Backstage at the Utah Arts Festival 2022: Jamal Jackson Dance Company to present Utah premiere of 846, contemporary restaging of The Rite of Spring

Next to The Nutcracker,The Rite of Spring, with Igor Stravinsky’s music, likely is the most choreographed piece of music in Europe and the U.S. Since its 1913 premiere, on average, at least one choreographer per year has set a work based on a work that caused a riot following its debut in Paris. Many of … Read more

Backstage at the Utah Arts Festival 2022: Two of Salt Lake City’s legendary dance institutions — Repertory Dance Theatre and Tanner’s Children Dance Theatre — set to perform.

Two of Utah’s most prominent historical dance institutions will be among seven dance companies being featured this year at the Utah Arts Festival this year, signifying the enormous place that dance occupies in the area’s performing arts culture: The University of Dance Tanner Dance Program’s Children’s Dance Theatre and Repertory Dance Theatre. Tanner Children’s Dance … Read more

Backstage at the Utah Arts Festival 2022: With a mission of preservation, reverence and joyful fusion, Toubab Krewe set as one of closing day headliners

Ever so slowly but certainly, the realization is growing among musicians of all stripes and colors how unhelpful and unsatisfying the genre label of world or global music. Immediately, one recognizes how the name of Toubab Krewe supersedes the problem described above. It suggests a name that is elucidating about its musical mission and the … Read more

Backstage at the Utah Arts Festival 2022: 46th Utah Arts Festival set to return at full strength, fresh with innovative examples of creative expression

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Utah Review begins its preview coverage today of the 46th Utah Arts Festival, which will be held June 23-26 (noon to 11 p.m. on June 23-25 and noon to 9 p.m. on June 26) on the Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City. As this is the state’s largest multidisciplinary arts and … Read more

Mitsu Salmon’s Somatic Tracing outstanding performance art exhibition at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA)’s Artist-in-Residence program (A-I-R) has recently produced a fascinating string of exhibitions by artists who are pushing out of the conventional boundaries of discipline, medium and display forms. Mitsu Salmon is continuing this emerging trend as the program’s first performance artist with Somatic Tracing, which will continue through June … Read more

With some new features, more than 90 cultural groups, 17 food vendors, Living Traditions Festival set for May 20-22 in downtown Salt Lake City

There is no doubt that Utah’s population, especially within the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, is becoming more diverse and cosmopolitan. In the 2020 census, one out of every three individuals in Salt Lake County identified their ethnicity as other than white. And, a large majority of the state’s current population of more than 60,000 … Read more

Three live performances set to be available for streaming video on demand options: Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Lo and Behold, Repertory Dance Theatre’s Six Songs from Ellis, Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation’s The Ivory Menagerie

World premieres of works by two of Salt Lake City’s preeminent dance institutions (Repertory Dance Theatre and Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company), along with a splendid, innovative solo piano concert by Hsiang Tu, as presented by the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation, continue an impressive spring of performances in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. Incidentally, all … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre set to present new production of Six Songs from Ellis, highlighting stories of immigration

Oral histories are among the most prized resources in historical research. They capture stories that otherwise might not have been written or lost. Chronicling the history of immigration in the U.S. is enriched by the stories of those who decided to leave their homelands, travel great distances often in difficult circumstances and arrive in a … Read more

Reviews of 2 major theatrical events: Salt Lake Acting Company’s Utah premiere of Passing Strange; Plan-B Theatre’s world premiere of Iris Salazar’s Aftershock

SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY: PASSING STRANGE  Audiences might be well prepared for what the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar or the Motown soul musical The Wiz have to offer but are they really prepared for Passing Strange, a rock musical, with a nice bit of punk and gospel thrown into the mix, which examines the … Read more

Early spring bounty: SUPERWOMEN dance concert, Samba Fogo’s Still, Out of the Silence featuring Red Desert, DEXO’s children rock opera Hannah Saves the World

Performing arts schedules are blossoming this spring, as companies and ensembles return to live productions in full swing. SUPERWOMEN: REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE’S LINK SERIES A regular point made in The Utah Review’s dance coverage is how and why this particular performing arts form wears the empress crown in arts and culture in Utah. Recently, that … Read more