Dance

Meeting feral, ferocious, paganistic expectations: Voodoo Theatre Company’s Utah premiere of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation made for sizzling summer fare

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A show-stopping moment in the Voodoo Theatre Company’s Utah premiere production of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation comes when Ashlee, who is just coming into her teen years, delivers the mother of all monologues that any adolescent girl could ever dream of speaking. Running approximately three and a half pages in the script, Ashlee knocks the … Read more

Backstage at the 2024 Utah Arts Festival: Emerging Artists will be at Wordfest, The Round,Festival Stages; Artist Marketplace; Fear No Film program

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For the third year in a row, the Utah Arts Festival is highlighting its Emerging Artists program, which has institutionalized broadly the experiences of newcomers to UAF and how their presence is adding to and reshaping the next chapters of Utah’s arts and cultural evolution. This year’s representative artists are in the Artist Marketplace, dance, … Read more

Backstage at the 2024 Utah Arts Festival: Street theater returns on a large scale, with Voodoo Productions

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Before the pandemic, street theater, roaming stiltwalkers, and aerial artists were part of the Utah Arts Festival  experience and audiences scrambled whenever there was a performance either along the south-facing glass wall of the City Library or along the crescent arch or in the heart of the festival grounds. In 2014, Australia’s Strange Fruit using … Read more

Backstage at the 2024 Utah Arts Festival: Numerous fresh highlights for the 48th edition, which runs June 28-30

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Utah Review begins its preview coverage today of the 48th Utah Arts Festival, which will be held June 28-30 (noon to 11 p.m. on June 28-30) on the Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City. As this is the state’s largest multidisciplinary arts and cultural gathering each year, The Utah Review considers … Read more

Asian Voices front and center in Ballet West’s 6th Choreographic Festival, set for SLC June 5-8, and Kennedy Center, June 18-23

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Ballet West’s 60th anniversary season has been simultaneously a celebration of its groundbreaking legacy in American dance and an exploration of fresh artistic possibilities going into the second quarter of the 21st century.  Phil Chan, an internationally known choreographer whose organization Final Bow for Yellowface initially engaged the ballet world’s artistic gatekeepers to resist treating … Read more

Subdued, intimate Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Ascent closes with perfect treat, featuring Storyograph and live original music

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Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s 60th anniversary season has been a unique experience. Last fall, Groundworks, its superb season opener which honored its founders (Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury) reminded us of legacies, which define why we cherish and prize something for its excellence and its value in the community. High school dancers were the focus of … Read more

Wow, wow and wow: Repertory Dance Theatre’s Gamut closes 58th season on a thrilling emotional note

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In 2021, when the Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) premiered Ihsan Rustem’s ebullient Hallelujah Junction, it was the evening program’s closing work and it drew a rousing roar of applause from the audience. Last week, Hallelujah Junction opened RDT’s Gamut show, a performance that immediately guaranteed a record mark was about to be set for a … Read more

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company set to close 60th anniversary season with Ascent, including two world premieres, live performance by Salt Lake Electric Ensemble

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Set to close out a superb 60th anniversary season, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Ascent show is pulling out all the stops for a thriller. There are two world premieres: Chapters of Being by Charlotte Boye-Christensen, who served as the company’s artistic director for 11 years, beginning in 2002, and Storyograph by current artistic director Daniel Charon. … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre’s Gamut to feature world premiere commission by Yusha-Marie Sorzano, along with works by Ihsan Rustem, Lar Lubovitch

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For Gamut, its spring show, Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) will present Solfège, a new commission from choreographer Yusha-Marie Sorzano, who is making her first appearance with the company, along with two outstanding audience-pleasers from the repertoire: Ihsan Rustem’s Hallelujah Junction and Lar Lubovitch’s Marimba. Performances are scheduled daily at 7:30 p.m. April 11-13, in the … Read more

A magnificent NOVA Chamber Music Series concert to Dance in the Desert

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NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Dance in the Desert concert (March 10) was perhaps the season’s most challenging for the musicians but the set of five magnificently performed works, which included a world premiere, also was among the most easily accessible for the audience. For the concert finale, the world premiere of Laura Kaminsky’s Desert Portal … Read more