More than 50 years ago, Susan Sontag’s essay Against Interpretation became one of her most famous and widely scrutinized writings. Sontag wrote in the last line of the essay, “In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art,” – a declaration that resonated in her deep admiration for Franz Kafka’s work and, in … Read more
Two recent Salt Lake City performances once again highlight the creative entrepreneurial impact of the Utah Enlightenment. DAN HIGGINS: IN. MEMORY. OF., AN EVENING OF STORYTELLING AND DANCE Talkbacks after a performance or a screening of a new film can be risky, frustrating and deflating. There are plenty of justifications why many creative professionals hesitate … Read more
Nearly 50 years ago, Philip Glass (now 81) composed some of the most brilliant pieces of early minimalism. They were the seeds of a new complex music practice that only in the 21st century has been clarified for its utmost significance. Alex Ross, the eminent music critic for The New Yorker magazine, has written about … Read more
One of the least chronicled stories in the recent stream of documentaries about Detroit is how events and policies have invigorated community activists to claim the power of self-determination in the city’s neighborhoods through creative yet pragmatic strategies. In Community Patrol, which received Best Mini Doc honors at this year’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival … Read more
The seventh presentation of the Utah Film Center’s Tumbleweeds Film Festival for Children and Youth from March 2-4 promises to be the most ambitious for the Intermountain West region’s only children’s film festival. There are 15 feature-length films, 14 of which are receiving their Utah premieres. The slate represents 12 countries on four continents. There … Read more
In one of opera’s most famous and most captivating arias, Tosca sings Vissi d’arte, which translates literally to “I lived for art.” The aria from this Giacomo Puccini opera is an anguished prayer because Tosca, a singer, faces the most impossible choice. To save her lover (the painter Cavaradossi) from the death sentence, she must … Read more
Muscular is the apt adjective to describe NOVA Chamber Music Series’ next concert which pairs two of Beethoven’s most compact chamber ensemble works with a dazzling micro-concerto for percussionist and the premiere of a new piece by Utah composer Morris Rosenzweig, made possible by the Chamber Music America classical commissioning program. The four works comprise … Read more
Ballet West is known for bringing lovely stories to life in the month of February and 2018 is no exception. With the return of Sir Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella—widely considered the greatest ballet interpretation of the fairytale—the company delivers humor, romance and enchantment to ticketholders through February 25. First staged by The Royal Ballet of London, … Read more
The four choreographers who will participate in the competition part of Repertory Dance Theatre’s Regalia, the company’s largest annual fundraiser, will maximize the creative opportunity of every minute in the four and one-half hours they are allocated to compose and set a short dance work which audience members will see later that day. They may … Read more
The theme of lifting and eradicating the stigma of mental illness is prominent in Stephen Hinshaw’s book Another Kind of Madness: A Journey through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). The UC-Berkeley psychologist is unfailingly honest in how he learned at the age of 18 about his father’s struggles with … Read more