SNB’s Brew, Brats and Ballet Features Strong Dance Partnerships

Published March 7, 2025

SNB’s Brew, Brats and Ballet Features Strong Dance Partnerships

This month I am honored that Sierra Nevada Ballet’s annual Brew Brats and Ballet (BBB) production is a celebration of my 51 years of choreography. The SNB professional company dancers (with SNB Board approval) elected to dance SNB’s BBB Program as a “gift” and to personally work together to make this exciting event a fundraiser for the SNB company. Each dancer has contacted their favorite business to help with donations in support of SNB.

After viewing several of my 76 shorter choreographic works, Associate Artistic Director Ananda Bena-Weber and I decided on showcasing four of my works. Two of the works feature pas de deux (a dance for a man and a woman).

Filer image element — *Anthony McMenamy and Sara Weir rehearsing Shape Of A Pair for SNB's Brew, Brats and Ballet (photo by SNB)*

Pas de deux has always been my favorite part of ballet. My parents were both ballet dancers and I learned to love pas de deux from when I was a small child through dancing with my father. My father taught me that moving together with another human being as a unit is one of the most spiritually uplifting magical experiences life can offer.

I was fortunate to have danced with over 200 different partners in my 28-year professional ballet career but formed long-term favorite dance partnerships with three of my partners: Sam Weber; Horacio Cifuentes, and Simon Dow.

Sometimes a spiritual connection in a partnership grows with time and sometimes (in rare cases) the connection is immediate. When a dancer has the opportunity to perform with the same partner repeatedly, the ease and flow of movement becomes better and better. The magic that happens through a beautiful dance partnership passes from the dancers to the audience members, and all of us are enriched through spiritual connectedness.

SNB is pleased to be able to offer this type of opportunity to dancers and audiences. This year’s BBB features the wonderful partnership of Sara Weir and Anthony McMenamy, and Anneliese Welsh and Davie Johnson. Sara and Anthony began dancing together two years ago, and it has been a creative journey and a pleasure to watch their partnership grow and improve. When they first began dancing together, it was trial and error, whereas they now move as an experienced, graceful unit. Sara said, “At first, I used to tell Anthony where I needed his support, but now he knows before I say anything.”

Anneliese and Davie moved together as one unit from the moment they met and started dancing together. Davie said, “Dancing with Anneliese from the start was as if we were a married couple who had been dancing together for years.”

In this year’s Brew, Brats and Ballet both couples are featured in the Gershwin Allegro which I choreographed for SNB in 2005. I love the music of Gershwin and tried to capture the flavor of his allegro in this short work for nine dancers. Anthony and Sara perform a pas de deux with some conflict while Davie and Anneliese perform a lighthearted comic pas de deux.

Anthony and Sara will also be featured together in Shape of a Pair, which is a humorous pas de deux to the music of Eric Satie that I choreographed with Sam Weber in 1980 for Peninsula Ballet Theatre in the SF Bay Area. Anneliese and Davie will be featured in a new contemporary pas de deux that Alexander Beiber has choreographed as a gift for SNB, especially for the BBB program. Alex said, “It is wonderful to work with Davie and Anneliese. They inspired me to create a pas de deux about relationships.”

Anthony, Sara, Davie, and Anneliese will perform in two trios from the ballet G.S.& R for 14 dancers which I first choreographed in 1979 to the music of Edvard Grieg.

This year’s Brew Brats and Ballet has something for every taste, including a short performance by Ananda Bena-Weber, a contemporary piece by Western Nevada Performing Arts Center, and even a comic excerpt showcasing some of our young SNB Academy student dancers from the full-length story ballet, Twelfth Night-A Ballet Noir, which SNB will perform this summer.

Join us for an exciting performance and fundraising event, and experience the joy of partnership in SNB’s Brew Brats and Ballet on March 15, 2025 at the Brewery Arts Center in Carson City and March 21 and 22, 2025 at the Reno Little Theater.

For ticket information and information about SNB and the SNB Academy visit www.sierranevadaballet.org or call 775-360-8663