Invigorated and sharp in every moment of the trio of works by choreographer Noa Zuk, the Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) dancers put on a master class about the Gaga movement language to open the company’s 59th season. This season’s theme is Reflection, as the company paves the path for the forthcoming 60th anniversary celebration in the … Read more
It is clear to comprehend why Julie Jensen’s outstanding body of plays have earned her the honor of being Utah’s most widely produced playwright in and out of state. With her exceptional instincts for word economy and layering wholly credible emotional profiles for her characters, Jensen’s plays evoke Utah’s geography while conveying epiphanies that are … Read more
The act of memory as art, viewed within a far-reaching scope of how it reverberates through human expression, is the dominant theme in the current exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA). The Utah Review summarizes each of the shows: IN MEMORY: continuing through Feb. 22, 2025 In a review of a rare … Read more
Made evident by the consistently enthusiastic response by the audience throughout the 90-minute show, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s 61st season opener, Re-Play, was a roaring successful sampler of the legendary institution’s artistic brand and character. Joining a sharper, more rousing rendition of LajaMartin’s The Bunker (2022), the two world premieres — Purple Sonata 24 by Daniel … Read more
There is always room for Anton Chekhov in the theatrical season. Plays such as Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters remain relevant and timeless. And, The Seagull became the first of the great Chekhov quartet of plays when it premiered in 1896. It stands out for rendering complex psychological profiles of characters — notably … Read more
At the end of Jersey Boys, Tommy DeVito says to the audience, “Everyone remembers it how they need to, right?” When the Tony Award-winning musical about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons premiered on Broadway in 2005, it was among a substantial string of biographical musicals that have emerged during the first two decades of … Read more
Within a few days after third grader Martin Richards from Boston was killed in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, a photo which showed the boy holding a sign he created that read ‘No more hurting people. Peace’ went viral. He made the sign a year before, when an activist who was protesting the handling of … Read more
In recent decades, Iranian visual artists — photographers, painters, filmmakers and animators — have communicated through their work how the politics of history and memory are the cogent pivotal driving forces of constructing and preserving identity, which has been under existential threat since the 1978-79 revolution that toppled the Pahlavi dynasty and installed an Islamic … Read more
As appealing as collaboration is, many arts organizations are more likely to make a bit of an awkward, even contentious mess of it. In some instances, performing arts organizations choose the safer route for collaborating, by setting a broadly articulated theme for everyone to contribute their distinct piece to the effort. But, if groups sincerely … Read more
The 10th Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) is in the books. Once again, the venue of the Alliance Theater, connected to the Utah Arts Alliance, at Trolley Square, was ideal for this event. Total attendance was 1,796, and a total of $18,848 was paid out to the artists for 21 shows. The average payout per … Read more