Review

With 75 dancers joining from the community, Repertory Dance Theatre’s Emerge achieves ideal milestone for its diamond anniversary season

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The time for the 10th edition of Emerge, Repertory Dance Theatre’s annual showcase of original choreography by company dancers and staff, coincided beautifully with the company’s season-long celebration of its 60th anniversary. When RDT was founded with a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1966, it included a commitment that the company’s artists would develop choreography. Emerge … Read more

Fearless, fierce and indomitable in human spirit: The Utah Review’s Top Ten Moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2025

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This year’s selections in The Utah Review for the top ten moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2025, the eleventh annual edition, stood out for being fearless, fierce and indomitable in human spirit. Wholly liberated, art ensures nothing is erased, censored or compromised. Reiterating the core premise of the Utah Enlightenment: In Utah, there are … Read more

Discovering the enchantment that propels a living historic landmark as America’s 1st Nutcracker™: two City Academy students review the 2025 edition of Ballet West production of this holiday classic

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Editor’s Note: In extending its tradition, The Utah Review, with  the assistance of Christal Jackson, an English teacher and ELL coordinator at City Academy, asked two students to review Ballet West’s production of Willam Christensen’s The Nutcracker. For a preview ahead of this year’s production, see this link to The Utah Review feature.  Before turning … Read more

Impressive, immersive delight: Two City Academy student reviewers have fun with Salt Lake Acting Company’s Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience

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Editor’s Note: In extending its tradition, The Utah Review, with  the assistance of Christal Jackson, an English teacher and ELL coordinator at City Academy, asked two students to review Salt Lake Acting Company’s production of Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience, with script and lyrics by Mo Willems and music by Deborah Wicks … Read more

Magnificent calls to the spirit of the season: Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir, Eccles Organ Festival’s Brass and Organ Christmas Concert

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CHRISTMAS WITH THE TABERNACLE CHOIR CONCERT There were plenty of notable moments of impressive musicianship in the Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir concert at the conference center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The choir, with music director Mack Wilberg at the helm, did full justice to its eminent reputation. One example … Read more

Pioneer Theatre Company decks the halls with farce in splendidly hysterical production of Noises Off

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Let’s be honest. There is no better season for farce than the holidays at the end of the year. Ask any host who envisions the perfect holiday gathering only to see it unravel, thanks to clashing egos or the chaos of personal drama and fragile relationships. Pioneer Theatre Company (PTC) has wisely chosen farce as … Read more

Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ Relative Truths, University of Utah art faculty show, intellectually invigorating, acutely timed exploration

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It would be a very easy task to find examples that counter the assertion of the existence of one truth. In the history of civilization, it often has been assumed that how we inscribe, connote or annotate every experience will lead to a single correct definition or interpretation, thereby negating every other possibility. For instance, … Read more

Luminous pinnacle: Repertory Dance Theatre’s Ovation, choreographic feast of Thanksgiving, satisfies appreciative audience

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In between pieces in Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT)’s sensational Ovation production, Nicholas Cendese, a former RDT dancer who is now executive/artistic co-director for the company, talked briefly  about the company’s 60th anniversary as an occasion to celebrate  its “luminous pinnacle.” Indeed, this phrase encapsulated the astonishing quintet of commissioned works, including two gorgeous world premieres, … Read more

Voodoo Theatre Company’s production of Jen Silverman’s The Moors effectively extracts its most important epiphanic impact

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In fashioning complicated characters that encourage audiences to handle more than one thought about a person in their minds, playwright Jen Silverman has always deftly handled themes of isolation, paranoia and loneliness well while suggesting larger social epiphanies in her stories.   That certainly is the case in The Moors (2017) and the latest Voodoo Theatre … Read more

Intelligent, subdued spiritual feel in The Blue of Distance, show of Madeline Rupard, Drew Rane at Material art gallery

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For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from … Read more