Displaying items by tag: Arts Pass

The School of Dance Ballet Senior Showcase will feature performances and choreography by the graduating class from the Ballet Program. The purpose of the performances is to honor the dedication and hard work of the seniors and to give them a unique opportunity to produce their own show.

The show is framed by two larger group pieces; the opening number choreographed by Nell Josephine and the closing number choreographed by Alex Sprague. Variations from classical ballet repertoire make up the bulk of the show. Ultimately, each senior had the opportunity to choose whether they wanted to dance a solo or a duet. The entire program reflects the agency that the performers exercised throughout the process of producing this show.

A group piece entitled They Told Me To Be Different opens the show. Nell Josephine created this piece using a collaborative process, and she says she was eager to explore an emotive movement vocabulary for her peers. Josephine says, “They Told Me To Be Different is a cultivation of the tools taught to me during my time at the University of Utah—both as a performer and choreographer. Constantly inspired by the dancers in the piece, the movement evolved from their exploration and creativity, as well as my own research in what this piece meant for me. This new work highlights the ways in which we form bonds with others while discovering who we are as individuals.”

The classical ballet repertoire featured throughout the performance ranges in style and historical context. The anchoring quality in each solo and duet is the personal resonance that the dance evokes for the individuals.

Each senior used her own criteria for choosing her piece. Some dancers chose variations that exemplify their artistry. For example, Keasha Misiaszek will perform Swanhilda’s playful solo from the first act of Coppelia. Furthermore, Sidney Haefs will take on the heart-wrenching “Temple Destruction” excerpt from La Bayadère.

Other seniors have decided to challenge their technical abilities for this performance, as in Lexie Cheyne’s daring solo from the ballet Laurencia. In addition to performing in the show, Cheyne has graciously acted as the Student Director for the Ballet Senior Showcase. “As the Student Director, I’ve acted as a liaison between our Faculty Supervisor, Melissa Bobick, and the senior class,” Cheyne explains. “It has also been my job to delegate responsibilities, make decisions about the show, and make sure everything is getting done and moving in the right direction, to ensure a successful show. I’m also like a team captain trying to pump everyone up and keep things fun and exciting!”

Other seniors chose to distinguish themselves by performing landmark works. Brooke Huebner received permission from The Gerald Arpino Foundation to perform an excerpt from Italian Suite. The piece was originally set on her mother, a former dancer with the Joffrey Ballet. Anne Gutcher will partner with Ballet Program student Brendan Rupp in the grand pas de deux from Le Corsaire. Both Huebner and Gutcher embody individuality and epitomize the resilience and integrity that graduates of the Ballet Program encounter here at the U.

The School of Dance Ballet Senior Showcase runs 4/19 at 5:30P, 4/20 at 7:30P and 4/21 at 2P and 7:30P at The Marriott Center for Dance.

The University of Utah School of Dance is opening its 2017/2018 Season with the Performing Dance Company. PDC offers its audience a professional-level performance by students in the Modern Dance Program. The concert opens October 5th and will showcase choreography from faculty and guest artists, focusing on the creation of new works. This year, PDC will feature the original choreography of faculty members Steve Koester, Satu Hummasti, and Pamela Geber Handman, along with a piece by esteemed guest choreographer, Anna Azrieli.

In his new work for nine, entitled A Tear in the Patterned Wallpaper, Koester thinks of the stage as landscape where an evolving series of events and spatial formations coalesce only to erode away like sandcastles at the water’s edge. Within the dance Koester contrasts simple with the complex, stillness with action, isolation with connection, and unison movement with individualism. Much like a forest, it is the space between the trees that may be more alive and interesting than the trees themselves. Set to music by Stars of the Lid – The Ballasted Orchestra, the dance has a pervading aura about it of serene, meditative emptiness.

Market, created by Satu Hummasti and the performers, explores one day at the central market in Turku, Finland, through movement, performance, improvisation, and text. Performers weave together stories from multiple perspectives to look at how one decision on one ordinary day creates extraordinary, horrific, and heroic circumstances. 

Inspired by solitary spaces and lingering on desolate roads, before she sleeps in the sand, will also premiere during the fall 2017 Performing Dance Company season. Directed by Pamela Geber Handman, this new quartet collaboration contains projections and music by Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Joep Beving, Pan American and Marsen Jules. 
 
