My party of four just saw College of Southern Nevada Fine Arts Department's Spring Dance Concert 2012 at the Nicholas J. Horn Theatre on the CSN's Cheyenne Campus. Featured were some short interpretative modern dance sketches and the ballet "Xenia Goes West." Besides being a fine production of modern dance and a moving ballet that told the true story of Madame Xenia Chlistowa, the teen-aged Prima Ballerina of the Kirov Ballet who was eventually captured and escaped a concentration camp to resume her professional career and ultimately reach the United States, the auditorium itself was a fine venue to host such a production. A nice fabric curtain rose to reveal a spacious, clean stage with a lip that rested below all audience sight lines except for the first three rows of seats. I was seated in the fifth row, and had a great view of the entire stage. There, corps de ballet members and featured performers danced before a large screen that depicted filmed black-and-white images of uniformed Nazi soldiers on the move into Russia, and some Holocaust concentration camp footage as a backdrop.
Sound and lighting were good, and seats were mostly comfortable, with cushioned surfaces but hard arm rests made of wood. About 1,000 seats filled the capacious auditorium that impressively soared to the heavens, albeit with no balcony.
It was a different and enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night.