Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Review:

Strip veteran’s musical dark, ambitious, meandering

Raw

Publicity Photo

Evi performs in “Raw Talent Live,” a musical that premiered Friday at the Sahara. The show’s creator sees it as an underground production that’s “perfect for the Sahara.”

If You Go

  • What: “Raw Talent Live”
  • When: 8:30 p.m. Thursdays through Tuesdays; dark Wednesdays
  • Where: Sahara
  • Tickets: $79.95; 737-2515, www.rawtalent.com

ND Durr arrived in Las Vegas in 2004 leading a troupe of 50 Cuban performers for her lively musical “Havana Night Club.”

During its two-year run at the Stardust, the show generated international headlines not only because of its artistic efforts but also because of the political drama surrounding the dancers and singers and musicians who eventually sought and were granted political asylum.

The colorful production, a waltz through the history of Latin dance, ended in 2006 and the cast dispersed and Durr went into creative seclusion.

“I had to disappear,” she says. “It was a very stressful time.”

During her disappearance she created a new production, possibly more spectacular than the first one.

“Raw Talent Live” premiered Friday at the Sahara.

“I rented a warehouse here in Las Vegas and for almost two years worked on this show,” she says. “I called the warehouse my ‘black box.’ I spent two years in the black box.”

What emerged from the box was a 75-minute musical that’s hard to describe.

If Vegas audiences are looking for paradise in their shows, be warned that when they step into the Sahara showroom they are entering purgatory. This energetic production is a nihilistic, avant garde dance through the looking glass into Dante’s inferno, a netherworld filled with tormented, anguished souls who are living a nightmare.

Durr’s creative spirit is very much alive and we applaud her courage, daring to put on a production that probably has little chance of success in Las Vegas, where the big draw currently is the vanilla-flavored Donny & Marie show at the Flamingo.

“Raw” spices up the bland entertainment diet in Vegas with Tabasco.

The show’s mood is smoky art house, but instead of smoke they fire up the fog machines. And instead of a cast of four or five in an intimate art house in New York’s Greenwich Village or on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, the setting is a broad stage where the intimacy gives way to a spectacle featuring 70 dancers performing a danse macabre.

The show has tons of energy, but the energy is largely dissipated because of the unfocused nature of the production.

There are too many diverse elements, with modern dance colliding with Latin. The show is mostly in English but is infused with Spanish. The essence of what is happening is difficult to grasp – other than the raw creativity.

This is a medium with a message that seems to be warning about the self-destructive nature of obsessing on technology and forgetting about the essence of life which, in case you don’t get it, is pounded it into your brain with subliminal messages that flash around the room on digital light boards.

Passion and freedom are at the heart of “Raw,” qualities that have guided Durr throughout her life.

Whether they can survive in Vegas is questionable, but the creator of the show doesn’t seem too concerned.

The publicity releases call it a “high-energy experience featuring interactive live performances of the next generation of World Dance with live, original music and exclusive video illusions ... Talented and highly trained dancers, singers and musicians will take audiences on an emotional rollercoaster telling the passionate story of the ‘Laptop of Life SM’ which holds the ultimate secret the world is after. ‘Raw Talent Live,’ through visual illusion technology, will question the surreal world of modern day’s duality. Do we live the life of machine beings or are we human beings?”

It may be a show you have to see to believe, or to understand.

The concept is so arcane, the technology so intricate, Durr challenges fans to see the show.

“I tried to showcase it in the warehouse and nobody understood it,” says the show’s creator, producer, writer, director, choreographer and costume designer.

She sees it as an “underground” production.

“So I said OK, if it’s an underground production it’s perfect for the Sahara,” she says.

With a show infused with technology, it is vulnerable to technical glitches.

“That defines our slogan: ‘Obviously it does not work. Dare to see the show’” she says. “The end scene is about the world glitch when all the machines are down”

There is a story line, but we aren’t sure what it is.

“For some people the story will go one way, for others another,” she says. “But there is a story line.”

It may turn into a Brave New World for fans.

It definitely is not another “Lion King,” which is to debut at Mandalay Bay next year, replacing “Mamma Mia!”

Durr scoffs at the Disney production.

“Come on,” she says. “Everything that’s from Broadway finally gets here and it’s called a big thing. Does nobody have the guts here to create something original, that might start here and go to Broadway?”

Durr expects “Raw” to create a “new vibe” in Las Vegas – a “new buzz.”

Just as she believes a new entertainment venue she is creating at the Palazzo will alter the entertainment landscape. Her Space is scheduled to open in the spring on the third floor of the resort, overlooking the Strip.

“It’s a technological lounge, theater and coffee experience,” she says. “It will be an intimate setting based on the technology I developed for ‘Raw.’ Through technology we are creating an ambient entertainment venue.”

Headliners will perform in the theater early in the evening, and then after the show the room transforms into a nightclub featuring international DJs.

“I have a vision,” Durr says. “I want to put my vision into reality. I always say, ‘No passion, no drive.’”

And she has plenty of both.

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