Dancers become new ‘stars’ of the Strip

There's a new breed of star on the Strip, and a new means of promoting the Las Vegas shows they work for.

Now that Cher's new opus is up and running at Caesars Palace, director-choreographer Doriana Sanchez is off to begin a fourth season on the Fox talent contest "So You Think You Can Dance," starting May 22. Thanks to the public's current fascination with dance, Sanchez is no longer an anonymous face behind the scenes.

At show tapings, she may again run into Wade Robson, who also choreographs numbers for the competing contestants. But he is not mentioned on the show's official Web site this time, and he is pretty busy trying to launch the "Criss Angel -- Believe" show at Luxor.

Robson has a role in the Cirque du Soleil magic show, because it is "essentially only dancers and characters," says Cirque spokeswoman Anita Nelving. "Believe" will be the first Las Vegas Cirque where its creators are "talking about not having any acrobatics in the show at all."

Cirque also is putting together a still-unnamed Elvis-themed production for CityCenter. But choreographer Vincent Paterson is becoming more familiar to TV viewers as a judge on Bravo's "Step It Up & Dance." By the time the show opens, Paterson could be as famous as Padma Lakshmi or one of those "Queer Eye" guys, though he's already known within the industry for staging pop tours by Madonna and Michael Jackson.

And over at Wynn Las Vegas, none other than Maksim Chmerkovskiy of "Dancing with the Stars" fame has been adding a ballroom dance element to "Le Reve."

As Nelving notes, it can't hurt for a Las Vegas show to have input from "someone new and fresh and young, especially when there's so much focus on dance right now."

"We all come from a dance background. I think that really helps in the way we understand timing and we understand how things should move to music," says Sanchez.

All of Cher's dancers are cross-trained as aerialists or bungee performers. "I think I was the first person in rock 'n' roll to put in bungees and aerial arts, and that was in 1989," she says.

Sanchez met Cher when the singer spotted her in the movie "Dirty Dancing." "She was getting ready to do some music videos and asked someone to find me so I could give her dance lessons."

Sanchez did, at Cher's house. "We became instant friends, and we've been like sisters ever since," she says.

"We laugh about it because really, we're just girls.," she adds. "We want to make things that are really cool and sparkly.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.