Fourth Great Salt Lake Fringe opens in new Gateway venue to satisfying effect

NOTE: This is the first of two parts about this year’s Great Salt Lake Fringe, which includes reviews of three shows. Part II will highlight reviews of four other shows. For its fourth year, the Great Salt Lake Fringe festival (Aug. 2- Aug. 12) is testing its new venue space at the Gateway shopping center … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2018: Peggy Dolkas’ Empatizzare will premiere as festival dance commission in Ruuddances concert with Ballet West artists

One of dance’s most powerful functions is its capacity to express something so profoundly that the audience watching it connects to it immediately. As we have listened to the voices of the #MeToo movement that always have been there but suddenly gained the frequency and volume which has asked us to empathize on a deeper … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2018: Dance’s major presence includes Children’s Dance Theatre, Repertory Dance Theatre, SALT Contemporary Dance, The Bboy Federation

Dance has a monumental presence at this year’s Utah Arts Festival. There are the daily performances of BANDALOOP, the phenomenal vertical dance company from Oakland, California; a June 22 performance of RUUDDANCES featuring Ballet West and Ballet West Academy performers who will present classic and contemporary ballet works including the festival’s dance commission by Peggy … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2018: Grand preview of 42nd annual festival’s pop-up city of art, culture

In the 44 hours over the four days in which the 42nd Utah Arts Festival (June 21-24) will be open to the public, so many activities and performances will be available that only the savviest planner attending every minute of that time will be able, at best, to sample a respectable share of what each … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2018: Marc Santos’ The Spirit of Dance photographic exhibition among visual arts highlights presented at The City Library

Of all the performing arts genres, dance is the most intimidating when it comes to photographs that truly represent the individual’s artistic expression of skilled movement. Dance is an ethereal art, even in its growing story-telling power which has dominated 21st century works. Accomplished dancers create marvelous geometric spaces of lines, angles, dimensions and planes … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2018: BANDALOOP raises vertical dance bar in artistic excellence

Since its last appearance in 2013 at the Utah Arts Festival, BANDALOOP has expanded its international portfolio of vertical dance works to breathtaking new levels of artistic altitude. Collaborating with GoPro, BANDALOOP has just released a new short film about its 2017 performance at the CAFe Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival (see below), which captures perfectly … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2018: Making friends, finding fresh twists in every festival venue

Before gates open on June 21 for the 42nd Utah Arts Festival, Karen Major, who worked as a paralegal for many years, already will have created a calendar of activities, performances, films and literary events that she and her husband, Steve Sayer, who retired after working as an executive with the Electrolux group, will hang … Read more

Spring review roundup: Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, NOVA Chamber Music Series, Samba Fogo, PYGmalion Productions

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

World, U.S. premieres highlight recent spring productions of Sackerson, Repertory Dance Theatre, NOVA Chamber Music Series

This spring has blossomed with numerous adventurous concerts and performances, including several world and U.S. premieres, with works presented by the Repertory Dance Theatre, Sackerson and NOVA Chamber Music Series. SACKERSON: SCARLET For a small theatrical company without a permanent home, Sackerson has managed consistently to electrify the Salt Lake City performing arts scene with … Read more

Samba Fogo’s Ouça promises to be exuberant, gregarious visual, listening experience

The guitarist Andre Feriante wrote that we “live in silence.” In finding his natural pulse as a composer, he believes “music that is aware of the gates of silence can cause you to see more of where you really live.” Music that inspires contemplation and heightened senses can take many forms – introspective and quiet … Read more