Worlds collide and find dance

Cirque does five shows currently on the Strip to packed houses of tourists. Meanwhile, for locals, the decade’s old but far lower-profile Nevada Ballet Theatre is an institution, readying to do what institutions of its type do this time of year: perform "The Nutcracker" off Strip from Dec. 14 to 27.

Last week, the two groups from different ends of the entertainment world collaborated for an appreciative audience of well over 1,200, mostly locals, who paid to pack the Mystere theatre at TI.

This diverse crowd, from children to retirees, was lucky enough to see one of only two performances of the oddly named "Choreographer's Showcase," along with a very un-Vegas subtitle "A Project Designed to Stimulate and Encourage Artistic Growth." The name may be clunky but the concept was fascinating: collaboration between Cirque’s performers and traditional ballet dancers.

Last year the event was held by the Nevada Ballet Theater alone at Paris and managed an audience of about 120. “It was much smaller,” said Nevada Ballet principal dancer Racheal Hummel-Note, who choreographed a number for both years. This was the second “Choreographers Showcase.”

The reason, of course, that this year saw the event swell in attendance was by transforming the showcase to become the first-ever creative partnership between Cirque du Soleil and the Nevada Ballet Theater. The talent collaborated on all levels, far beyond the choreography mentioned in the title. One routine was built around music (ranging from swelling classical to a minimalist section with sampled voices that could have come straight from Steve Reich) composed by the conductor of Cirque’s "Ka" at MGM.

According to Karen Gay, Cirque’s director of global citizenship, from the costumes to the makeup to the lighting, many of the people involved on the Cirque end were doing this project for a chance to try something different creatively: “The technical staff put in hours upon hours of work into this for really no compensation. But they have been doing 'Mystere' for 14 years, and this lets them take their talents further and apply them to something new. Any ballet has choreographers, and we already wrote a check to the Nevada Ballet Theatre last year. But this seemed a great next step.”

So, pleased after the performance received a standing ovation, she added: “This was so successful that I think we are going to be doing this every year. If I have a regret it was that there were only two performances.”

Laura Everling, a "Ka" acrobat and dancer, was one of the first aspiring choreographers to sign on from the Cirque end. And she agrees that the chance to try something new was a lot of the appeal: “Over the past two years, Cirque has been really good about giving us opportunities to create our own work. They know that there is only so much creativity we can put into a show that essentially has to happen the same every night. So in order to keep us good and to keep us living here they have to give us other outlets.”

Everling chose to work only with traditional ballet dancers for her routine. “In Cirque a dancer often does many different things, but a ballet dancer is trained in a very specific art form. I would present to them a combination that was sweeping and spiraling. But when they did it, I would suddenly see a lot of lines: straight fingers, straight backs and no release in the head and elbows and openness in the shoulders. But the ballet is such great core training that you can let go of little things and still have that solid stance and alignment.”

According to Racheal Hummel-Note, who made her second effort at choreography this year, the change of working new territory was just as exciting and extreme for the Nevada Ballet Theatre dancers. For her routine she matched Cirque dancers each to partners from her ballet company.

“The ballet dancers tend to be more polished and the Cirque dancers more fearless. For me, pairing them allowed them to absorb each other's strengths.”

To further move out of her comfort zone, she used a mix of pop songs by James Blunt and Ben Harper to accompany her choreography.

But it wasn’t the differences between the dancers what stood out for Hummel-Note the most. “Both (Cirque and ballet) train very hard and are very flexible.”

To her the most amazing difference wasn't the dancers at all, but being able to work with the "Mystere" stage with its lifts, ample front, trapdoors and other technological graces.

“Ballet stages are fairly standard: squared across with wings on the sides.The choreographers took a tour of the stage early in the process. For me it was invaluable. It was a little daunting but it was amazing to see what we could do. The technical abilities are limitless.”