On a recent Tuesday night at Salvage Bar & Lounge in downtown
Los Angeles, Bertha Suarez Blankenship, a former member of the
National Ballet of Cuba, rose up on her pointe shoes and
commandeered the venue's small platform stage. She proceeded to
dance a technically precise excerpt from "Swan Lake" and as
cheers erupted, Shana Blake Hill, a tall, dark-haired opera
singer, strode onstage in a bustier and fishnets and belted out
an aria from "Carmen."  For about two hours, members of the
newly formed Blankenship Cabaret Theatre entertained some 50
people with an eclectic array of punchy song and dance numbers.
All the while, Mark Blankenship ran the show's sound, schmoozed
with the bar's patrons between acts and in general played the
part of the enthusiastic arts impresario to the hilt.  "Think of
me as your arts advocate," Blankenship says of the self that he
fully embraced upon resigning from his career as a civil rights
attorney in 2006. "I will tear down walls if I need to in order
for artists to pursue the