can't be doing the big-band dances we do because they don't have the ballroom with the great dance floor that we do."

The Charleston Heights Arts Center's ballroom has a suspended wooden dance floor. A pocket of air lies between the cement foundation and the hardwood surface so that it gives slightly beneath dancers' feet.

Bandleaders Dick Wright and Don Burke return this year to play to the more than 200 hundred dance enthusiasts who come to their shows. The performance-art dance group Second Hand was also asked back for an encore performance.

The dance trio was in town last year with its theatrical performance blending dance, comedy and physical feats.

"Second Hand was really popular," Lentino said. "We had to bring it back."

The center will also host a movie series in November featuring some of director Ang Lee's well-known foreign films, such as "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman." Lee won the Best Director Academy Award this year for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

"The films do well because there aren't a lot of places to see something like this (series)," Lentino said. "These are films you won't see at the movie theater down the street."

The centers' classes also represent the diverse community, Ellis Rice, Reed Whipple Cultural Center coordinator, said.

Reed Whipple, at 821 Las Vegas Blvd. North, is one of the oldest centers in Las Vegas, Rice said. It was donated to the city in the late '60s by the Church of Latter Day Saints for a cultural center.

Originally the one-story building was a community gathering place with a few pingpong tables.

Today the center offers jazz and hip-hop classes from accredited local dancers and houses many of the Rainbow Company Youth Theatre's award-winning plays.

This year the center is offering classes that residents of the surrounding neighborhoods demanded, such as Hawaiian dancing and weaving classes. Both will be offered through November at the Reed Whipple center, as well as guitar, piano and violin lessons.

"The (hula) class fills up to 20 or 40 people every Saturday," Rice said. "It's well-liked."

Rice said he's heard that people feel the community center is part of their neighborhood because it has offered cultural support for so long.

"There's a lot of history here," he said.

And a future as well.

"We plan to be a part of this community for a long time," Rice said.

Marcia Robinson, center coordinator for the West Las Vegas Arts Center, 947 W. Lake Mead Blvd., said the centers offer creative support to neighborhoods.

"Although we are under the auspices of the culture and community affairs division, we meet the needs of our (neighborhood) community," Robinson said. "And that is to (help residents) express themselves with culture and creativity."

The 7-year-old center sits in the heart of the community it serves, Robinson said, and therefore reflects the many different cultures that make up the whole.

"Even though we are an African-American community, we include the art of belly dancing and salsa classes," she said. "It brings us together as a community to express ourselves and learn from each other."

Local teachers, artists and grandmothers offer their talents to the center for free. Two local women offer lessons in doll making and quilting -- skills their grandmothers taught them.

"We really get our instruction from professionals in our community or from community roots," Robinson said. "Those are the people that maybe don't do this as a living, but do it because it has been passed from generation to generation. They don't want to see (the craft) disappear."