2015 in review

In 2015 loveDANCEmore programs had some changes: we moved the Mudson performance series to new venues after five successful years at the Masonic Temple, Amy Falls became our program coordinator making Mudson accessible to more artists than ever, Liz Ivkovich is moving toward editing the spring journal.

With these changes, some things stayed the same: our commitment to documenting Utah dance in collaboration with 15 BYTES and the development of sustainable performance series that serve local, independent choreographers and performers.

In total loveDANCEmore presented 45 new dances by 27 choreographers featuring over 110 local dancers.

We published 2 performance journals and 25 reviews by 21 artists and scholars. We presented 1 dance film gallery, 5 works-in-progress events, 5 curated programs and sponsored works by 7 artists and collectives including Tanja London, Erica Womack & Graham Brown. Sponsorship affords artists access to tax exempt donations, liability insurance and other non-profit infrastructure.

loveDANCEmore programming reached over 10,000 audience members. This number is made up of a lot of things: journal subscribers, standing room only final Mudson performances, On Site concerts in Provo museums, a film gallery curated by Katherine Adler at Sweet Branch Library and also, our part in  “The Mists,” an immersive dance experience at Red Butte Garden’s, “Garden After Dark,” co-created by Liz Ivkovich and Alysia Ramos. The numbers reflect a contingent of artists but also an integration of dance into municipal space.

As the community events branch of “ashley anderson dances,” a registered 501(c)3, loveDANCEmore is fortunate to receive funding from Zoo Arts and Parks, the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, the City of Orem and individual donors but your end-of-the-year contribution would make a difference in 2016.

All but 1 public program was free and all artists participating in our projects receive stipends.

Over 50% of our budget is passed to independent artistswith an additional 20% going to artist resources.

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law and 2016 funding will support: our continuing search for a Mudson venue, journal publication, increased artist stipends and more.

Thank you for your support of Utah dance.

Joining the Corps: Ballet West’s Iconic Classics

New Yorker magazine critic Arlene Croce spent a good deal of her career finding words for Balanchine’s choreography. In 1975 she got to the heart of the emblematic nature of Balanchine’s objectives: “To make plain to American audiences the dynamics of classical style. In [“Symphony in C”] the dancing grows from simple to complex structures, and every stage of growth is consequentially related to every other. It is partly because of their structural logic that his ballets make such great sense—or such vivid nonsense—to us years after they were completed, but it’s also because such logic isn’t the featured attraction; it’s only the means by which a particular kind of entertainment is elucidated.” Ballet West clearly agrees with Croce’s sentiments, having regularly presented Balanchine. Iconic Classics doesn’t only revive “Symphony in C” but completes it, showing the full ballet after formerly excerpting the work.

Last week, Ballet West presented a rehearsal of the piece with live accompaniment of the Bizet score by Jared Oaks, a frequent conductor at Ballet West’s performances. The new Jessie Eccles Quinney Ballet Centre studios, where they performed, are as large as the Capitol Theatre stage, plus wing space, making it possible to take in the full ballet. The setting is sizeable but still more intimate than what audiences typically experience.

The soloists were, as usual, formidable; Emily Adams in particular captures joy through striving, a quality inherent in Balanchine’s work. But it was the corps that continued to draw attention as their power grew with proximity to the material. Artistic Director Adam Sklute persistently suggested that the corps dancers keep thinking about lengthening their backs. From a seat in the house it’s impossible to see how heavy the breathing of the corps is and unlike a soloist who may exit the stage, the corps primarily returns to the sides with their bodies held precisely. The difficulty in this task is easy to overlook which is particularly interesting considering how it is their role that holds the work together, keeping it turning like a kaleidoscope rather than a variety show of smaller acts.

Sklute also gave affirmations to members of the corps who were moving fully off the standing leg, a key characteristic of Balanchine’s work. This gesture is more visible sans costuming and theatrical lighting. Letting an audience in on the complexity of a posture makes the magic of pointe, in which a dancer supports all her weight entirely on the tips of her feet, more visible. Some of this magic may be hidden to audiences who attend the Ballet’s season opener this next week, but they can still consider these moments, opting to let their eyes drift across the action, not needing to be tied to the center. In particular this thought extends to those who find non-narrative ballet inaccessible but who may be persuaded by the sheer difficulty of small moments.

