Event

Three examples of virtual excellence: Plan-B Theatre’s P.G. Anon, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Home Run; Repertory Dance Theatre’s Regalia

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Three recent virtual events emphasize just how well three Salt Lake City performing arts institutions continue to sustain their creativity and visibility. PLAN-B THEATRE: P.G. ANON Plan-B Theatre always is a master of minimalism so its instrinic strengths are making an audio-only season to celebrate its 30th anniversary possible. The premiere of P.G. Anon, written … Read more

Where the audience has the voting power: Repertory Dance Theatre’s Regalia available this week in virtual format, as 4 choreographers set their sights on commission prize

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Unquestionably, dance companies in Salt Lake City have done a remarkably good job in keeping their presence active during the last year. Last year, less than two weeks before the pandemic brought live performances to a halt everywhere, Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) held its annual Regalia, the company’s largest fundraiser. The event always has been … Read more

For 30th anniversary, Plan-B Theatre’s unprecedented audio-only season set to premiere Julie Jensen’s P.G. Anon

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In a December 2020 interview with The Washington Post, Alexis McGill Johnson, the newly installed president of Planned Parenthood, recalled speaking with a woman who told the story about her mother as a college student discovering that she was pregnant and how afraid she was to tell her parents. “Her brother was a flight attendant, … Read more

UMFA presents magnificent, generous traveling exhibition Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem, covering century of quintessential artistic expressions

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The ambitious undertaking in the traveling exhibition Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem to summarize the prodigious achievements of artists of African descent over the last century astounds in its impressive displays. There is the larger-than-life oil canvas portrait of Kevin the Kiteman, a 2016 work by Jordan Casteel, set against a … Read more

Ririe-Woodbury’s Home Run promises to be briskly paced miniature dance film festival, with live, real-time elements, world premieres

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What appears to be a genuinely holistic appreciation of the potential of home in all of its meta dynamics will anchor the forthcoming premiere of Home Run by the internationally renowned Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. It is worth thinking about this hour-long concert as a documentary shorts program one might see at a film festival. Set … Read more

Sundance 2021: New Frontier’s Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran fascinating digital presentation of political theater

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Consumerism always trumps political ideology. Making the argument against it appears to be more difficult than ever. In the digital version of the award-winning multimedia theatrical piece, Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, which was presented this year in Sundance’s New Frontier platform, the fascinating post-mortem begins with details of an actual … Read more

Sundance 2021: Compelling documentary shorts led by poignant, lyrical A Concerto Is a Conversation; story-telling resourcefulness of When We Were Bullies

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A documentary about a jazz pianist-film composer who talks with his 91-year-old grandfather about a lifetime journey that took him from the Jim Crow era days of Florida to Los Angeles as a successful business owner and another about a filmmaker recalling a 50-year-old incident when he was among the students who bullied another fifth-grade … Read more

Sundance 2021: New Frontier’s Weirdo Night is spicy, bracing, delightfully naughty underground experience

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No Sundance experience should ever go without visiting the festival’s New Frontier programming. One of the best options is Weirdo Night, a filmed version of a popular underground show that has attracted a solid following in Los Angeles. The 42-minute episode, which was filmed last summer and was discovered online by a Sundance programmer, is … Read more

Sundance 2021: Dramatic narrative Passing exquisitely crafted interpretation of Nella Larsen’s Harlem Renaissance period novella

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When Passing was published in 1929, Nella Larsen’s literary career was on the cusp of greater visibility. She had dedicated the novel to Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff, white patrons of Harlem Renaissance creators. They also had supported the work of Gertrude Stein and other gay writers of the time. Shortly after Passing was … Read more

Sundance 2021: Try Harder! is warm, personable, witty documentary about high achieving Gen Zers hoping to be admitted to nation’s most elite universities

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Just a quick glimpse of Lowell High School in San Francisco, the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi, tells the viewer that what matters most are not the flashy amenities of other campuses but instead the experiences of what it means to be an academic powerhouse. At Lowell, a public school where a … Read more