Las Vegas Weekly

October 9, 2008 · 7:10 PM

Raw Talent Live really cooks at the Sahara

By Robin Leach

It maybe the most extraordinary show ever staged in Vegas. Not only is it the single-handed determination and genius of just one woman, but also 43 members of the cast who once escaped Communism in Cuba and sought political asylum here in Sin City. It was Cuba’s largest mass- defection ever. The amazing videos that envelop the stage and audience bathing theatergoers in a kaleidoscope of multicolored landscape surrounds and incredible images took two years alone to assemble! The entire result must be akin to what a drug hallucination trip experience resembles. I’ve never done narcotics, but all I can say is I am addicted to the new Raw Talent Live show.

I am baffled and bewildered that the production is at the Sahara, because it should be on a world stage as a pop-opera, either at New York’s Madison Square Garden or the 02 Stadium in London, or as a dance drama at New York’s Lincoln Center. For now, though, we are the lucky ones because it’s playing on the Strip and paves the way for the next generation of Vegas entertainment.

(Memo to Sam Narzarian, who just bought the Sahara: Please move quickly and spend your $1.8 billion as fast as possible to transform it into a palace that should rightfully and royally play host to this powerful production. Get the House of Lords reopened with one of your Hollywood celebrity hot restaurants so we can linger there musing as to what we’d just seen.)

It is an absolute assault on all the senses:

*Your head will be pounding from the passion of the performers. Nobody has ever danced with such love of their art as these refugees -– except maybe the talented cast of The Fashionistas, who enthralled with their commitment to magic movement. As they say: “No passion= No Drive.”

*Your eyes will be dazzled by the high-concept costumes -- more than 700 visually stunning creations conceived and created for the 70 performers by the one-woman army known as Nicole Durr. (Since she prefers her initials ND to her full name we’ll mention only those for the remainder of this story.)

*Your ears will revel in the original music, songs and dances she single-handedly composed for her 45 dancers, 12-piece band, and the 14 singers each of whom is a superstar in their own right. It’s a magnificent feast of everything from Latin gusto to Havana Nights brass with solo sopranos thrown in to even heighten the experience of thrills and chills down your spine as your skin gets goosebumps. It doesn’t matter a jot that the songs and dances are performed 70 percent English and 30 percent Spanish – in fact, it’s an added bonus to get the rhythms right!

*Your mouth will not stop talking the night you see it or the morning after when you wake up trying to remember what you got immersed in. You will be wondering what you witnessed -- but you’ll never know. And just when you think you’ve figured out the gist of the story plot, ND wants you to ask yourself “Are You Sure? If you answer, “YES,” she goes one step further saying, “Then obviously it doesn’t work.” ND wants you to experience the human body’s electricity as you go into sensory overload- and believe me, you will.

In the entire history of theater no one woman has taken on such an undertaking, and even more curiously ND wants it to be misunderstood.

She solely wants to provoke and open up the thought process of living in today’s machine-driven world of opposites. Her list of dichotomies is endless: birth-death; good-evil, war-peace; innocent-deceit, creation-destruction, courage-survival, love- jealousy, conscience-guilt- darkness-light, freedom-caged- and all play a part in a world where we struggle to remain independent thinking human beings instead of being run as machine beings!

All of those opposites become characters during the 75-minute high-energy production and high tech imagery. It’s a modern-day fairytale of olden mystique complete with its own Evil Queen, Snake Girl, Mermaids, Don Juan’s Fuego and Destiny characters. The story focuses onto a laptop of life as today’s computers used by hackers and geeks alike to find the secret of life –- even the keeper of the keys is called Sir Real in a bizarre homage to our wacked out reality TV programs.

You may never figure all or any of this out. So if you go expecting a Cirque-styled story you won’t get it. If you show up openhearted, open-armed and open-minded about a unique and totally different theatrical experience you will. If you want Raw talent Live with explosive excitement, magnificent music, stunning staging, delicious dancing and superb singing then race right to the Sahara before its taken from us. On the other hand you could also delight ND by saying, “What on earth was I smoking?” Ride the rollercoaster and rock your world one-way or the other.

When critics far more skilled than I, review the show it will be beaten up or lavished with praise. There’s simply no middle ground here. You either love it or -as the opposites the spectacle explores- hate it.

I don’t think it matters which because you will still have had a once in a lifetime one of a kind experience. If the émigrés from Cuba risked their lives to flee from their communist captors to bring us their talents they deserve their audience -so we understand why they truly dance with the fire they do!

What’s even more amazing is that ND isn’t only launching this unbelievable undertaking and risking some hefty family fortunes –- along with Muhammad Ali and Siegfried & Roy’s masterful manager, Bernie Yuman as executive producer –- but she’s opening a brand-new nightclub, ND’s Space that fills the entire 3rd floor of the Palazzo shops above the Barney’s store. ND hopes she’ll be ready in February but promised me that if I was blown-away by her video-genius in Raw Talent Live then I will be out in space with the video projectors she is still finishing off there.

Space, spread out over 21,000-square-foot of nightclub also has a One Shot coffee experience with Ethiopian coffees served with tiny cocktails all in Baccarat glass ware, an 8,500-square-foot lounge where celebrity chef David Burke will serve up taste treats and a 420-seat VIP theater which adds onto the dance floor of the nightclub as all three zones linkup. The theater will only feature the world’s top headliners in an intimate setting so exclusive that tickets will be auctioned online for the once every two week shows. The seats disappear into the floor so the 1,400 nightclub revelers can sprawl onto that additional space.

ND summed up: “Your dreams will come to life in Space. It will be the most amazing experience. It is way beyond state of the art. It is the future now.”

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