ENTERTAINMENT: UNLV salute runs the gamut
When you have the late Robert Goulet and the very current band The Killers honored on the same program, you can believe UNLV’s College of Fine Arts captured the full range of Las Vegas in its annual Nevada Entertainer/Artist Hall of Fame Awards.
Entertainer Clint Holmes, choreographer Vassili Sulich and architect Tony Marnell also received "The Sidney" (named after late movie director George Sidney) in Thursday ceremonies honoring cultural contributions to the state.
It wasn’t a popularity contest, but the audience on hand at Artemus Ham Hall was visibly weighted with people happy to see Sulich, the co-founder of Nevada Dance Theatre (Now Nevada Ballet Theatre) welcomed back to the campus.
Sulich, who now lives in Rio de Janero, departed the company on controversial terms in March 1997. It’s easy to forget now — given the company’s impressive headquarters near the Summerlin Library — that a big issue of the day was the troupe being nudged off campus, and questions about whether Sulich’s salary as a university instructor was an indirect subsidy for the ballet.
“If we didn’t have that (20-year residency), I wonder if that company would be here today,” Sulich noted in his acceptance speech.
Jeffrey Koep, dean of the Fine Arts college, also owned up to indirect subsidies for The Killers. In its nascent days, school officials turned a blind eye to the group coming on campus to practice at night in university rehearsal studios, he explained.
“It has paid off,” Koep added.
“We’re babies among these giants,” Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci told the audience.
Vannucci, a UNLV music major, is the main tie back to the campus. He and bassist Mark Stoermer accepted the award in the absence of singer Brandon Flowers and guitarist Dave Deuning. Vannucci told the audience that Flowers is still laying down vocals for the band’s new album. That sounds very last minute, considering it’s due in stores Nov. 25 and Rolling Stone already has offered comment on some of the tracks.
