{"id":21088,"date":"2013-05-25T19:17:17","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T01:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=21088"},"modified":"2023-11-13T16:50:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T22:50:39","slug":"ballet-wests-innovations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/ballet-wests-innovations\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballet West’s Innovations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PearsonAdams_GrandSynthesis_photoLukeIsley\"<\/a>Because I\u2019m invested in watching the choreographic process unfold, Innovations<\/i> has always been one of my favorite Salt Lake City concerts. I find it significant that Ballet West supports the emergence of new methods in dance-making by creating a format for company members to develop new works. It\u2019s a format I wish\u00a0other companies would take up: \u00a0other than Momentum<\/i>, a Ririe-Woodbury alumni concert which has been absent for two years, Salt Lake organizations often form clear boundaries between choreographer and performer.<\/p>\n

For Ballet West, Innovations<\/i> is a time to break down those distinctions and offer a glimpse into the way each performer is engaged with choreography as well as their ability to propose concepts and a budget to the company. For the last six years the results have been varied and the past two weeks were no exception. On one immaculate white floor, lit expertly by Nicholas Cavallaro, patrons were treated to works by Christopher Ruud and Easton Smith \u2014 the evening\u2019s highlights \u2014 as well as works by Christopher Anderson, Adrian Fry and guest artist Jodie Gates.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s premiere of \u201cMechanism\u201d exceeded his efforts from last year\u2019s \u201cWith You.\u201d In both dances, Smith\u2019s interest in drama is clear, but in the current work \u00a0the scope of his choreography extends beyond performance presence to complex staging.\u00a0His decision to bring the lighting structures onto the stage and the transitions of the dancers into the audience space was bold. Less clear were his choices for costuming, demonstrating that Innovations<\/i>\u2019 role as a developmental forum for these emerging choreographers means the works will likely be refined with future performances.<\/p>\n

When Ruud\u2019s \u201cTrapped\u201d was first staged in 2011, for instance, the score seemed to overwhelm what is an intriguing use of space, where solos and duets emerge from a confining group structure. The current iteration is much more clearly realized, while maintaining the freshness exhibited in the premiere. Watching the work evolve over time illustrates Ruud\u2019s decisions, as he was able to find brevity as well as precision.<\/p>\n

The polish of a more experienced choregrapher is evident in the work of Jodie Gates, a guest artist who began her career as most of these choreographers did, while dancing for professional companies. In her rapidly shifting \u201cMercurial Landscape,\u201d a piece with lively partnering, fluid use of space and deep musicality, the dancers performed with sheer enthusiasm, providing a great cap to the evening.<\/p>\n

The presence of Gates, the lone female among a quarter of male choreographers, begged the question of where the women of Ballet West were in the choreographic ranks \u2014 in past years, for example, Emily Adams\u2019 works have been some of the audience favorites. The overarching lack of women\u2019s choreographic ideas may speak to formal traditions of ballet, and the continuing need to develop modes of representation; or it may simply be coincidence that there were no women in the company interested. But it\u2019s worth mentioning that last week at New York\u2019s Danspace Project Katy Pyle tackled these issues and more with her premiere of Ballez,<\/a>\u00a0while\u00a0the BYU Museum of Art <\/a>showcased women choreographers at their opening of Work To Do<\/i> on May 17, and Sugar Space is currently preparing their fourth\u00a0SUITE, a program exclusively for women choreographers.<\/p>\n

Ballet West’s Innovations 2013 took place May 17-25 in Salt Lake City. This article was originally published in loveDANCEmore,<\/a> a journal devoted to dance in Utah, and appears here as part of a partnership to expand 15 Bytes\u2019 dance coverage.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because I\u2019m invested in watching the choreographic process unfold, Innovations has always been one of my favorite Salt Lake City concerts. I find it significant that Ballet West supports the emergence of new methods in dance-making by creating a format for company members to develop new works. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":861,"featured_media":21092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,10],"tags":[1450,1451,1452,1453],"class_list":["post-21088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","category-dance","tag-ballet-west","tag-christopher-ruud","tag-easton-smith","tag-jodie-gates"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PearsonAdams_GrandSynthesis_photoLukeIsley.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 23:26:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21088"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70998,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21088\/revisions\/70998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}