Cirque du Soleil collaboration gives Nevada Ballet a way to shine

By Joe Brown

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It could easily be a Cirque du Soleil story line: An on-the-rise ballet troupe wakes to find itself on a vast fantasyland of a stage, with limitless artistic and technological resources available at a whim.

It’s a dream that could come true only in Las Vegas, and it did on Sunday afternoon, as dancers and choreographers from Nevada Ballet Theatre and five Cirque shows eclectically, exuberantly collaborated in “A Choreographer’s Showcase” at the multimillion-dollar Mystere Theatre at Treasure Island.

Nevada Ballet’s choreographers and dancers must have been in their glory, given the chance to Go Big on this expensive, expansive playground with its opalescent lighting, all-enveloping sound and a stage that can conjure cliffs and abysses, oceans and cathedrals.

Meeting and melding for the moment, the classically focused ballet company got to work with the showbiz ingenuity and acrobatic athleticism of the Cirque squad, many of whom shared their talents on a volunteer basis.

The 90-minute festival offered 10 new dance works, five by Nevada Ballet choreographers, including Krista Baker, principal dancers Zeb Nole and Racheal Hummel-Nole, and soloists David Ligon and Jared Hunt. Cirque choreographers Stephan Reynolds (from “O”), Antonio Drija (“Zumanity”), Bernard Gaddis (“Mystere”), Khetanta Henderson and Pendu Malik (“The Beatles: LOVE”) contributed the others. The unique pieces segued almost seamlessly into one another as a flowing program, and the dancing was markedly strong throughout, although there were some spots where unison was difficult to maintain.

This was a colorful feast of dance styles, and everyone I spoke with afterward had favorites, but a few stayed with me.

Hummel-Nole’s “Static,” set to melancholy laments by singer-songwriter Glen Hansard from the film “Once,” came in three brief parts, woven interstitially throughout the program. “Static” offered expressively danced vignettes of couples in various stages of loss or losing love, with some stunning stage exits that wouldn’t be possible on most ordinary stages.

Set to the occasionally disturbing, echo-drenched percussive music by composer Aphex Twin, Nole’s “Precession” was similarly interspersed in three evanescent parts, leading and bleeding into the pieces that followed.

Set to his own composition, Gaddis’ athletic/erotic “All is Fair in Love and War” involved 14 dancers in Spartan martial movements, including some sterling male partnering, under downlighting that made them look like gladiators.

Creating a cathedral aura, Von Ligon’s “Requiem fur Bewegung und Muster” (roughly, “Requiem for Movement and Pattern”) was an austere, classical meditation set to Mozart, with Cathy Colbert, so memorable as the ghostly queen of the Wilis in Nevada Ballet’s recent “Giselle,” as the soloist. The five dancers in Hunt’s “Of One” gradually, gracefully shed their tulle — and their genders — to Bach’s “Magnificat in D Major.”

Kishema Malik, from the cast of “The Beatles: LOVE,” sent everyone away exhilarated with a big, over-the-top, showbizzy finale. Kishema Malik staged a riotously kitschy Amazonian romp, with dancers from both companies given run of the full expanse of the “Mystere” stage, tossing in onstage percussionists, near-naked dancers crawling from crevices, spear-carrying warriors and a loin-thrusting king and queen of the jungle.

Hint to Cirque: That finale might just make the kernel of a really fun, vine-swinging show.

Aside from giving a stage to new work, the two public performances of “A Choreographer’s Showcase” does something good. Proceeds support Nevada Ballet’s performances and outreach projects; a Friday preview performance for 1,600 Clark County students and at-risk youth, and many ticket buyers chipped in an extra $20 to enable the children to experience dance.

It should be emphasized again how much fun this program was, in addition to drawing one of the sexiest crowds imaginable — the audience was peppered with dauntingly fit off-duty Cirque performers in their body-emphasizing daywear.

And this Sunday’s sure-to-sell-out final performance will likely be your only chance (until next year) to eat popcorn at the ballet.