Dance

Sphere: Phase One dance concert highlights outstanding work from LajaMartin, Joseph ‘jo’ Blake, The Penguin Lady Dance Collective

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The diverse, multilingual sphere of dance in Salt Lake City succeeds because choreographers and performers continuously take the risks to translate their movement into elucidating expressions that compel audiences to see dance as enhancing how we communicate about the issues, emotions and experiences that affect us. Introducing Sphere: Phase One, Natosha Washington told the audience … Read more

Speak, by Dan Higgins, set to premiere as part of Repertory Dance Theatre’s Link Series

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Perhaps the most consequential development in Salt Lake City’s outstanding modern dance scene is the uninhibited freedom of choreographers and dance artists to create movement with a potent story-telling connection. Movement languages provide multiple canvases for dancers finding their voice precisely in the way a poet, author, playwright or philosopher would approach. Add music to … Read more

Dan Higgins: A profile of an emerging choreographer in Salt Lake City

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In explaining the unrelenting discipline of training, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, “Then when the contest comes on, you have to ‘dig in’ beside your opponent, and sometimes dislocate your wrist, sprain your ankle, swallow quantities of sand, sometimes take a scourging, and along with all that get beaten. After you have considered all these … Read more

SONDERimmersive’s Thank You Theobromine is fascinating, enigmatic, captivating production

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The craft of making chocolate is a temperamental passion. Driven to capture all of its magical potential, a chocolatier pursues the creative process with an uncompromising attitude, even sometimes sacrificing what previously mattered as most familiar or cherished in their life. The chocolatier relentlessly pursues that perfect intersection of taste, texture, and purity of ingredients, … Read more

A cornucopia of kinetic performances highlight Repertory Dance Theatre’s Sounds Familiar Concert

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EDITOR’S NOTE: All photos are credited to Sharon Kain. Before recounting the overflowing cornucopia of kinetic performances that embodied Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) most recent concert Sounds Familiar, it is worth considering the aesthetic epiphany that emerged from asking a dozen choreographers to set a work of their own interpretation to some of the most … Read more

Concert roundup: Alexander Korsantia for Bachauer, Red Desert Ensemble, NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Contrasts, Samba Fogo

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Salt Lake City’s music calendar is filled regularly with concerts offering a superior level of musicianship that would be envied in any major U.S. urban cultural center. The Utah Review summarizes four concerts from the last four weeks as a sampler of what is available in the local community throughout the fall, winter and spring … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre’s Sounds Familiar concert to be double-barreled adventure of music, dance appreciation

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Anthony Tommasini, a New York Times music critic who has written some of the best-selling books about classical music, says that no one really has to be knowledgeable about the art to appreciate it. “Newcomers to other performing arts, like theater or dance, don’t seem to feel this level of intimidation. I’d encourage those who … Read more

Immersive dance-theater show set for The Chocolate Conspiracy as SONDERimmersive will open Thank You Theobromine Nov. 15

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Salt Lake City is fortunate to have the perfect trifecta – artisan chocolate, innovative choreographers and theatrical directors/producers who know how to break down the conventional walls of performance staging – that will bring Thank You Theobromine to life in one of the most intriguing offerings of the upcoming holiday season. It also is the … Read more

Samba Fogo upcoming Xiré concert to feature dances, music signifying the Candomblé tradition honoring the Orixá

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The upcoming Xiré concert by Samba Fogo will offer a different facet of Utah’s Brazilian dance and music company, which many audiences have known for their exuberant celebrations especially of Carnaval culture. The concert (with two performances Nov. 15 and Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Regent Street Black Box Theatre at the The … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre’s Inside Outside season opener is spectacular on all counts

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Each spectacular half of the Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) 54th season opener could have been a concert in itself. However, with the concert’s Inside Outside theme, part of what portends to be a fascinating season of Here and Now juxtapositions, the halves emphatically demonstrated that, in the desire to articulate a story, the language of … Read more