Dancers Katherine Lawrence and Jo Blake being filmed by NOW ID collaborators.

The applause is still echoing from the Rose Wagner Arts Center. Saturday night, Artistic Director Charlotte Boye-Christensen concluded her 11-year run with the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and the audience let their appreciation be heard. Dancer Jo Blake, who is also leaving the company, received just as warm a send-off. Turns out, you won’t have to wait long to see them together again.

Today Boye-Christensen announced her new venture. With partner Nathan Webster, she is forming NOW ID, an interdisciplinary dance and arts company that hopes to advance dance, music, visual art and site specific work.  Their first performance, The Wedding, will take place July 26 and 27. And it will feature, among others, Jo Blake.

Of the venture, Boye-Christensen says, “The company is titled NOW, as we begin and remain excitedly NOW, contemporary, always open to review and update the mission.” Working with composers, dancers, performers and artists from Salt Lake and around the world, the company is looking for an international reach that remains rooted in their Rocky Mountain base. “We are eager to bring eyes and talents of the world to Salt Lake City, and a Salt Lake City perspective to the world,” Boye-Christensen says.

The company’s first performance exemplifies these goals. “We’re merging ballet with contemporary dance as well as new music, architecture, and film. And we’re bringing in collaborators from Chicago and New York, and as far away as Australia and Denmark. Some amazingly talented people,” says Boye-Christensen.

The Wedding will be performed in the domed theater-in-the-round at Salt Lake City’s Masonic Temple. “The Wedding will be a multimedia exploration of the space of ritual,” says Webster. “What is it about this ancient and globally understood ritual that applies to us? It’s something that’s very loaded: it’s extremely personal, and yet also extremely public. How does this relate to us in a contemporary way, especially with all of its associations with rites and dreams and transformation?”

The company has applied for 501(c) 3 status, has launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign, and is already looking beyond The Wedding to new collaborative projects. In January 2014 NOW ID is planning a collaborative project with Flying Bobcat, the new theatrical laboratory launched by Robert Scott Smith and Alexandra Harbold (see our review of their Senses 5 here, and look for more on that group in a future post).

You can find out more about NOW ID, their board members, collaborators and future plans, by visiting www.now-id.com.

The men of NOW ID in front the Masonic Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.