NOTE: On Thursday, April 26 at 9 a.m., The Utah Review will live blog the only live performance of Radio Hour Episode 12: Stand, produced by Plan-B Theatre and KUER-FM’s RadioWest program. Tune into KUER-FM 90.1 and follow The Utah Review during the broadcast. Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett is impeccably an artist of Renaissance … Read more
This spring has blossomed with numerous adventurous concerts and performances, including several world and U.S. premieres, with works presented by the Repertory Dance Theatre, Sackerson and NOVA Chamber Music Series. SACKERSON: SCARLET For a small theatrical company without a permanent home, Sackerson has managed consistently to electrify the Salt Lake City performing arts scene with … Read more
The guitarist Andre Feriante wrote that we “live in silence.” In finding his natural pulse as a composer, he believes “music that is aware of the gates of silence can cause you to see more of where you really live.” Music that inspires contemplation and heightened senses can take many forms – introspective and quiet … Read more
Many of the best literary works of science fiction, when they touch on entropy in complex systems, technologies and problems of existential significance, excel in how they render the human community of characters in genuine emotional and spiritual attributes. In the starkest environment, there is an overwhelming hunger, as portrayed literally and metaphorically. This was … Read more
Near Salt Lake City, the Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine sits atop a 70-square-mile underground plume of contaminated groundwater. A burst spilling into the valleys could trigger Utah’s worst environmental disaster ever. While the Gold King Mine spill that occurred in southwestern Colorado attracted a great deal of public attention in early August 2015, … Read more
When the play Jump opens, the audience is enjoying the pithy, rapid banter between Erick, the young confident skydiver (Matthew Sincell), and Phil (Darryl Stamp), a 60-year-old first-timer, as they prepare for the fateful jump from 12,000 feet above the ground. The audience laughs as Erick tries to ease the nerves of Phil, who rattles … Read more
Today, it seems unbelievable to think that in the decades following J.S. Bach’s death in 1750, his music was relegated for the most part to obscurity. Concert life in the 18th century was vastly different from today’s programming objectives, as William Weber, a frequently cited social historian of music, has researched. In 18th century Leipzig, … Read more
Dance’s creative laboratory is much like its scientific counterpart. The drive to experiment is informed and directed by the history of revolution and breakthroughs in methodology, technique and process. Those who participate in the laboratory – as mentor or choreographer, as new scientist or dancer – eventually move on, further consolidating the legacy of their … Read more
NOTE: The review of Etiquette is written by Matthew Ivan Bennett, a Utah playwright whose work has been premiered by Plan-B Theatre. Bennett’s next premiere is Radio Hour Episode 12: Stand, which will be presented by Plan-B Theatre and KUER-FM’s RadioWest program live on April 26 at 9 a.m. Etiquette may sound like the title … Read more
Nearly nine years ago, Shirley Dygert, then in her mid-50s, went on her first tandem jump at the Skydive Houston drop zone in Texas. Her husband, who had plenty of thrilling experiences of his own as a cliff diver, stayed on the ground to photograph his wife’s first jump. As a 2014 Sports Illustrated feature … Read more