Dance Reviews

May 18, 2009 - Sierra Nevada Ballet's "The Best of Broadway" at Reno's Pioneer Center shines it on with moments of exciting dance

By Jack Neal

What dancers do for love was on display Sunday afternoon (5/17/09) at Reno’s Pioneer Center. Rosine Bena’s Sierra Nevada Ballet danced with the panache and elegance of its founder (Ms. Bena) through a series of from-Broadway-and-film-musical dances that thrilled.

If money makes the world go ‘round, it’s a lack of money that prevents this exhilarating ensemble from being all that it could be. It’s my understanding that cash ran out before a complete technical rehearsal could take place before Sunday’s program. That explains many of the awkward transitions for an event that had moments of not just great promise, but great fulfillment.

For business reasons (drawing a large audience) and for reasons of believing in live music for live dance (an admirable belief), Bena collaborated with singer Cami Thompson and the Cami Thompson Trio (Peter Supersano on keyboard, Joe McKenna on bass, Steve Self on drums). Singer Steven Hallan was also on board.

Thompson is a vocalist with great chutzpah and considerable magnetism. Unfortunately, for dance enthusiasts the program was so loaded with Thompson’s singing, that – as good as she is – the program was more concert than dance. Furthermore, gluing it all together into a seamless event didn’t work as it should. Since transitions are everything in show business, the program’s blank moments stopped momentum in the tracks of a steady build to excitement.

Bena’s company demonstrates that young performers can hold their own with Broadway’s past. Great Broadway and film dancing musicals may have gone into an eclipse, but not out of style. Audiences numbed by hydraulic scenic changes, deafening amplification (although Sunday’s sound was too metallic and a tad loud to be flattering), and the emotional flatness of most recent Broadway shows, will find Bena’s movement and style a revelatory experience.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the suite of dances from “West Side Story” (“Jet Song,” “I Feel Pretty,” “America,” “Cool, “Tonight”). It’s not the steps of the dances so much as Bena’s ability to propel story, mood and characters through music and space. The SNB dancers never disappoint. They are a marvelous collection of talent. Ramona Cachinero, Rachel Speidel Little, Laura Lunde, Lindsy Roberts, Alyssa Corda, Alexander Biber, David Fonnegra, Jekyns Pelaez, Carlos Venturo and Kylene Stowell never fail to please and always execute splendidly.

Domingo Rubio is the company’s premier danseur and he is superb. His choreography for Cole Porter’s “Too Darn Hot,” in which he dances with Ananda Bena-Weber, is sexy, steamy and fun. Bena-Weber is also an excellent dancer and presence to be reckoned with.

And she does considerable reckoning in this dance program. She appears with Sam Weber, her father and one of the classiest tap dancers extant, in “Bouncin’ The Blues” from “The Barkley’s of Broadway.” They turn in a virtuoso tap extravaganza reminiscent of Fred Astaire and Anne Miller at their fastest. The two also team for a smooth and lyric rendition of Porter’s “Begin the Beguine.”

Steven Hallan is an entirely acceptable production singer and was at his best singing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Music of the Night.” Dance students from Western Nevada Performing Arts Center did a clean and polished version of “Food” from “Oliver.” It was beautifully choreographed by Gina Kaskie-Davis.

A conflict in my schedule pulled me away before the program’s last two offerings. However, the impact of this lovely program with “little money and not enough time,” still lets the sun shine in on many dance pleasures. The snippets of dialogue given to Cami Thompson to smooth transitions and the there’s-no-business-like-show-business passion the singer brings to her work – a rousing “Broadway Baby,” among many others – is the stuff on which the-show-must-go-on legend builds. Thompson may not have been born in a trunk, but that doesn’t stop her from giving her every appearance in front of an audience her all.

For information about other Sierra Nevada Ballet programs and events call 775-783-3223 or go on line at sierranevadaballet.com.