{"id":38258,"date":"2017-03-28T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T17:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=38258"},"modified":"2025-11-12T08:12:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T15:12:45","slug":"new-title-same-innovative-works-from-within-ballet-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/new-title-same-innovative-works-from-within-ballet-west\/","title":{"rendered":"New Title, Same Innovative Works from Within Ballet West"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ballet West artists in Oliver Oguma\u2019s 2016 Innovations work \u201cFragments of Simplicity\u201d. Photo by Dave Brewer, courtesy of Ballet West.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

F<\/span>ormerly known as\u00a0Innovations<\/em>, Ballet West\u2019s newly titled\u00a0Works from Within<\/em>\u00a0has moved to the Eccles Center in Park City.\u00a0Works from Within<\/em>shares choreography from company ranks and 2017\u2019s iteration presented world premieres by Oliver Oguma, Trevor Naumann, Kazlyn Nielsen, and Adrian Fry. While the Eccles Center primarily presents touring groups who may stop in Park City during larger tours of the West (think Jessica Lang), it\u2019s this Salt Lake City-based company who had the best turnout of any dance that I\u2019ve seen in the space.<\/h4>\n

One choreographer, Kazlyn Nielsen, was new to the\u00a0Works from Within<\/em>\u00a0platform and her work, \u201cRendering Stillness,\u201d was perhaps the most conventional offering of the evening. But, inarguably, Nielsen achieved her goal of offering a breath in a fast-paced world with her presentation of delicate partnering to the music of Erik Satie. Also traditional in concept and execution was Adrian Fry\u2019s second work for the platform, \u201cKinesis.\u201d Much like his 2015 work, \u201cPulse,\u201d the work relies on the propulsion of music to move large groups through the space in a neoclassical tradition. \u201cKinesis\u201d featured more than just the company dancers in performance, as principal dancer Emily Adams costumed the work.<\/h4>\n

Two former\u00a0Works from Within<\/em>\u00a0participants offered more specific aesthetic perspectives. Last year, Trevor Naumann premiered a dance about the philosophical views of Homer and I\u00a0wrote in a review<\/a>\u00a0that the work was reminiscent of certain moments in\u00a0Martha Clarke\u2019s \u201cGarden of Earthly Delights<\/a>\u201d because of styling but also because of its content. With another score by Boaz Roberts (deliberately driving and equally grating) the dancers in Naumann\u2019s new work, \u201cGrief and Integration,\u201d explore something similar and reminiscent of different portions of the same dance by Clarke. This comparison is not just because of the return of nude unitards but also because of the physical explorations of confusion and pain that are outside the norm of Ballet West\u2019s typical fare.<\/h4>\n

Some of Naumann\u2019s metaphors in \u201cGrief and Integration\u201d are clear (death comes for you in a black hood and mask) but others are less so (some dancers have human adornment like suspenders and jackets while the rest are clearly dressed for dance). In this mixed bag there is nevertheless an ongoing exploration of the way contemporary ballet might interact with the contemporary moment and address its pain and pleasure. Further, it suggests that Naumann\u2019s ongoing investigations may take place both in and outside of ballet\u2019s own idioms. While this dance won\u2019t remain my favorite piece, it will always be in the trajectory of where Naumann ultimately takes these ideas, which seems to be the purpose of\u00a0Works from Within<\/em>.<\/h4>\n

Oliver Oguma similarly fulfills this purpose as he connects threads from last year\u2019s \u201cFragments of Simplicity\u201d to the premiere of \u201cTremor.\u201d In both works, the movement for men is stunning and subtle. Also in both, it appears that women are added because that\u2019s what usually happens in this situation. Clad in androgynous tanks and leotards, I can see the case that the dance includes traditional partnering as a way to break down the common gender stereotypes held within dancing bodies and theatrical structures. But having been at more than one modern dance rodeo I can attest that an androgynous dancing body usually ends up being a male dancing body (see: Nikolai\u2019s repertory with women binding their breasts and men existing \u2018androgynously\u2019 in their same dance belts and unitards).<\/h4>\n

My desire for Oguma to explore a ballet for the male movers he is so adept at carving space for ironically competes with my ongoing desire for the inclusion of more female choreographers both in\u00a0Works from Within\u00a0<\/em>and in the Ballet West season. Last year, after consulting a professor specializing in political statistics, I came up with the figure that in a randomized selection of Ballet West company members there is less than an 8% probability that only one woman would be selected for this platform given the company makeup. That this systemic bias continues to be inadvertently reflected in the programming but corrected in the choreography is an interesting counterpart to the concert itself.<\/h4>\n

In an ongoing commitment to presenting contemporary ballets, Ballet West soon will be at another Eccles venue: Eccles Theater, in downtown Salt Lake City, with the new\u00a0National Choreographic Festival<\/em>. Tickets and information about the program can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n
This article is published in collaboration with\u00a0loveDANCEmore.org<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ballet West artists in Oliver Oguma\u2019s 2016 Innovations work \u201cFragments of Simplicity\u201d. Photo by Dave Brewer, courtesy of Ballet West. Formerly known as\u00a0Innovations, Ballet West\u2019s newly titled\u00a0Works from Within\u00a0has moved to the Eccles Center in Park City.\u00a0Works from Withinshares choreography from company ranks and 2017\u2019s iteration presented world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":861,"featured_media":38259,"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":[10],"tags":[2323,3794,3793,2916,3792],"class_list":["post-38258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","tag-adrian-fry","tag-emily-adams","tag-kazlyn-nielsen","tag-oliver-oguma","tag-trevor-aumann"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/ballet_west_works_from_within.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 06:16:53","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\/38258","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=38258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98502,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38258\/revisions\/98502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}