Eva Longoria honored to be at top of dance card at Nevada Ballet gala

By John Katsilometes

Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 | 10:54 a.m.

Nevada Ballet Theatre reaches high for its Woman of the Year honorees. Paula Abdul, at the height of her “American Idol” fame (and during the filming of her short-lived Bravo reality TV series “Hey Paula”), was the 2007 honoree. Dance icon Twyla Tharp was honored in 2008, followed by Bette Midler (during her headlining run at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace) in 2009, Flamingo headliner Marie Osmond in 2010 and Priscilla Presley last year.

This has been a conscious move to draw from the honorees’ fame along with their philanthropic efforts. Honorees, typically, are graceful in their acceptance of the award. Osmond and Presley were particularly grateful to receive the honor as a way to promote arts programs in Las Vegas, where such extracurricular activities have seen funding cut over the past several years. Eva Longoria said her early interest in dance helped hone her abstract thinking skills, performing “eight-counts” that not only helped in school, but also reinforced her confidence to perform in front of an audience.

“I have always danced,” Longoria said at the tail end of the red carpet walk leading to Saturday’s annual Black and White gala at Aria. “Dance programs promote abstract thinking, which is so important in developing real-life, problem-solving skills.”

Longoria says she wasn’t sure just how significant the award was until she committed.

“It’s funny; I got a call that they wanted to honor me, and I got really weird and nervous. I don’t like to be awarded for my philanthropic work that I actually enjoy and I get more back from, so I finally said yes,” Longoria said. “Then everybody started talking about what a big deal this was, and I didn’t know that the award was Woman of the Year, which is a lot of pressure (laughs).”

One of the city’s enduring arts institutions, NBT was co-founded in 1972 by Nancy Houssels and Vassili Sulich, and performances featured ballet-trained dancers at Strip shows like “Folies Bergere,” where Sulich starred as principal dancer. Those shows were staged at UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre. The new NBT home will be the grandiose Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

Longoria did say after reading the list of honorees, she found, “I think am the youngest.”

Longoria plans to finish filming this final season of “Desperate Housewives,” perform charity work for Apac (the city and district in Northern Uganda), then fly to Jerusalem, Israel, to perform charity work before turning her attention to the presidential campaign.

“I’m going to be dedicating a lot of time to the Obama campaign,” said Longoria, who supported Obama in 2008. “I will be very busy this year.”

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