This year’s Artist Marketplace at the Utah Arts Festival is by all measures the strongest in terms of quality and originality in aesthetics and technique. Of the 615 artists who applied to be in this year’s event, 169 were selected: 47 from Utah and 122 from outside of the state. More importantly: 59 are making … Read more
The Utah Arts Festival’s opening day headliners set the tone and crank the momentum for what will be a comprehensive tour of many musical styles and influences for the next four days. These include Karén Hakobyan, a laureate of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and Micky and The Motorcars, one of the most respected Texas bands … Read more
A blizzard and musical inspirations from two great composers and the unique therapeutic sounds of the handpan inspire this year’s newest Utah Arts Festival commissions for music and dance. The chamber music commission is sponsored by The Mandel Foundation. Robert Honstein, Juno, June 27, 4 p.m., City Library Auditorium Robert Honstein, 35, is in the … Read more
In addition to the premieres of two new dance works by Ballet West’s Christopher Ruud, four local pillars of Utah’s expansive dance community will present a variety of works encompassing the breadth and depth of dance movement vocabularies at this year’s Utah Arts Festival. Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, June 26, 6 p.m., Festival Stage For the … Read more
For the last several years, the Utah Short Film of the Year competition at the Utah Arts Festival has cemented its place as a signature event, with the City Library auditorium packed. The quality of filmmaking in the state has advanced to a standard that is giving Utah its best branding option as an area … Read more
For the 13th annual Fear No Film portion of the Utah Arts Festival, curator Topher Horman has crafted seven sequences of presentations in the most intriguing interpretations of the various sources and origins of impulses that drive the making of and response to each film. Each program is described below. Filmmaker Impulse (June 26, 10 … Read more
Carl Jung had much to say about the autonomous nature of the creative impulse in humans. He acknowledged readily the social significance of the creative process. In 1922, he wrote about the psychological phenomenon of creativity: “Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthralls and overpowers, while at the same time … Read more
The three best words to describe the 39th annual Utah Arts Festival: big, blazing and passionate. And when the gates open on June 25th to Utah’s largest arts and cultural gathering in its central downtown location, festival visitors will see many artists, performers, authors, filmmakers, creative producers, and others – familiar and new – who … Read more
Y not you, why can’t I—you in this city at closing hour, this strange going improvised ravine, summer rain among the living. Y not towards your story, green indecipherable shadows, faces I want would, longing, to cathedral— Y not two voices that diminuendo, the point at which what is revealed, is what leaves— Sean Thomas … Read more
Last February at The Leonardo for its second “lovingly competitive storytelling night,” as Giuliana Serena describes it, The Bee: True Stories from The Hive asked participants to tell stories on the theme of attachment. As customary, Serena and her co-founder, Francesca Rosa, set the contours for the theme broadly, and some stories certainly were reflecting … Read more