The incredible Boulder Arts Council and a generous local donor brought a combined performance by SB Dance from Salt Lake City, and the D’Dat Trio from Farmington, New Mexico to the tiny community of Boulder, Utah for two nights, August 19 and 20, 2022. The population of Boulder is about 300, and the town website calls Boulder a “gem… located in a stunning landscape of sandstone outcroppings, green pastures, pinyon and juniper forests, and sagebrush deserts.” This review was originally intended to comment, not on the dancing, but rather on the way that a small rural southern Utah town responds to a somewhat edgy contemporary live performance. The Friday audience was only about 30, but that represents 10% of the town population! The opening Native American-influenced jazz by D’Dat set the mood for the evening and the subsequent showing of SB Dance’s standard Curbside Theater show, which and been to Boulder previously, was well received. I noticed that, as is common, the audience was often looking for deep metaphysical meaning when the show was actually trying to be funny. The idea of commenting on the small town response to SB Dance really didn’t work out because the audience turned out to be highly self selected — mostly arts council supporters and their friends. The descendants of the pioneer families and the ranching families were notably absent. As Steve Brown remarked, the audience demographics in Boulder were basically the same as for a show in downtown Salt Lake.
A “completely different” show had been promised for the second night. The Saturday show publicity had described it as a "first-time-ever” collaboration between new choreography and a live accompaniment. But thunderstorms intervened, and the Saturday night performance involved a totally restaged and unrehearsed improvisation that showed the best of modern dance and jazz traditions. Rain had been falling all afternoon and the ground was soaked. What was intended to be a dynamic traveling performance using SB Dance’s “six-legged piece of sculpture upon which the dancers perform” out on the town park lawn had to be moved into a cramped space on concrete pavement under the pavilion roof. The dancers negotiated in front of the audience adjusting their choreography to fit the space. Steve gave the musicians some brief information like “this one starts slow then builds” and the show started. The interaction of jazz improvisation and restaged dance was fantastic. The musicians easily sensed the time and energy aspects of the dancing, and every time the dancers began a new movement theme the musicians switched to jam on a new melody line. It was totally improvised and unrehearsed, but the artists made it work to the delight of the audience.
Collaboration between live music with original scores and dance in unconventional settings creates interactive artistic opportunities that go far beyond layering a sound track on top of the choreography on a proscenium stage. An new initiative this year by loveDANCEmore will be offering grants to local choreographers to fund collaboration with composers and musicians.
Think about all the possibilities!
John Veranth is on the board of loveDANCEmore. He’s long been a performer and supporter of dance in Salt Lake City, Boulder and beyond.