Utah Arts Festival 2019: El Desierto, The End, Neighborhood take top Fear No Film festival honors

Thirteen awards were announced today in the 17th annual Fear No Film portion of the Utah Arts Festival, including a Grand Jury Prize, two Utah Short Film of The Year honors, Fear No Filmmaker Award, three honorable mentions and six audience awards. The Grand Jury Prize for Best of Show went to El Desierto (Carly … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: Winners announced for Artists Marketplace, Wasatch IronPen, Wordfest individual, team poetry slam competitions

The 43rd Utah Arts Festival has announced various awards for visual arts and the Wordfest literary arts programs. Nine awards were presented for the Artists Marketplace. All of the visual artist award winners are eligible for invitation to the Utah Arts Festival in 2020. Best of Show and People’s Choice Award winners also will have their booth … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: Newcomer artists bring skulls, robots: Joni Ballif, Boho Chic Skulls; Amy Flynn, FOBOTS

JONI BALLIF, BOHO CHIC SKULLS The great artist Georgia O’Keeffe never completed a trip in the New Mexico desert without collecting the skulls of animals – horse, mule, deer and steer – that had been bleached by the sun and forgotten. She used skulls to depict in her paintings, such as Summer Days (1936), showing … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: Final preview of 43rd Utah Arts Festival highlights largest programs ever, many new faces in multidisciplinary venues

EDITOR’S NOTE: Links embedded in this Utah Arts Festival preview direct readers to the various festival features that have been published in The Utah Review since June 6. Pleasant temperatures and sunny days will mark the 43rd Utah Arts Festival, when it opens tomorrow (June 20) and runs daily through Sunday (June 23), noon to … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: Urban Arts venue expands artistic, musical opportunities for numerous local creative producers

In recent years at the Utah Arts Festival, the Urban Arts venue has been growing not just in breadth and depth of artistic experiences but also in its audience draw. Venue coordinators Pablo Pinet and Derek Wheeler have again added features to showcase urban, street, graffiti and calligraphic art in its various codes of communication … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: Utah’s rich dance artistry in diverse platforms to be presented in major performances

Dance is the empress jewel in the crown of Utah’s performing arts history. Accordingly, dance is represented in numerous ways at this year’s Utah Arts Festival. There are two world premiere dance commissions by Ballet West artists Katlyn Addison and Joshua Whitehead being performed by the RUUDDANCES company (June 21, 5:45 p.m., Festival Stage) and … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: It’s all about insects at Kids’ Art Yard this year

Upcycling continues to deepen its impact in the visual arts. In late 2018, artist and educator Kyle Browne recalled how living and working in a remote New Zealand town changed his perspective: “Art supplies could not easily be purchased and I quickly realized that working within the limitations of what I had was the only … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: For literary arts’ 25th year, a new name – Wordfest – signals wider path in creative expression

EDITOR’S NOTE: To read more about some highlights of this year’s Wordfest literary arts program, see the feature about Darius Atefat-Peckham here, Thatcher Elmer here and poetry slams here. For the 25th year of the Utah Arts Festival’s literary arts program, there is a new coordinator – poet Trish Hopkinson – and a new name … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: The state of performance poetry, slams in Salt Lake City thrives, expands to new generations

The state of poetry as an oral art form in Utah is thriving. Last year, at national competition, the Salt Lake City Unified team, which took first prize at the Utah Arts Festival’s slam contest, finished in fourth place among 72 teams, the best performance ever for a Utah-based team. And, the prospects for the … Read more

Utah Arts Festival 2019: National Student Poet Darius Atefat-Peckham on juxtapositions of joy, grief in poetry

When he was 12, Darius Atefat-Peckham started writing poetry. “I grew up in poetry and it felt like it had to happen, whether I liked it or not,” he says in an interview with The Utah Review. Through a crack in the bathroom door, he read his first poem to his dad who was taking … Read more