Many hosts dream of the perfect guest who is invited to visit their home. For the Repertory Dance Theatre, choreographer Danielle Agami and seven dancers from the ate9 dance company in Los Angeles are more than perfect guests. During the morning hours, Agami and her dancers have been leading classes for RDT’s SummerDance16, its annual … Read more
One of the festival’s most anticipated offerings, Cimarrón, a Grammy-nominated ensemble from Colombia, will perform Joropo and Llanera music (June 26, 8:15 p.m., Festival Stage) as well as Zapateado (Stomp Llanero dance), accompanied by percussive strings and maracas, dynamic vocals and bracing pace. The group also will offer music and dance workshops, including basic techniques … Read more
Each year, the Utah Arts Festival is the most effective barometer of the strength, impact and potential of arts in the state. At 40, the festival is really a cosmopolitan miniature city in which more than 80,000 people will sample from the largest slate of programming, artists and performers ever presented at one time in … Read more
In addition to the premiere of a dance composition by Ballet West’s Adrian Fry and performances by Christopher Ruud’s Stars of Ballet West (watch for a preview next week), three historically significant Utah dance companies will present performances to help commemorate the festival’s 40th anniversary. Many of the works were given either world or Utah … Read more
For this week’s spring program, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company will offer three dance compositions – including two world premieres with original soundscapes in music – that imbue the simple Black Box Theatre venue in the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts with fresh cultural and emotional energy. For both performers and audience members, the works … Read more
Choreographer Francisco Gella sees the upcoming Regalia event to celebrate the Repertory Dance Theatre’s 50th anniversary as the dance version of Project Runway, Chopped or Top Chef. On Feb. 20, Gella and three other choreographers – Marina Harris, David Marchant, Andy Noble, all alumni of RDT – will have four hours to create their own … Read more
There was a lot to celebrate in 2015 with the Utah Enlightenment, a creative movement where courage defines some of the state’s most interesting and independent artists. Indeed, the Enlightenment disturbs and disrupts the peculiar Utah penchant to be civil and docile or to be content with platitudes and pleasantries. Artists are reclaiming Utah’s unique … Read more
Three world premieres – all embracing celebration in various forms of dance movement and music – will mark Revel, one of the concerts marking the Repertory Dance Theatre’s 50th anniversary. The program includes a new work by Bill Evans, a nationally known dance artist and choreographer who was one of the earliest dancers in RDT’s … Read more
At 75, Bill Evans is eternally youthful in his artistic energy and passion. Returning this summer to Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), where he danced and choreographed new works during the early years of RDT’s revolutionary experiment as an ‘artistic democracy’ shortly after it was formed in 1966, he is enjoying the homecoming immensely. “I … Read more
In addition to the premieres of two new dance works by Ballet West’s Christopher Ruud, four local pillars of Utah’s expansive dance community will present a variety of works encompassing the breadth and depth of dance movement vocabularies at this year’s Utah Arts Festival. Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, June 26, 6 p.m., Festival Stage For the … Read more