Each year, Sierra Nevada Ballet welcomes spring with Brew, Brats and Ballet at the Reno Little Theater and the Brewery Arts Center in Carson City. This annual event features short brand new choreographic works by several talented choreographers. The company dancers enjoy it because they get to take part in the creation of several brand-new works and the audience enjoys it because they get to sip a brew, eat a brat, see a variety of short new pieces of choreography and hear about the creative choreographic process.
This year the event will feature new choreography as well as three new musical compositions. This adds a new dimension to the creative experience for choreographers, dancers and the audience. Each composer will join the collaborating choreographer on stage to share the creative process prior to the new choreographic presentation and will also take part in the Q&A session at the end of the program.
Bay Area composer Milton Williams has performed internationally as a conductor, composer and vocalist. He has served as music director, composer and conductor for orchestral, choral and operatic ensembles. Williams was the associate conductor for a production of Leonard Bernstein’s theater piece “Mass,” at Vatican City in Italy for Pope John Paul II’s Jubilee 2000 celebrations. For nine years, he served as rehearsal conductor, chorus master, vocal soloist and narrator for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Williams has created a number of musical compositions from opera to jazz and contemporary music, including the musical score for the film “The Hitchhiker.”
I was honored when Williams asked me in September if I would be the choreographer for his full-length story musical, theater and dance work which is planned to premiere in 2018. We thought it would be wonderful to start with a small excerpt of this work, “Sufferance,” and test it out on our community audiences. We will also feature Williams’ new work, “Interlude,” a solo for Sierra Nevada Ballet principal dancer Laura Lunde.
“I am very excited to premiere these two pieces on SNB’s Brew, Brats and Ballet program and to hear the Northern Nevada audience response,” Williams said.
‘A killer’
Composer Joseph Tatum shares a completely different musical creation for Brew, Brats and Ballet with a yet-to-be-titled love song. Tatum is a cellist originally from Kansas City who graduated from Indiana University and currently performs with the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra and with his own chamber group, Desert Rose, in Truckee. Tatum has been composing for the past six years.
“I always like to warm up by improvising, and most of my compositions come from that improvisation process,” he said. “The love song came from an improvised interval between two songs. I always liked it and wanted to make it into a complete composition.”
For Brew, Brats and Ballet, Tatum will play live and work with choreographer, Alex Kaskie, to create a new piece of modern hip-hop choreography for Sierra Nevada Ballet. This piece will be part of a new experimental dance and composition project commissioned by Reno’s ARTOWN Festival.
In addition to the three new compositions, Brew, Brats and Ballet will also feature a new work, “Elements,” by dancer/choreographer Oliver Adams. The dancers love this work.
“It’s a killer,” Dancer Daniel Miller said. “It is very short, but contains constant challenging aerobic athletic movements.”
Other new works
Jennifer August contributes two new short modern works, “November Rain” and the duet “Verses.”
“I wanted to do a piece for Dan Miller because he really understands the modern style of my work,” August said about “Verses.”
Reno veteran choreographer Barbara Land has created a beautiful spiritual classic ballet piece, “Kyrie.”
“I do not want this to have any specific religious attachment, but rather simply want it to create a feeling of universal beauty and spirituality,” Land said.
Besides the solo dance piece to Tatum’s love song, Alex Kaskie will also do a new group work for the company. He begins choreographing that next week.
“I want this to just be about unusual movement. I love to challenge the SNB dancers to move their bodies in different unusual ways,” Kaskie said.
As the director of Sierra Nevada Ballet, I am very excited about the various choreographic styles for the Brew Brats and Ballet program. We will also include a short excerpt from our new full-length classical story ballet, “Sleeping Beauty-A Fairy’s Tale,” which premieres this summer in Reno, Tahoe and Carson City.
Each piece on this program is short and very different. This is a strong, fun program, and we anticipate that it will be a real audience-pleaser.
Rosine Bena is the artistic director for Sierra Nevada Ballet.
Alexander Cain Biber (Principal Dancer/ Ballet Master/ Choreographer in Residence/Teacher) grew up in a performing arts family and has loved theater and performing from an early age. He began his ballet training, at the age of 14, with Rosine Bena at Western Nevada Performing Arts Center – studying ballet, jazz, tap, and musical theater. In 2003, Alexander became an apprentice with Sierra Nevada Ballet and was promoted to the first company in 2006, to soloist in 2008, and to Principal in 2012.
Jennifer Lightfoot-Johnson (Grant Writer and Development Consultant) comes to SNB with 16 years of experience, both professionally and as a volunteer, in grant writing and working in the nonprofit sector.
Jennifer Boyle August (Guest Teacher/Choreographer) discovered her love of dance in Reno, Nev. During her time at Reno High School, Jennifer took a Modern class at TMCC, with instruction in Graham, Luigi, and Horton dance technique. While Jennifer was educated in other areas of dance, she felt these styles spoke to her more than anything else. After graduating from Reno High School, she moved to Boston to study dance with Joan Palladino at Dean College where she received her Associate’s Degree in Dance. She was then hand-selected by Judith Jamison to study at Alvin Ailey Summer Dance Intensive program in New York City.
