SC16 supercomputing conference provided real-life experiences of collaboration, engagement for everyone on STEM spectrum

For Salt Lake City’s West High School students Nicole Andrade and Kelsie Muhlestein, touring the massive exhibit floor at last week’s SC16 global high-performance computing conference whet their appetites for a STEM field major in college. Kincaid Savoie, one of the University of Utah’s SupercompUtes team members who competed in a 48-hour competition that really … Read more

Welcome to the union! Plan-B Theatre’s One Big Union is a Utah Enlightenment jewel

Come, all ye workers, from every land, Come join in the grand Industrial band. Then we our share of this earth shall demand. Come on! Do your share, lend a hand! – Joe Hill At the beginning of One Big Union, the cast of six actors walks through the audience, welcoming members to the evening’s … Read more

SC16’s Salt Lake City conference focuses on diversifying world of high-performance computing

As important as science and technology is to the more than 11,000 professionals, researchers, students and teachers from more than 55 nations who are convening in Salt Lake City this week’s SC16 global supercomputing conference, the focus on women and minorities in the supercomputing world and STEM fields is being expanded significantly in this year’s … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre’s Brio holiday concert to showcase comedic gems of Shapiro and Smith

In the 20-year relationship that choreographer Joanie Smith of Shapiro and Smith Dance has had with the Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), dancers have performed many works that bear her company’s distinctive joyous, witty, uninhibited, physically demanding artistic brand. Smith and her husband, Danial Shapiro (who died in 2006), came to Salt Lake City in the … Read more

Spy Hop’s 14th annual PitchNic films prove student filmmakers ready for festival circuit

Impressive as expected, the recent 14th annual PitchNic short film premieres by students at Spy Hop Productions engaged an audience of nearly 500 at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts in many good questions following the screenings. More importantly, the quality of the films indicated that the student filmmakers are ready to submit their … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s newest production One Big Union highlights Joe Hill, Wobblies

In the century since Joe Hill, the Swedish immigrant miner, musician and union activist who was executed in Salt Lake City after being wrongfully convicted of murder, there have been only a very few plays about this figure who recently has emerged from the footnotes of history in relevant ways. Last year, John McCutcheon, an … Read more

Utah Film Center’s 6th Peek Award honors outstanding Life, Animated documentary

In Life Animated, the magnificent documentary about a young man diagnosed with autism as a child who learns how to communicate with his family and express his emotions and thoughts by immersing himself in the world of Disney animation, Owen Suskind is unquestionably the leading man in this award-winning film. In Owen’s story, that plain … Read more

Spy Hop’s 14th annual PitchNic premiere will highlight art of pitching good film stories

This year’s student filmmakers in Spy Hop Productions’ PitchNic program quickly mastered the art of pitching compelling story ideas for their projects. Inspired by her background in dance and an interest in physical therapy and kinesiology, Mary Nejatifar pitched the idea of following three older adults with Parkinson’s disease who participate in a new program of … Read more

SB Dance’s All Saints Salon promises artistic, adult-only Halloween haunted house experience

The haunted house enterprise for Halloween in Salt Lake City is nationally known, including Fear Factory that Travel Channel named as one of the best of its kind in 2015. This weekend, SB Dance will take 80 audience members (ages 21 and older) in each of four performances through All Saints Salon, its own interactive … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s The Edible Complex excels as imaginative children’s theater

Children’s theater – or precisely, solid, artistically satisfying stories told with imaginative theatrical flair for young audiences – is often underappreciated for what it can achieve. Not only does it engage children to begin hopefully a lifelong appreciation of live theater but it also can inspire them to think about their own experiences with the … Read more