Dance Reviews

Mar 28, 2006 - In Reno The A.V.A. Ballet Theatre s Swan Lake enchants

By Jack Neal

"Swan Lake", Tchaikovsky's superlative ballet, was given a solid and all told enchanting treatment by the A.V.A Ballet Theatre, a fledgling dance company based in Reno. "Swan Lake " had a two-performance run at Reno's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts last Saturday and Sunday (3/25 & 26/06).

With borrowed principal dancers from Salt Lake City's Ballet West, choreographer and A.V.A Ballet Theatre's founder Alexander Van Alstyne did exciting things with the production - most notably the home-grown corps de ballet. There are, of course, lots of swans 'a dancing and Van Alstyne had his large corp of swans dance their hearts out in an explosion of impressive technical facility adorned with the haunting lyricism inspired by Tchaikovsky's heart-on-everyone's-sleeve score.

The only complaint about this presentation - and it's a major one - was the loud, loud, loud reproduction of Tchaikovsky's music (canned music at that). "Swan Lake" is not a rock concert. The delicacy of the music was lost, the fidelity of the orchestration was obliterated, the sheer beauty of the event was damaged by the vulgar distortions of what is, or should be, the exquisite experience of listening to Tchaikovsky's lush music and seeing it danced with radiant storytelling through expressive movement.

The three principal dancers - the elegant Kate Crews as the lovely Odette and menacing Odile, Seth Olson as the dashing Prince Siegfried, and Jason Linsley as Von Rothbart, the imposing and wicked purveyor of evil spells - did what imports are supposed to do, add professionalism, in this case spectacular professionalism, to a hometown production.

Dancing both Odette and Odile, Crews has a cystalline technique and the emotional depth as an actor to succeed impressively. The beauty of her musical phrasing and the delicacy of her execution were thrilling to behold. Olson also has an impressive technique and more than enough physicality to be a believable young and dashing prince falling head over heels in love. Crews and Olson are exactly the kind of handsome couple that makes "Swan Lake" a love story to die for.

And with Linsley's threatening Von Rothbart hovering about dying does seem an option. Nontheless Linsley was all the things he needed to be in the thankless and less-than demanding, yet dramatically important role.

Also of note, the dancing of the four hand-holding cygnets - Emily Bedell, Jessica Evans, Sarah Jaroch, Alyson Raymer - was brilliantly crisp. In the "Castle Ballroom" act Tara Rnyders danced a superlative Spanish.

The backdrops by Soggy Dog, lighting by Periann Scott and costumes largely by Ballet West designer David Huevel were all splendid adjuncts to a sumptuous enough shoestring budget presentation of one of the ballet world's greatest works.

Credit must go to Alexander Van Alstyne for the heavy lifting it takes to bring such an endeavor off in such a successful manner.

For other A.V.A. Ballet Theatre events and presentations go online at avaballet.com.