In between its 54th and 55th seasons, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company traveled in May to Mongolia and South Korea, as part of DanceMotion USA℠’s cultural diplomacy program. In Mongolia, the dancers and company staff taught master classes in contemporary dance and improvisational technique at a state university as well as the police academy. In South … Read more
We rely on skilled journalists and editors to make sense of a volatile news cycle. Forty years ago, Umberto Eco wrote about the artist who protests through form in The Open Work. In part, he suggested that the artist, while rejecting the current order and system, also accepts the world in its crisis terms. The … Read more
A busy spring season for many Utah based performing arts company has produced memorable performances. RIRIE-WOODBURY DANCE COMPANY: RETURN In Daniel Charon’s Return, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company created a new realm of dance theater by imagining the six dancers aboard a starship on a galactic journey, one of the most conventional elements of science fiction … Read more
Many of the best literary works of science fiction, when they touch on entropy in complex systems, technologies and problems of existential significance, excel in how they render the human community of characters in genuine emotional and spiritual attributes. In the starkest environment, there is an overwhelming hunger, as portrayed literally and metaphorically. This was … Read more
NOVA CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES: ON THE THRESHOLD OF WINTER, CHAMBER OPERA, MICHAEL HERSCH Michael Hersch is an extraordinary composer. His chamber opera titled On the Threshold of Winter, which recently was presented in an astonishing production by the NOVA Chamber Music Series, makes as huge demands on audience members as it does on the soprano … Read more
In the middle of a season flanked by two programs of world premieres of dance works that expand the genre’s story-telling abilities, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company will present Strata, encompassing some of the best known works of Alwin Nikolais, one of the 20th century’s most forward-looking choreographers. It has been 25 years since Nikolais died … Read more
While the competing theoretical, philosophical and ontological discussions of dance’s unique status as a performing arts form are too complex and dense to handle or digest in a compact peroration, it is sufficient to acknowledge the extraordinary happenings in the world of dance that challenge conventional ideals. Choreographers and performers are probing new territories that … Read more
The eyes stream data to the brain through something like two million fiber bundles of nerves. Consider the exponential aspects of perception when you multiply this kind of density by the fact that not only does the brain do this all the time, but the millions of bits of information streaming through your mind at … Read more
In a quick glance, one realizes just how prominent dance is at the Utah Arts Festival and how it encapsulates the deep roots of Utah’s incredible dance culture. Salt Lake City is home to one of the most active dance performing arts spectra, even accounting for the city’s size. In addition to Samba Fogo, Salt … Read more
Later this month Utah-based contemporary dance and design company NOW-ID brings their fourth major performance, EXODUS, first to Salt Lake City, and then to Copenhagen. This year’s production keeps with the company’s mission of collaboration as well as stretching creative boundaries and genres by partnering with the Danish Music Ensemble Figura and creating a collaboration … Read more