Expression abounds at Dance in the Desert Festival

About 30 dancers gathered onstage, and Cynthia DuFault stood in front.

“Get down, get funky, get loose,” she instructed. “It’s like a vertical worm.”

So the dancers, participants in a modern dance class, wiggled. DuFault turned on Asian-folk beats, and the dancers swayed with their arms outstretched.

DuFault, a dance teacher at the State University of New York at Potsdam, taught Saturday’s modern dance class as part of the Las Vegas Dance in the Desert Festival. The festival, which celebrated 19 years this weekend at Summerlin Library Performing Arts Center, featured more than 30 performances on Friday and Saturday from local, regional and national solo artists and groups.

The festival, free and open to the public, was funded partly by the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

“I just have a really good feeling about this festival,” director Kelly Roth said. He and his wife, DuFault, established the New Dance Foundation for the Arts Inc., a nonprofit supporting activities such as the festival.

“It’s a labor of love,” Roth said. “Dance makes the world a better place; it’ll change part of the world and make it better.”

Onstage Saturday, dancers balanced on their left legs, while stretching their right legs in the air. They slid across the stage floor in multicolored tights and tank tops.

As DuFault explained the movements for one of the dances, she asked the class to imagine a huge pumpkin.

“Use your arms to carve through the space of the pumpkin,” she said. They did.

Amber Robins, one of the students, said it was her fourth time coming to the festival. Robins, 46, has been dancing since she was 5 and came from Phoenix, where she works for a dance company. She performed Friday night and scheduled another performance on Saturday. Robins studied dance at Arizona State University, where Roth and DuFault also studied.

“It’s kind of like being home,” she said.

Kamell Johnson, 10, started dancing at 5 but has pursued it consecutively for the past three years. The Las Vegas native was the youngest in Saturday’s class.

“My legs were burning,” she said with a smile. “It teaches you something; and when you dance, you feel good.”

Nicole Olson, 46, also traveled from Phoenix for Saturday’s performance. She has danced her whole life.

“As artists, we are constantly learning,” she said. “We’re never done educating our mind, body, our creative force.”

DuFault said she redesigned the class to be flexible for all levels. In the audience sat many people she studied dance with.

Many of the movements and combinations DuFault learned from previous instructors — some whom have died.

“It was a bit of a tribute,” she said. “And to see my colleagues’ faces light up when they remembered the combinations.”

Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @brianarerick on Twitter.