Traditional ballet with a modern edge

Leila Navidi

Nevada Ballet Theatre dancers Alissa Dale, from left, Grigori Arakelyan, Mary LaCroix, Barrington Lohr and Janel Meindersee practice in Summerlin.

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Monday, Oct. 11, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Nevada Ballet Theatre

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So there’s this guy who did a stint selling duct tape wallets in Hawaii, running a gas station and taking a break from a successful 30-year dance career.

He comes to Nevada Ballet Theatre in its 2009 season, leads the company through a performance of “Giselle” demonstrating athleticism, brilliance and poise unseen in the three-decade-old company. He’s good, we’re thinking, and he’s hired as artistic director.

But then the economic downturn hits, the company’s budget is slashed, its traditional hierarchy is swapped for ensemble dancers, and longtime principals are gone, as are adored story ballets. Budget cuts delay a final 2008-09 season performance, moving it to the next season, which is already filled with avant-garde, contemporary works. It’s a head-spinning change for those more warm to staged fairy tales.

Soon, longtime NBT fans begin to wonder about James Canfield, the 6-foot-3 tattooed artistic director, who looks more punk rock than Swan Lake and is preceded by a reputation (good and bad) of edgy, contemporary, sexy performances. So when Nevada Ballet launched its 39th season last month with a performance in the parking lot of the downtown Brett Wesley Gallery — accompanied by a photo exhibit of the dancers posing with Harley-Davidson motorcycles — it’s possible that the old guard started thinking, “Oh, no, not again.”

Well, hold that thought.

You haven’t seen all of Canfield yet. And no one wants to convince audiences of this more than the director himself.

Sure, he’s choreographed works to the music of Pink Floyd and Edith Piaf, collaborated with street artists and pushed the envelope once in a while, but, Canfield insists on a recent afternoon in his office, he’s never wanted to push anyone away. He states that his aim is only to expand audiences, push the boundaries of dance, while remaining loyal to his classical core: “I’m a classicist at heart. The body of my work is me being a classicist. I never want people to feel that we’re doing away with all of that.”

Canfield will make his point this weekend when Nevada Ballet dancers dressed in white, romantic tutus perform the most traditional, grueling, beautiful and athletic moves of classical ballet. Their performance is for Canfield’s own “Degas Impressions,” a series of 11 vignettes inspired by and named after Degas’ paintings that will likely remind everyone that Canfield can kick it classically. But more than that, the entire program is a tribute to renowned choreographer Robert Joffrey and includes performances by three other ballet companies whose artistic directors, like Canfield, danced with the Joffrey Ballet.

Canfield refers to it as “the dance event of the year in this city,” lauding the program’s artistic depth.

That the NBT main stage season opener begins with the Degas-inspired work is telling. The painter’s impressionist style was once as reviled in the art world as contemporary dance has been by ballet traditionalists. But new works are common among ballet companies, even those that feature the tried and true story-based ballets. “Every company is doing more diverse programming,” Canfield says. “I don’t want to alienate the audience that exists now. I’m working to embrace more audiences.”

Growing a larger audience is critical for Nevada Ballet, which is slated to be a resident company in the Smith Center for the Performing Arts and needs to fill its large hall and pay the bills. And with the likelihood that other ballet companies will be making stops at the Smith Center, Nevada Ballet needs a firm identity, something to separate it from the touring performances.

This explains Nevada Ballet’s outreach to younger, maybe hipper audiences, or to people who, for whatever reason, never bothered with ballet.

It also puts Canfield’s post-performance speech at Brett Wesley Gallery — where he equated traits in dancers with motorcycles and explained that art is in everything around us — in context.

“It’s about having people take a different look at ballet, showing them that it’s about performance, excellence, speed, accuracy and line. These are athletes, and they are incredible machines as well.”

Though Canfield professes a love for the classical, this season is a reminder that this is indeed a changed company. When asked what this season says about Nevada Ballet, Canfield summed it up succinctly, “We’re on the move. Stay with us.”