Ananda Bena-Weber, associate director of Sierra Nevada Ballet, choreographed Twelfth Night, inspired by an audience suggestion. 'We were surveying our audiences to see what kind of genres they're into. And film noir was one.'
She proceeded to assemble a musical score that 'has music from over 30 different classic films,' including classical works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Leonard Bernstein, and jazz by Miles Davis. The ballet's setting was also important. 'It looks as much like those films as we could do. There's a lot of streetlamps and there's fedoras, and there's sort of a little mystery and intrigue.'
Bena-Weber describes Twelfth Night as 'Shakespeare's finest comedy … first of all, it's hilariously funny, but it's also really romantic and really compassionate towards human beings. And it helps us to just understand, you know, who we are and how we live from different angles.'
As to the dancers, Bena-Weber explained, 'When I thought about what ballet we could do, there are certain dancers that we have here at home. Sara Weir and Anthony McMenamy, who are two of our top dancers that we have here at home in Nevada' are featured as two of the leads. Also, 'the first person I wanted to hire to play the main lead male, Orsino, is Malachi Squires,' who played Dracula in another Sierra Nevada Ballet production.
Sierra Nevada Ballet presents Twelfth Night: A Ballet Noir on Saturday, July 26 at 7.30 p.m. at the Pioneer Center in Reno, Monday, July 28 at 7.30 p.m. at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival at Sand Harbor, and Saturday, August 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Carson City Community Center in Carson City. sierranevadaballet.org.
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Support for 'Arts on the Airwaves' comes from The Nevada Arts Council… a state agency that provides public funding and support to artists and organizations, that benefit Nevadans in cities and rural communities statewide. More at NVArtsCouncil.org.
