Stage lighting to moonlighting

Monday, June 12, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

They have devoted their lives to training for the ballet, for the chance to perfect centuries-old classical moves before an approving audience.

When the season ends, however, the performers of the Nevada Ballet Theatre are dancing as fast as they can, finding work to get them through the summer to supplement their meager wages.

That young woman shining your shoes at the Venetian or Mandalay Bay? She may be Cooper Rust, who earns $200 a week as an apprentice dancer during the ballet season.

Or maybe you have seen Cathy Long, shuttling beers and mixed drinks to gamblers at the Rio, breaking once an hour to step onto a tiny stage and perform jazz numbers she calls "cutesy."

The only part of the Rio "bevertainer" outfit that resembles her dress as an NBT corps dancer is the leotard top. There are no thongs, derriere-revealing short skirts or rhinestones worn in most ballets. Starting wage for a corps dancer, you ask? Three hundred dollars a week.

When NBT's Mexican tour was canceled last month, dancers began the traditional off-season shuffle. They traded their pointed shoes and leotards for the attire of caterers, secretaries, waiters, sales clerks, river-rafting guides or stagehands.

"Most of our summer we're trying to scramble and find as much work as we can," says Racheal Hummel Nole, an NBT soloist. "We do a lot of things; modeling, conventions, catering. I'm hoping to be doing some wardrobe work at some of the Strip shows. I'm just filling out applications. It's slow because summer is slow."

Rust's steady summer gig shining shoes brings her double the pay of a 31-week season of full-time dance.

Donning fishnet stockings, heels, a black skirt, white blouse and pink bowtie to shine shoes six days a week means less part-time work during the ballet season . Telling clients she's a starving artist also helps, she says. The money is crucial because she and her live-in boyfriend, an NBT soloist, earn less than $20,000 a year from ballet - combined. Company soloists start at $400 weekly.

Rust says she wasn't blindsided: "It is a harsh reality that you learn as a kid. But it's not until you're living it that you say, 'Oh - $6,000 a year really isn't a lot.' "

Fortunately, she adds with a laugh, "Ramen noodles are really inexpensive."

Kara Hamburg, an NBT soloist, has worked a handful of summer jobs during her dance career, including working at Barnes & Noble and at a catering company. Now she's a nanny for a family with 6-year-old triplets - a job she also does part time during the season.

Her colleagues at Barnes & Noble knew she danced ballet, but she says, "They didn't get it. They thought I was in school training. They didn't understand that I was a professional."

The job-juggling life of many ballet dancers makes their profession seem like more of a hobby, says Zeb Nole, an NBT principal dancer who works summers as a union stagehand. But when that "hobby" is a five- or six-day-a-week grind - plus performances - you have to be creative.

NBT pay pales in comparison to most other ballet companies. Company manager Laurel Knox says its scale is near the bottom nationally. Still, it doesn't scare off dancers, she says. When several ballet companies closed this year, NBT fielded calls from numerous soloists and principals looking for work.

Last season 200 dancers auditioned for the company. Fourteen new dancers were picked, but only two landed paid positions. The other dozen were trainees, who work for free.

The company provides trainees with point shoes, which cost between $35 and $70 a pair and of which a typical dancer will use 16 or 17 pairs a season. (Top dancers, or principals, have a starting pay scale of $600 a week.)

The biggest problem, Knox says, is that dancing part time isn't an option, and the NBT contract is only 31 weeks a year. And, she says, "It's written in their contract that the ballet is their priority."

For corps dancer Cathy Long, the idea of having to serve cocktails for eight hours after practicing for seven hours makes her want to "throw up."

"Most dancers work a lot during the summer so they can save money and not have to work so hard at part-time jobs during the next season."

Long spent two years as a dancer with "Jubilee!" She joined NBT during the second year, then left the Bally's show even though it paid much more.

"I realized that my ballet body was going to kick out sooner than my showgirl body," she says. "I decided that I wasn't done with ballet yet.

"It's something that at this point in time I can't live without."

To pursue the ballet dream, though, she has been a baby-sitter, nanny and maid, and worked in a coffee shop and as a secretary.

Alissa Dale, an NBT corps dancer, rows an 18-foot raft or 16-foot dory for 16 days at a time as a summer employee with a Colorado River rafting company in Arizona. The boats make a 208-mile trip through the Grand Canyon, and Dale loves her dual life - on stage in winter, sleeping under the stars and challenging a river in summer.

Other dancers work at Banana Republic or Panera Bread Company.

Zeb Nole would like to see all of that change.

"When dancers are working other jobs that much, their focus is elsewhere," Nole said. "When you're sleep-deprived, it's going to affect your performance. Dancers working full-time dancing could make huge strides forward."

Dancers with many ballet companies nationwide must have other jobs to supplement their incomes. Nevada Ballet Theatre, with its meager $3 million annual budget, doesn't expect anything different soon.

Cameron Findley isn't banking on a lucrative future. At 15, he is the youngest NBT dancer, and he is heading to New York City for his second summer of training at the American Ballet Theatre. Next season he will return to NBT, and go from trainee to paid apprentice.

"As a trainee I was paid zero dollars," Findlay says. "Trainees get nothing, but I loved it. I just want to dance. I'll be happy."