For his novel Death in Venice, Thomas Mann’s visualization of Tadzio, the strikingly beautiful boy, was based in part on Boy with Thorn, an ancient Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy who was pulling a thorn from the sole of his foot. In 1970, when Björn Andrésen, who was just 15, was cast as Tadzio … Read more
A Mormon-themed dark comedy narrative and a Turkish sociological thriller surrounding two university students underscore just how rigorously curated this year’s Sundance short film program is. Gregory Barnes’ The Touch of the Master’s Hand and Serhat Karaaslan’s The Criminals are among this year’s 50 short films which were selected from 9,933 submissions. The Touch of … Read more
Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) annual New Year’s offering of Emerge, a selection of works choreographed and performed by the company’s dance artists, is yet the strongest to date in its fifth edition. The most striking feature is the tight artistic chemistry the dancers share, regardless of the length of their tenure together as performers. If … Read more
INTRODUCTION One year ago, when The Utah Review presented the 2019 edition of the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment, it was a jubilant representation of Utah’s integral strengths as a community of the arts and the momentum that catapulted Salt Lake City as one of the Intermountain West’s most dynamic centers for creative … Read more
A modern dance artist’s solo is more than an opportunity to demonstrate technique. It offers a rare moment for the individual artist to command the stage: to present their inner persona in ways that transcend the kinetics of the company ensemble performance. Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) latest concert film Flying Solo stands out as the … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: Part II of The Utah Review’s feature package on Torrey House Press’ 10th anniversary offers a roundup of reviews about THP’s recent releases in 2019 and 2020. For Part I, see the centerpiece article. As Torrey House Press (THP) begins its second decade, the press continues to ramp up its pace for new … Read more
In Catherine Filloux’s newest play, White Savior, a Black journalist’s tweet goes viral and tees up the right dose of tension to anchor the story’s acute contemporary relevance. The tweet reads, “White savior complex distracts organizations from seeing the fundamental flaws of human rights law.” It accompanies a video clip of Jean, a human rights … Read more
Dreams are the unifying universal driver of our human existence. Carl Jung, as he explained in The Collective Works, wrote that dreams “put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from … Read more
In music, the structure of loops is fascinating for its meditative and blissful potential. In 1963, just a year prior to the release of one of his most famous compositions (In C), Terry Riley used tape loops to create music for the avant-garde play The Gift, which was being staged in Paris. Riley used recordings … Read more
In the last decade, many performers and creative producers have risen to articulating the dimensions of human sustainability and vibrancy when it comes to speaking up about climate change and other major environmental impacts. The diverse spectrum of examples continues to proliferate in all genres of music. In July 2019, the band The 1975 released … Read more