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 Scheherazade Review
Including notes on the accompanying short
The Class
A Great Weekend : May 12–14, 2006,
Judy Bayley Theatre, UNLV
Nevada Ballet Theatre's
2005–2006 Season Closes
NEVADA BALLET THEATRE attracted record audiences for Scheherazade. Also on the program was a short Bruce Steivel choreographed treasure, The Class. His work, utilizing the entire stage and a good deal of the company, including some principal dancers, was a powerful presentation in black and white costumes against its stark set design. The stage then utterly transformed into fanciful, brilliantly designed sets, colorfully whimsical backdrops making for a quite handsome presentation of Scheherazade. This luscious Mother's Day weekend of movement and music was the perfect gift for any Mom.
Aggressively spreading the word with their beautifully photographed exotic artwork, playbill and alluring news of the May ballet, NBT had hit their stride with this final event. Choreographed by Kathryn Posin, Scheherazade reflected Posin's imposing talent. She has choreographed over 50 works and received support, endowments, and fellowships. Everyone from the Guggenheim Foundation to the National Endowment For The Arts has found her choreography worthy of attention. Posin's impeccable credentials include ballet, rock musicals, productions, theatre and film. Las Vegas and Sacramento were lucky recipients for premieres of her Scheherazade choreography.
  
The energetic performances by the entire company made The Class and Scheherazade a resounding success for the group, closing the 2005–2006 Season with a fantastical, whimsical flourish. First, we saw the corps dancers portray a usual day in class, with warm-ups and floor work. Steivel used the entire stage, and the dancers often seemed to simply leap across from wing to wing, touching the floor ever so lightly as they flowed around each other. The Class, with its unadorned sets and repetitious movements, each dancer in turn 'perfecting' their style, was a thoroughly satisfying, stylized peek into the daily life of a dance corps in training. Particularly of note were Principals Zeb Nole, Kyu Dong Kwak and Rachel Hummel-Nole.
 
 When the lights came up again, the audience left today's world behind and rode off to experience Scheherazade's life and her random stories told to keep herself alive in the courts of her husband and sultan. The original Ballet Russes' storyline caused a sensation when it premiered in Paris in 1910. Set to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's stirring music, it has been reappearing ever since in various incarnations, on stage and film.
Posin's Scheherazade brings new movements to an old favorite, wrestling with an endless stream of stories and characters, to boil the essence down to the length of a ballet presentation. The adventure tales were spun by a young, inexperienced storyteller to keep herself alive, for every morning's sunrise—and leave her husband Sheikh wanting for another story, a thousand and one stories, in fact. Youthful exuberance and appalling loss, intrigue, betrayal, new love and old anger played out before her Sheikh, imagination and reality in his court blurring together. The dancers, fluid and proficient, leapt and surged, rested and sprung to life anew, in Posin's chosen trilogy played out after the introduction of the court and Scheherazade, and before the entire kingdom's near demise in the final scenes.
  
The jealous, quite manic Sultan, so preoccupied with his harem's loyalties, activities, and possible infidelities, frightened his wives with beheadings and threats of punishment. He kept an assassin, the Grand Vizier close at hand, and poor Scheherazade must weave her tales from dusk 'til dawn to keep her head on her shoulders. This famous tale of a storyteller, saving herself and the rest of the harem from a morbidly powerful ruler, has been presented in just about every manner imaginable. Posin's rather darker version brings the Sultan to his knees, after his anger overwhelms his better judgment. He then must plead with the very genie in the bottle of Scheherazade's stories, to bring his courtiers back from the death clutches of the wraiths.
 
Principal dancers gave skilled portrayals of familiar storybook figures, well supported by the NBT dance corps. Flamboyant sets, of courts and countryside, had computer-generated graphics projected on the backdrops, adding another dimension to the stage furnishings. The moon rose, royal beings and flying horses floated by. A giant Rukh Bird loomed, wraiths of death frightfully lurked about, smoldering fires burned, and powerful male acrobatics filled the scenes (with an amazing array of rather pricey costumes and sets, true flamboyance, courtesy of the Milwaukee Ballet).
  
Principal dancers were delightfully accomplished, underscoring their status as Principals. Yoomi Lee as Scheherazade, Baris Erhan as the Sheikh and Adam Cargo dominating as the Grand Vizier, were especially compelling. Dereck Townsend played Sinbad and Jared Hunt was an engaging Aladdin. Cathy Long lent theatricality to her Aladdin's mother. Cameron Findley's Golden Slave was vibrant.
 
The Scheherazade weekend saw standing ovations for all evening and matinee performances—truly a welcome reception from everyone for our very own, wonderful Ballet company. All of this was good news, boding well for the future of NBT. Attendance has steadily increased, according to their Marketing department.
Definitely look into subscribing to the Nevada Ballet Theatre—it is our premier ballet company, attracting local and national attention. Your contribution and loyalty allow a brilliant dance company to exist here in our midst. And your subscriptions, depending on your investment, can add up to an amazing amount of benefits—dinners, galas, after-parties and pre-performance insider and 'behind the scenes' involvement. Moreover, you will be celebrating with Nevada Ballet Theatre as they spend the year celebrating their 35th anniversary.
NBT helps itself, as well. The dance school classes are ever expanding and self-sustaining. There is a new Executive Director and a new Marketing Director. They seem to improve constantly on their PR efforts with their new "Inside the Dancer's Studio" which is attracting media prior to the performances for a peek at what everyone can see if they 'go to the Ballet.' Benefits of subscribing are constantly upgraded, including 'From The Wings,' a pre-performance program and high quality local, in-house and guest choreographers. Our own internationally recognized Artistic Director, Bruce Steivel leads this renowned group with his own fresh works. Scheherazade is a Kathryn Posin work. Peter Anastos premiered his 'Les Gems' earlier in this season. Becoming eligible for a George Balanchine work will bring us an all-Balanchine evening—one to look forward to in the 2006–2007 program. A local since 1965, I find this completely surreal sometimes, as it seemed for years to me, Las Vegas would take years to achieve its own identity separate from the country in our backyard: Vegas.
NBT's outreach to everyone from hotel concierges to grocery stores will attract extra box office earnings. Their subscription count continues to increase and they reached a record high of 52 dancers at their spring auditions. Las Vegas is home to a dance company becoming increasing visible not only in our valley, but from as far away as the east coast and as far up the ladder as Vanity Fair and DANCE Magazine.
2006–2007 35th Anniversary Season Most Exciting Ever!
Year At A Glance:
Ballet Under The Stars At Hills Park
September 9, 2006
35th Anniversary Gala at Lake Las Vegas
September 15, 2006
Dracula
October 27–29, 2006
The Nutcracker
December 14–27, 2006
An All Balanchine Celebration—Tchaikovsky to Gershwin
February 2 & 3, 2007
Fusion, Fire and Ice
March 11–13, 2007
Peter Pan
May 11–13, 2007
NBT can be found on the web at www.nevadaballet.com for all performance information, as well as the history of NBT, classes offered and the Academy stats and address in Summerlin.
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