“Symphony in C” isn’t the only work presented in Iconic Classics. In a triple bill, it joins “Fancy Free” by Jerome Robbins and “Overgrown Path” by Jiri Kylian. The programming choices Sklute makes are never easy and in a post-rehearsal discussion he revealed that there are always subtle negotiations between what longtime patrons may expect and what newer audiences may crave. A craving coincides too with Sklute’s common metaphor for a program, a good meal. In the case ofIconic Classics he considers “Fancy Free” an appetizer, “Overgrown Path” a dense main course and “Symphony in C” a concluding hot fudge sundae. To return to critic Croce, she looked at “Symphony” again in the ‘80s and overheard a man in the lobby greeting a companion by saying, “Oh, I couldn’t miss ‘Symphony in C.’ It’s my bread and water.”

Ballet West’s “Iconic Classics,” at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre, Salt Lake City, Nov. 6 -14, www.balletwest.org.

Ashley Anderson is the director of loveDANCEmore community events as part of her non-profit, ashley anderson dances. See more of her work on ashleyandersondances.com  This piece was written for the November edition of 15 BYTES and can be found here.  Check both sites for a review of the production this weekend.

Performance Art Festival & notes on reviews

Below are some photos Winston Inoway shared of the annual Performance Art Festival at the Main Library earlier this month. A review of the 2014 festival can be found here. Although no one wrote about the PAF this year please consider commenting on the thread below if you saw the works presented and want to share your thoughts.

Because we are a peer based blog and performance journal most readers know that we rely on interested writers to reach out with performances they want to cover. The same goes for the previews and profiles we share with 15 BYTES. As our organization has grown, we also have a new reliance on artists sending press material about their work so we can make sure to cover it.

Since loveDANCEmore programs began in 2010 the number of reviews we post annually has almost doubled with every passing year. This trend of consistent shows by independent artists and their creation of larger collaboratives is incredible. But that trend also means the freelance nature of our peer reviews has to shift. Artists with upcoming shows, please submit a press release to admin@lovedancemore.org at least two weeks prior to your show. We want to continue covering the diverse range of performances across the Wasatch Front; if there is something we missed we hope our readers can help fill in the gaps.

Fall 2015 Mudson Announcement

Announcing locations and artists for Fall 2015 MUDSON!

Tuesday August 18

Memorial House in Memory Grove Park

Featuring works in progress by Katherine Adler, Ashley Anderson, Justin Bass, Karin Fenn, and Amy Freitas.

Tuesday September 15

Wasatch Presbyterian Church

Featuring works in progress by Temria Airmet, Michael Crotty, Sarah Longoria, Kat Martinez, and Emma Wilson.

Tuesday October 20

Sugar Space Arts Warehouse

Featuring works in progress by Lehua Brown, Ching I Chang, Daniel Clifton, Miriam Curtis, and Erica Womack.

All shows are FREE and showtimes are at 7:30PM. Please visit the events page for more details.

If you are interested in showing a dance at a future Mudson, you may find our application here.

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Mudson is a semi-annual works in progress series which supports new choreography in SLC. Since its inception in 2010, Mudson has fostered the creation of over 100 new dances.

Mudson is made possible in part by the Salt Lake City Arts Council, the Utah Division of Arts & Museums and Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts, & Parks.

An additional thank you this season both to the Utah Heritage Foundation for the use of Memorial House and to Sugar Space Arts Warehouse.

loveDANCEmore @ the Alt Press Fest/a call for submissions….

loveDANCEmore had a great time yesterday giving away volume eight of our performance journal at Alt Press Fest at the City Library. In addition to handing out journals, we also had on hand a small library of books on dance and I, Samuel Hanson (in my role as  new media coordinator) was screening documentation and dance films from our archives. I met a great deal of diverse people, including one guy who sat and watched dance films for almost an hour, and another gentleman who lived in LA, but used to teach ballet in the building that houses SLAC almost thirty years ago. It was also great to hang out with the nice people from SLUG (Alex Ortega), Craft Lake City (Nancy Burgess) and the other artists who shared their work with me (Amy Childress and Sam Milianta).

I also got to tell people a little about what I am planning for this winter’s journal, which I’m tentatively titling/theme-ing “Road Trip”. I’d like to include a lot more artwork and imagery  around dance (this issue is a little word heavy as you may have noticed), but as always, we’re open to submissions of almost any kind that relate to dance, be they critical or academic articles, photo essays, crayon drawings, performance texts or scores etc.

The deadline for those sorts of things is August 9th. Questions about that may be directed to me at lovedancemore@gmail.com or at my personal email, samuel.b.hanson@gmail.com. Independent of that deadline however is the ongoing opportunity to write coverage for the blog about any and all events related to dance in Salt Lake City. If there’s a show you’d like to write about, let us know at lovedancemore@gmail.com.

Ask not what the journal/blog can do for you, but what you can do for the journal/blog! Cheers, 
Sam