{"id":29842,"date":"2015-09-20T21:56:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T03:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=29842"},"modified":"2015-10-19T13:14:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T19:14:04","slug":"29842","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/29842\/","title":{"rendered":"Ririe Woodbury’s Fall Season is confident, nuanced and polished"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo courtesy Ririe-Woodbury Dance<\/p><\/div>\n

Ririe-Woodbury\u2019s Fall Season<\/em> showcased three dances, two of which were world premieres, this past weekend. \u00a0Each piece showcased six dancers, the first two with guest Breeanne Saxton, and the last with Alexandra Jane Bradshaw making a return after an injury. \u00a0The company looked strong, dancing with confidence, nuance and polished athleticism.<\/p>\n

Adam Barruch\u2019s prima materia<\/i>\u00a0was a lovely work which offered a clear sense of craft and traditional partnering where the women shine. \u00a0The stage was set with three transparent pillars that divide the space and blur the dancers into hazy forms as they move behind them. \u00a0This gives an otherwise crystalline work an air of ambiguity. \u00a0It was beautiful to watch the dancers show us line, breath and shape, and this is a piece that doesn\u2019t polarize or offend. \u00a0It shows lovely dancing and clear emerging relationships; it is \u201cthe first material,\u201d before life (the show) unravels with questions and tension.<\/p>\n

Shift, <\/i>choreographed by Daniel Charon, wastes no time in establishing intent as the lights go up to Mary Lyn Graves dancing vivaciously in a bright red dress, while Bradley Beakes faces upstage pantomiming being on his phone, oblivious to the world around him. \u00a0This work, which is part one of the trilogy Together Alone, <\/i>has several truncated sections: a fun dance party, an exploration of isolation within a group, a young couple in duet, and even a section evoking the beloved musical West Side Story. \u00a0<\/i>All these sections add to a disjointed and non-linear experience, not unlike the experience of scrolling Facebook and reading statuses of civil unrest, displaced refugees, celebrity follies and cute cats.<\/p>\n

The idea that our virtual lives are perhaps more interesting, or at least more commanding, than our flesh and blood ones is again confronted when the dancers\u2019 shadows are projected on the cyc \u2014\u00a0 where their bodies appear clear, sculpted, and larger than life, making the real bodies on the stage seem terribly ordinary. \u00a0When given the choice, what do we choose to see?<\/p>\n

At times it was hard to decipher if Shift <\/i>was being cheeky or was making an unapologetic departure from the cool abstraction many expect of modern dance. \u00a0A duet using the projection of texts (complete with emoticons) show us a juvenile tumult when a cellphone loudly ringing interrupts the dancing and the dancers stark and undressed become trapped in the image of their phones\u2026whether serious or obvious, cheeky or scattered, the message was clear: Get Off Your Phone. But this message becomes more complicated when one considers all the exposure and advertising companies garner via social media. \u00a0Before coming to the show I had read a preview, promotional material, and several status updates surrounding Fall Season<\/em>. \u00a0So maybe I should get offline, but not so fast that I miss \u2018liking\u2019 Ririe Woodbury\u2019s status update.<\/p>\n

The show ended with States Rendered, <\/i>a Doug Varone piece choreographed last year which features video design by Ellen Bromberg. \u00a0This piece hardly settles or solidifies; the dancers are like popcorn in hot oil, simmering and then exploding through the space. The electronic sound mixed with black and white video gives off tension and contributes to a rich, if not overwhelming, sensory experience. \u00a0Perhaps instead of showing us what our modern life with technology has become like Charon did, Varone exaggerates it until it becomes almost unbearable to experience. \u00a0Alexandra Jane Bradshaw has a strong solo juxtaposing breath and tension, and like the piece generally, hints at aggression and violence. \u00a0The grey muted costumes echo a structure that is just shy of finding one thing, and just as an image is found, it is broken and dissipates into another. \u00a0The piece ends mid-sentence with the dancers barely making it into a pile downstage and then the lights go black and it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

This piece is published in conjunction with lovedancemore.org<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ririe-Woodbury\u2019s Fall Season showcased three dances, two of which were world premieres, this past weekend. \u00a0Each piece showcased six dancers, the first two with guest Breeanne Saxton, and the last with Alexandra Jane Bradshaw making a return after an injury. \u00a0The company looked strong, dancing with confidence, nuance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1522,"featured_media":29843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[],"class_list":["post-29842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","category-dance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/fallseason.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 11:17:59","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\/29842","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\/1522"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29842"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30193,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29842\/revisions\/30193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}