Dance Reviews

Feb 24, 2001 - Ballet Folclorico do Brasil: Too Much Bang, Too Little Else

By Jack Neal

Ballet Folclorico do Brasil, presented by Nevada Festival Ballet, played a one-night stand Friday (2/23/2001) at Reno's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts.

With a long list of prestigious underwriters including the National Endowment for the Arts, this much supported endeavor would seem to have all the trappings of a rich cultural experience: an artistic director, Amen Santo, with splendid credentials; colorful and exotic costumes; ethnically viable recorded and live music; and a vibrant cast of ten athlete dancers who pour their souls into all they've been given to do.

Unfortunately, what could have been enlightening, exciting and entertaining turned out to be excrutiating, thin and dull. For a dance ensemble basing its heritage on folk art, albeit with intentional updating, the sound levels were so dangerously high any public health department worthy of its title would have either insisted the decibels be toned down or closed down the show. (The decibel levels were no more, I was assured, than it was for the elementary school performances presented by BFDB. God help the hearing of our youth.)

The chanting and singing of lead singer Vania Amaral Santos was, with the exception of the presentation's last few minutes (when word seems to have gotten through to the production's sound engineer that he was destroying the evening), no more than ear-splitting shrieks. The accompanying drumming was no better, a blistering barrage on the audio senses; hardly an appropriate setup for the appreciation of music and dance.

The choreography of Amen and Amy Santo, a family affair throughout, had only spurts of real in-the-theater, first-rate performance interest. On the streets of Trinidad (or wherever) where one could move on after a few minutes it would have been charming. The improvisatory nature of the choreography wasn't the problem, the fact that it had so little say was. For keeping an audience in house for two hours, over forty minutes evaporated into a late start (8:07 p.m.), a thirty-three-minute intermission (as noted in the program, a "Brief Intermission") and an early departure three minutes before 10 p.m.

Too short is better than too long, as long as too short includes provocative, distinguished movement and music. So much of what the Amen and Amy Santo team has conjured from Brazilian folk culture is so tediously the same the eighty-performance minutes Friday's audience actually got could have boiled down to a dance program of about twenty minutes of true invention and interest. Aerobics, what most of the Santo choreography looked like, are made for great exercise and ripped bodies, but rarely make for fascinating theater.

That substantive twenty minutes, however, gave the dancers a chance to roar through many of their right-stuff tumbling moves mixed with some mild hints of the art of Capoeria (pronounced CapWAYdah), the martial arts skills for which the company is supposed to be so famous. If only there had been more.

As usual, Michael Fernbach, Nevada Festival Ballet's lighting designer, gave the production an enviable visual radiance. If only Fernbach's lighting radiance had been matched by BFDB's sounds and choreography.

On April 7 and 8, 2001, Nevada Festival Ballet presents its production of French composer Adolphe Adam's "Giselle" at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno. For Nevada Festival Ballet information and tickets call 775-785-7915.