Las Vegas Weekly

‘A living gallery’

Nevada Dance Project provides creative outlet for production dancers

Heather Farrell and Vince Media rehearse their upcoming Nevada Dance Project duet.

Photo: Jacob Kepler

“Being a good choreographer requires practice and the chance to take risks.” –Gail Gilbert, choreographer

Fantasy, Jubilee!, Folies Bergère, Le Rêve, the various Cirque incarnations and all the other big production shows in town have one thing in common—they all have dancers. Although their backgrounds vary, all of these performers have had a high degree of training in jazz, ballet, modern and/or various ethnic disciplines. Day in, day out, they perform the same choreography in their “day job,” occasionally covering another part or two. But the music is the same, and the costumes are the same. For creative types, this can be crazy-making.

To keep their paid work fresh, many seek out opportunities to extend their artistic reach and invigorate their performances. Recognizing this need, co-directors Richard Havey and Gail Gilbert have created the Nevada Dance Project—a dance umbrella that offers the opportunity for contemporary choreographers and dancers to show their best work, new or preexisting, but always original.

The duo met in 2005 at UNLV, where Havey is on staff in the dance department and Gilbert was teaching as an artist-in-residence. Gilbert encouraged Havey to reach beyond the university environment and start a company; Havey suggested that she start one. It seemed that neither was fully prepared to operate a company; they could, however, work together to provide a creative environment where the wide range of professional contemporary choreographers and dancers in town could showcase work.

Their success is due, in part, to the atmosphere the two generate. “Our style is professional and casual,” Gilbert says. “We both know how stressful it can be to put together a dance concert while maintaining a full-time job. We promised each other that we would stay generous and remember the joy.”

The NDP has taken advantage of the many city-operated community centers to provide venues for the shows, and choreographers and dancers gladly donate their time and efforts for the opportunity to present their work. Each concert offers dance pieces set to a variety of musical styles, and the current production, Kaleidoscope, seeks to do the same. Since the beginning, the performances have played to full houses.

Choreographers for this edition include Havey; Emmanuel Kizayilawoko and Gilbert from KÀ; Jerri Wills of Jubilee; Courtney Combs from Phantom of the Opera; Sara Joel and Kevin Gibbs (formerly of Zumanity); Rommel Pacson (formerly of Céline Dion’s A New Day) and Kelly Roth from the College of Southern Nevada. The works vary in style from the tender and moody to the light-hearted and whimsical, and include dance styles ranging from classical-modern to jazz and acrobatic dance.

Nevada Dance Project joins a long-standing Las Vegas tradition of dancers from the local casino/entertainment industry who seek to reach beyond their creative comfort zones. After all, Nevada Ballet Theatre got its start 37 years ago when Folies performers Vassili Sulich and Nancy Houssels gathered a group of entertainers from the Las Vegas production shows for the unlikely purpose of creating a “serious” ballet company.

“This is the nature of being an artist, to want to do more,” Gilbert says. “I see Nevada Dance Project as a living gallery.”