Physical prowess was the name of the game Thursday evening (7/1/99) for the opening of Renoís month-long Uptown, Downtown, ARTown festival.

 The Nevada Festival Ballet under the new leadership of the companyís recently on board artistic director, Lesley Bandy Beardsley, sponsored the Diablo Ballet as the curtain-raising event for what has become one of Americaís largest inner-city summer performing arts festivals. Uptown, Downtown, ARTown is held each July at the Wingfield Park Amphitheater in downtown Reno.

 What a way to start! And what a way to go!

 The Diablo Balletís evening of dance beside Renoís beautiful Truckee River could not have been more with-it in conception, more brilliant in execution, nor more physically flamboyant and fulfilling. The program of four short dance presentations had it all: Humor (an almost slapstickish Grand Pas Díaction), sensuality (Zoom In, a celebration of the male physique fabulously danced by a muscular and chiseled Nikolai Kabaniaev), patriotism (Balanchineís Stars and Stripes Pas de Deux, marvelously danced by Karyn Connell and Viktor Kabaniaev) and lyricism (a dramatically and sensitively danced Walk before Talk).

 The Diablo, a small company made up of ten dancers from all over the world, amazes more and more with the companyís every Reno appearance. Its dancers are first-rate, major-company artists and with the Diablo because of the opportunity the company affords for its dancers to dance (little time in a ten company troupe to catch oneís breath), choreograph and explore new and adventuresome possibilities in repertory.

 And adventuresome these marvelous ten certainly are!

Nikolai Kabaniaevís choreography for Grand Pas Díaction (to Alexander Glazunovís majestic music) was an unexpected pleasure. The piece, a kind of anything you can dance I can dance differently, is a set-up between a classical couple and a contemporary one. Giant egos create a lack of stage space, small space, big egos lead to collisons, collisions lead to partner swapping, partner swapping leads to heart palpitations, instant love leads to Keystone Cops traffic tie-ups. To everyoneís credit (Lauren Jonas and Viktor Kabaniaev were the classical couple, Corrine Jonas and Nikolai Kabaniaev were the contemporary couple) the silliness and charm of the balletís shenanigans detract not at all from the precision of the dance, but simply heap the pleasures of oggling the beauty of movement upon the fun of deflating the sometimes too le grande manner of the ballet experience. Grand Pas Díaction is a terrific way to open a park concert.

 As choreographed by Kelly Teo and superbly danced by Nikolai Kabaniaev, Zoom In is nothing less than sensational. Kabaniaev combines the skill of a classical dancer with the quick, sharp-edged moves of Kung Fu champion for a dynamic, sensuous set of dance sequences that were never dull. Kabaniaevís performance of Zoom In was a world premiere. Judging from the large audienceís (about 1000) favorable reaction, Zoom In is in the Diablo Ballet repertory to stay.

 In somewhat the same vernacular, Walk before Talk, is a dazzling balletic piece. Its relief lighting (by Jack Carpenter) highlighting muscled bodies, itís flowing lines capturing the rapture of movment between male and female forms (choreographed by KT Nelson), is as stunningly effective as itís lyrically affecting. Walk before Talk undoubtedly has a program, but it works wonderfully as pure dance and strikes many different moods in quick succession: Pathos, joy, bewilderment, the thrill of the immortality of the wind against the mortality of oneís body, are but a few. Itís splendidly theatrical and was just as splendidly danced.

 Balanchineís thrilling Pas de Deux from his Stars and Stripes (with an assist, of course, by John Philip Sousa) was given a sharp, athletic and all together spectacular delivery of technical facility and musicality by the docile and lovely Karyn Connell and the dashing and handsome Viktor Kabaniaev. What a wonderfully artistic reminder of those things which make America what it is, when itís at its best, as we approach the nationís 223rd birthday bash.

 The Diablo Ballet was the first presentation of the Nevada Festival Balletís 15th season. For more information about the season and other upcoming Nevada Festival Ballet events call 775 785 7915.