Finally, the program will feature an original work by guest artist Anna Azrieli, who is visiting the School of Dance for an exciting residency with dancers from the Modern Program. Azrieli uses repetition, rhythmic vocalization, and self-slapping movement/sound actions in her work the feminist quiver has legs of quaking clouds. She invokes a world where the individual and group blend, then mutate into a new configuration. Azrieli is a choreographer and performer whose work is based on her body’s intuitive impulses and their interplay with her history in a variety of dance and movement forms. Her dances have been presented by Gibney Dance, Danspace Project, Roulette, The Kitchen, and Movement Research at the Judson Church. She is also a recipient of the Movement Research AIR grant. She has performed with Miguel Gutierrez, Heather Kravas, robbinschilds, Sam Kim, luciana achugar and Wendy Perron, to name a few.

Join us for a Concert by the Performing Dance Company, October 5 through October 21 at the Marriott Center for Dance at the University of Utah. Tickets are available online at Tickets.utah.edu, by phone at 801.581.7100 or at the door 30 minutes prior to curtain. For more information please visit Dance.utah.edu.

The Department of Theatre opens the 2017-18 season in full swing with Steel Pier, a crowd-pleasing musical that will have audiences toe-tapping from their seats. Set on the famous Steel Pier in Atlantic City, this energetic musical brings together an assortment of relentless souls, eager to dance their way into fame and prizes. Bill Kelly, an adventurous pilot, falls out of the sky and into the arms of Rita Racine, a dancer and the wife of evil Steel Pier manager Mick Hamilton. Entertainment and plenty of razzle-dazzle dancing ensue when Rita and Bill pair up for the marathon competition. Created by John Kander and Fred Ebb who wrote the music and lyrics to Chicago, Cabaret, and other Broadway classics, Steel Pier perfectly captures the vivacious rhythms of the 1930s-dance era. 

Dancing competitions have made a big comeback, thanks to shows like ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ and ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ Department of Theatre Chair and Set Designer for this production Gage Williams, has designed a set that allows several audience members to sit onstage during the entire performance to experience the phenomenal music and infectious singing up-close.

"Steel Pier"
Directed and Choreographed by Musical Theatre Head Denny Berry.
Dates and Times: Sept. 15-17 and 21-23 at 7:30pm.
Matinees Sept. 16, 17, 23 and 24 at 2:00pm.Location: Marriott Center for Dance at the University of Utah is located at 330 South 1500 East.
Free parking is available to the south of the theatre and at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Tickets: General Admission tickets are $18, University of Utah faculty and staff are $15, University of Utah students are free with UCard and all other students with valid student ID are $8.50.
Tickets can be obtained by calling 801-581-7100, online at tickets.utah.edu or at the Performing Arts Box Office, located at Kingsbury Hall.
Content warning: Recommended for patron ages 14 and up. Mature audiences only. 

Curious about the rest of the 17-18 line up? Take a look at The Finer Points blog.

STEEL PIER parking instructions for Saturday, September 16 
FOOTBALL GAME DAY 2:00 p.m. performance Parking will be available at the paid lot (06) outside the Marriott Center for Dance, and at the A lot (04) adjacent to the Marriott Center for Dance building. 

*All visitors must be out of these lots by 5:00 p.m. 7:30 p.m. performance Parking will be available at lot 18 (red box).
Shuttles will be available to trans- port Steel Pier audience members from lot 18 to the Marriott Center for Dance building starting at 6:45 p.m.
We encourage patrons to use TRAX for both performances on September 16.

February 20, 2016
The Networking Luncheon was a culmination of all the workshops and events we hosted throughout the 2015-2016 school year. The event began with a panel of alumni who shared their stories about navigating the modern workforce and art world, and ended with an hour of active networking with individuals and organizations in the arts community from a broad array of fields. Students had the opportunity to network with leaders in the arts community and learn about internships and job opportunities throughout the region, making this luncheon and panel a valuable springboard for a career in the arts. 

The U of U Department of Theatre proudly announces its 2017-18 season of plays and musicals with titles that are bound to intrigue and delight audiences.We return to The Hayes Christensen Theatre for our opening production of Steel Pier, a funny and romantic musical set in the 1930s. Terri McMahon from Oregon Shakespeare Festival joins us in October to guest direct one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays, Love’s Labour’s Lost. In the spring, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton’s musical The Beautiful Game opens in the Babcock Theatre followed by the production of Up (The Man in the Flying Chair) by Bridget Carpenter in Studio 115.