Sara Weir (Demi Soloist) was born in Provo, Utah, and started ballet at age three. She trained in dance with Trisha Wilstead at Rocky Mountain Dance and then trained with Brittany Squires and Heather Gray at Jaquiline’s School of Ballet. She performed professionally with Showcase and Theater Ballet at Brigham Young University, Utah Regional Ballet, and Sacramento Ballet.
Carlee Bertero (Soloist/ Teacher) was born in northern Nevada and began studying dance at an early age at Fascinating Rhythm School of Performing Arts in Reno. Carlee was invited to join the Sierra Nevada Ballet Apprentice program in 2012; was raised to the first company in 2013; to featured corps member in 2016, to Demi-Soloist in 2017, and to Soloist in 2021. She has performed in many SNB story ballets such as Peanutcracker-The Story In A Nutshell, Giselle, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty-A Fairy’s Tale, A Midsummer Nights Dream- A Steam Punk Ballet, and Twelfth Night-A Ballet Noir. She has performed as a featured dancer with SNB annually in Dancing By The River as part of Reno’s Artown Festival and in SNB’s annual Brew Brats and Ballet in Reno and Carson City.
Domingo Rubio (Second Permanent Guest Artist/Guest Teacher) is SNB’s second Permanent Guest Artist as of May 2005. He has danced professionally for some 30 years. Domingo has danced with the Joffrey Ballet and Ballet Hispanico and was featured in the Robert Altman film, The Company. Rubio danced the role of Maxfield Parrish in SNB’s, A Painter’s Love Story and is a featured artist in SNB’s Dancing By the River and annual ballet classics.
Sam Weber (First Permanent Guest Artist/ Guest Teacher) is SNB’s first Permanent Guest Artist and is a founding member of the Company. He was one of the first permanent guest artists of The Reno Ballet under the direction of Rosine Bena. Weber danced with the Joffery Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Peninsula Ballet Theatre, and The Jazz Tap Ensemble. Besides being a fine ballet dancer, Weber is considered one of the greatest tap dancers in the world. He is known as “the fastest feet in tap.”
Gina Nelson (SNB Company Coordinator for Carson City and SNB Board Member) is originally from Napa Valley, Calif., and a long-time supporter of the arts and arts education. Gina worked as a crisis prevention specialist in a day treatment elementary school and was a counselor/teacher in a non-public school for at-risk boys.
Steven M. Porter (SNB Board President/SNB CEO) is a long-time devotee of the arts. Originally from the East Coast, Steve was raised with love and devotion to all the arts.
Cathy Mercer (SNB Company Coordinator for Reno/Managing Director/Board Member) grew up in Carson City and is a former dancer with a long-time devotion to the art form.
Ananda Bena-Weber (Associate Director, Dance Artist/ Ballerina/Principal/Teacher) is a principal dancer and NY award-winning artist and the Associate Director of the Sierra Nevada Ballet and a founding member. She has danced professionally as a soloist with the Reno Ballet when it was formed in 1994/95 and 1996. She danced with Perspectives Dance Theatre and Fascinating Rhythm Productions. She has appeared as a featured soloist with Sam Weber performing in Morton Gould’s “Concerto for Tap Dancer and Orchestra” throughout the SF Bay Area. She has appeared in principal roles in several original dance works such as Take Me To The River and Blue Rondo, and classics such as Les Sylphides, Romeo and Juliet, and Paquita.
Rosine Bena (Founder and Artistic Director/Master Teacher)
Sophia Riella (Trainee) was born in Truckee, Calif. She started ballet at the age of two with Sherrie Petersen, Sierra Ballet School and continued there for six years while also studying Irish and Scottish Dance with Lindsey Marccaci in Lake Tahoe and at Truckee Dance Factory doing competition dance. She has also studied classical music, composing, and piano with Elaine Courtney and has studied voice with Stephanie McMoy.
Erin Garman (First Year Company) began dancing at the age of 12 at Scene Stealers Theatre Arts where she trained in jazz, tap, lyrical, musical theatre, and ballet. She later began training with Fascinating Rhythm School of Performing Arts where she continued training in many styles and at Sierra Nevada Ballet Academy where she first met Rosine Bena, and started getting more serious about ballet, also dancing with Spiral Ballet.
Maya Macias (Trainee) was born in Houston, Texas into a military family. While her family was stationed in Memphis, Tennessee, at age two and a half years old, Maya began studying dance at the Children’s Ballet Theater because she wanted to go to “ballerina school. “ Maya continued her ballet training at Space Coast Ballet and when she was six years old, she began performing with Space Coast Ballet in the Nutcracker.
Olivia Mann (SNB Summer Demi Soloist) began studying at the age of four at Dallas Metropolitan Ballet, and the Dallas Ballet Center and later trained at Booker T. Washington for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Heather Rodriguez (Trainee) started dancing at nine years old in Corpus Christi, Texas. She continued studying Ballet, Contemporary, and Jazz throughout her childhood with Corpus Christi Concert Ballet.