First weekend of Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival shines in solid shows, ticket sales

The first weekend of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival at The Gateway set a strong pace, indicating that it certainly will match last year’s ticket sales and likely exceed them by a generous margin. Some 1,700 tickets were sold for the first weekend of shows. Last year’s total attendance for the two-weekend event was … Read more

Cat+Fish Dances concert of Forge reflects on accepting, transcending vulnerability

The recent wave of dance concerts in Salt Lake City has produced gratifying experiences that supersede dance’s inherent ephemeral nature. Choreographers have encouraged work that deepens the audience’s capacity for translating the body movements they see on stage without the necessity of an intermediary interpreter. An individual’s persona can electrify — along with how dancers … Read more

UMFA’s Power Couples exhibition magnificently stretches imagination in exploring pendant format in art

Power couples always have captured the human imagination. From Adam and Eve to Cleopatra and Antony to the Macbeths and House of Cards’ Frank and Claire Underwood, the idea of power couples has symbolized more than just the model of relationships. The Urban Dictionary explains that “In a power couple, if one person is flawed, … Read more

SLAC’s Saturday’s Voyeur stays robust, spicy, naughty enough in 41st year

If there ever was a congregational vote to sustain the creative leadership that has made Saturday’s Voyeur, the annual summer theatrical tradition of the Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC), a resilient success year to year, it would be merited for the team of Allen Nevins and Nancy Borgenicht. The 41st edition, which runs through Sept. … Read more

Interview with director: Gracefully, Iranian documentary, set for world premiere at Utah Film Center’s 16th annual Damn These Heels LGBTQ+ Film Festival

The 16th Utah Film Center’s Damn These Heels LGBTQ Film Festival will feature a world premiere of Gracefully, a documentary by Iranian filmmaker Arash Eshaghi, which has been banned in Iran. The Utah Review was privileged to screen this documentary, as mentioned last week in the preview of the film festival, which is set in rural Iran and … Read more

Detailed look at the slate for Utah Film Center’s 16th annual Damn These Heels LGBTQ+ Film Festival

The 16th Utah Film Center’s Damn These Heels LGBTQ Film Festival offers 23 films and two programs of short films. Utah filmgoers have a rare opportunity to see some of the best examples of LGBTQ cinema today, as 20 films are receiving their Utah premieres and two others having their first Utah screenings since their premieres at last … Read more

Inaugural Queer Spectra Arts Festival explores multiple facets of queer aesthetic

Setting an appropriate tone in a community gearing up for the upcoming Utah Pride Parade and Festival in downtown Salt Lake City, the inaugural Queer Spectra Arts Festival took place last weekend in the Commonwealth Studios in South Salt Lake. Artists and speakers addressed the impetus and inspirations for the queer creative aesthetic – or, … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ The Head and The Heart concert closes 41st season on sensational note

The Head and The Heart concert to close out NOVA Chamber Music Series’ 41st season was a kinetic, galvanizing and sensational barn-burner. The concert was a celebration from the first moments of J. S. Bach’s Chaconne, originally written for solo violin, in an arrangement for cello quartet by Laszlo Varga (1924-2014). Varga, a Hungarian émigré … Read more

A powerhouse collaboration, Lost Love Socialite Sweet Love Recluse premieres as postmodern soap opera; rendered as intriguing, ingenious dance theater

As one distills the pastiche and collage in the recent premiere of Lost Love Socialite Sweet Love Recluse, a powerhouse local dance theater collaboration, there are many intriguing elements in this postmodern soap opera to appreciate. In a broad sense, one is reminded by the classic line in the 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun by … Read more

Two spring premieres: PYGmalion Theatre Company’s Sweetheart Come by Melissa Leilani Larson; Efren Corado’s Dust. Breath. Place. for RDT Link

PYGMALION THEATRE COMPANY: SWEETHEART COME One of the most extraordinary renderings of Emma Hauck’s story came in 2000 with In Absentia, a 19-minute film made by Stephen and Timothy Quay. The BBC commissioned the short film as part of a series matching filmmakers with music selected by BBC producers. The Quay Brothers already had chosen … Read more