Utah Dance articles published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s Art Magazine.
The title Emerge, I assume, is a way to alert the audience that the choreographers on this concert are emerging into the role of choreographer. That is a fair and useful distinction to make — after all it takes time, focus, and practice to become a professional performer. […]
Ririe-Woodbury Cadence was pre-recorded and streamed as an on-demand performance. The show proceeded after the company’s land acknowledgment, which read aloud the names of the Indigenous nations who have resided upon the lands presently known as Salt Lake City and the surrounding regions for millennia. The statement read: […]
On April 22, Earth Day, Utah Presents completed the online presentation of the last of three pieces that comprise the Environmental Trilogy, created by the Phantom Limb Company. Made over the course of the past decade, these three works were created for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. They […]
In the second of a series of three audio interviews on art making during the pandemic, Halie Bahr discusses the ongoing work of Queer Spectra, an arts festival in Salt Lake City. Bahr speaks with the festival’s founders and organizing committee: Aileen Norris, Max Barnewitz, Emma Sargent and […]
Turtles are homed wherever they go. But the desert turtle is also subject to the particular rigors of its environs: water is tight, the vistas are endless, and the temperatures, dramatic. Mitsu Salmon’s recent Butoh workshop, held virtually through Rogers Art Loft in Las Vegas, led participants through […]
One Hundred Years Hence was a production of Deseret Experimental Opera (DEXO, currently helmed by Peter C. Larsen and Carly Schaub), with a libretto by Max Barnewitz. The opera follows the lives of M, living in the present day in the Marmalade neighborhood of Salt Lake City, and […]
As a previous student under the direction of Srilatha Singh, the director of Chitrakaavya Dance, it was an honor to be able to view their new production, Aabhaaram. Precise, direct pathways of arms, combined with their vibrantly clear hasta mudras, or hand positions, are signature expressions of their […]
Regalia is Repertory Dance Theater’s annual choreographic competition and fundraiser. Choreographers have a few hours in one day to create an entirely new work with company members and some local guest performers. The new works are then performed for an audience who ordinarily would place “bids” to choose […]
On Thursday night, around 9 pm, I sat down to watch Ballet West’s latest in their Winter Streaming series — Balanchine’s Rubies. At just over 20 minutes in length, an excavated chunk like this is exactly how much televised ballet I want to watch after staring at my […]
The things I miss most about the theater are the requirements. I have enormous respect for the fourth wall, not just because I routinely decline participation opportunities, but because it is a mandate to observe and a notice of import. In this new world, there is the fifth […]
This month we speak with Christina Hughes and Angela Vecchione, who founded Hughes and Vecchione Dance Projects during the first few months of the pandemic. This platform has brought our community and viewers across the country online screenings, classes and other opportunities to stay connected to dance. I […]
Repertory Dance Theatre’s virtual performance of Emerge premiered on January 16, 2021. In this sixth annual presentation of Emerge, company dancers and staff have taken on the role of choreographer. RDT takes pride in the opportunity it provides artists to practice the art of dance-making. The show consists of seven […]
First introduced in 1892, The Nutcracker has been a Christmastime staple in the US since the mid-twentieth century. Municipal Ballet’s condensed and sophisticated take on the ballet, River of Rosewater, was released on December 23 via Youtube. If you stan a traditional Nutcracker, be warned: this version will […]
Repertory Dance Theatre’s latest offering, Flying Solo, presented “unforgettable solos” from the company’s extensive library of historical and contemporary Modern Dance works. As the title would have you assume, each of the eight company members had at least one unaccompanied turn on stage. I appreciated this opportunity to […]
On Friday, November 20, UtahPresents premiered the final episode of a six-part series of Dancing Earth’s Between Underground and Skyworld Cyberspace. The event was live-streamed for ticket holders to view from home. A Q&A with a panel of interdisciplinary artists involved in the project followed the screening of the […]
I have not seen (this version of) Nine Sinatra Songs by Ballet West and have no plans to review it. In this show, which was given locally at the Capitol Theatre, Ballet West ignores that more than one in one hundred people in Utah have COVID-19 and they refuse […]
On Friday night, I went to the theater. I even went inside the theater. Ballet West’s Nine Sinatra Songs is a return to the stage, but not a return to normal — and that’s a good thing. The mixed repertoire of three works is the company’s first live […]
On Monday night, November 2, the eve of these historic 2020 elections, I stepped into the interactive theatrical experience The Carousel by SONDERimmersive at Dreamscapes, at the Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City. Prior to entry, we received our instructions on mask-wearing, appropriate social distancing from fellow spectators […]
