Jaclyn Brown’s husband, Terry, may not be a professionally trained dancer but she says that her husband, “has expressed some strong opinions about [the] choreography” he sees when she and her colleagues perform on the Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) stage. “He often has many detailed questions about why choreographers made certain choices, and disagrees with … Read more
Entering its 53rd season, Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) always has been at the modern dance forefront in expressing the complexities of the past and the ever-shifting contemporary present. In the 1960s, the idea of Manifest Destiny still dominated the mindset of the American West although it was being obscured increasingly by the civil rights movement … Read more
We rely on skilled journalists and editors to make sense of a volatile news cycle. Forty years ago, Umberto Eco wrote about the artist who protests through form in The Open Work. In part, he suggested that the artist, while rejecting the current order and system, also accepts the world in its crisis terms. The … Read more
Closing day headliners for the Utah Arts Festival will offer their own infectious expressions of musical joy to send visitors off with pleasant memories of the 2018 event. In The Arts Fest Amplified Concert Series, St. Paul and The Broken Bones from Birmingham, Alabama closes the Amphitheatre Stage with a concert beginning at 8:30 p.m. … Read more
Dance has a monumental presence at this year’s Utah Arts Festival. There are the daily performances of BANDALOOP, the phenomenal vertical dance company from Oakland, California; a June 22 performance of RUUDDANCES featuring Ballet West and Ballet West Academy performers who will present classic and contemporary ballet works including the festival’s dance commission by Peggy … 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
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
Two recent Salt Lake City performances once again highlight the creative entrepreneurial impact of the Utah Enlightenment. DAN HIGGINS: IN. MEMORY. OF., AN EVENING OF STORYTELLING AND DANCE Talkbacks after a performance or a screening of a new film can be risky, frustrating and deflating. There are plenty of justifications why many creative professionals hesitate … Read more
The four choreographers who will participate in the competition part of Repertory Dance Theatre’s Regalia, the company’s largest annual fundraiser, will maximize the creative opportunity of every minute in the four and one-half hours they are allocated to compose and set a short dance work which audience members will see later that day. They may … Read more
The theme of lifting and eradicating the stigma of mental illness is prominent in Stephen Hinshaw’s book Another Kind of Madness: A Journey through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). The UC-Berkeley psychologist is unfailingly honest in how he learned at the age of 18 about his father’s struggles with … Read more