Steel Pier
Music by John Kander | Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Book by David Thompson
Directed by Denny Berry
September 15-24, 2017
The Hayes Christensen Theatre (MCD)In the honky-tonk world of marathon dancing in Atlantic City in 1933, a captivating assortment of depression era souls eager to dance their way into fame and prizes gather on the Steel Pier. The spectacle is presided over by an oily tongued emcee who is secretly married to Rita Racine, the champion dancer. Her usual partner doesn't show up, so she is paired with a handsome pilot on leave. As the hours of dancing whirl on, Rita becomes increasingly disillusioned with her sleazy, conniving husband and more and more infatuated with the handsome young aviator and a vision of life in a peaceful cottage.

Love’s Labour’s Lost
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Terri McMahon
October 20-29, 2017
Studio 115
The King of Navarre and his three schoolmates vow to embrace their studies—and not embrace girls—for three whole years. But the instant they take that vow, the Princess of France arrives with her three beautiful attendants, and all bets are off.

You Never Can Tell
By George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Alexandra Harbold
November 10-19, 2017
Babcock Theatre
At one riotous lunch, Mrs. Clandon, a famed feminist author and lecturer, is accidentally reunited with her estranged husband, while her high-minded eldest daughter tries to stave off a smooth-talking dentist’s advances. Identities are confused, ideals are challenged, and mischief is afoot in this turn-of-the-century romantic farce. What could possibly happen? As a wise waiter continuously, and hilariously observes, "You never can tell!"

The Beautiful Game
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber| Lyrics and Book by Ben Elton
Directed by Denny Berry
February 16- March 4, 2018
Babcock Theatre
Under the watchful eye of team coach Father O’Donnel, John and Del both show enough promise to pursue careers as professional soccer players. They’re just two regular teenagers who dream of nothing more than girls and soccer. When they find love with their girlfriends Mary and Christine, they become swept up in the events that engulf their community and, as time passes, each must decide whether to follow their hearts. This powerful and passionate musical is a celebration of the freedom that love can bring.

Up (The Man in the Flying Chair)
By Bridget Carpenter
Directed by Chris DuVal
March 9-17, 2018
Studio 115
“Follow your dreams as high as they go”20 years ago, Walter Griffin attached 45 helium-filled weather balloons to a lawn chair and found himself 16,000 feet above the world. Today he’s furiously holding onto his dreams and the faded memory of that glorious day, doing everything he can to keep his feet from touching the ground.

Our Country’s Good
By Timberlake Wertenbaker
Based on the novel The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally
Directed by Sarah Shippobotham April 6-15, 2018
Babcock Theatre
In January 1788, the first of the British prison ships arrive at Botany Bay, Australia and settle the penal colony at Port Jackson, the site of current-day Sydney. Many of the prisoners have committed minor crimes and their wardens are military men who fought and lost the war against the American colonies. When hope and supplies run low, a lieutenant tries to increase morale by staging a comedy, The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar, using the convicts as the cast.

Tickets and season flexpasses are on sale now. To receive a season brochure and join our mailing list, please send an email with your information to . For updates on Department of Theatre productions and events, please visit: theatre.utah.edu.  

The School of Dance will host the Utah Ballet Summer Intensive (UBSI), 4 weeks of training aimed at sharpening dancer’s skills while immersing participants in a six day a week program featuring classes offered by nationally and internationally renowned instructors. From June 19 to July 14, Dancers will have a chance to learn from master teachers and gain insight into what life is like as a ballet major at the University of Utah. The dancers have been recruited on a national level, and range in age between 15 and 23. Participants include some first-year University of Utah Ballet majors, who typically participate in the intensive either the summer before or after their freshman year.

The intensive’s guest teachers range in background from professors at other universities to directors of companies. Maggie Wright Tesch, a School of Dance Faculty member and organizer of UBSI, gives insight into the guest artists coming this year: 
“We want to expose students who take the program not only to potential work opportunities and the real-world level of training they will be required to have in this business, but also to some of the best teachers out there. Susan Jaffe is returning this year. Currently she is the Dean at UNCSA, a peer institution, which helps emphasize the concept that university training is something to be seriously considered. She is an internationally renowned ballerina from ABT and excellent instructor. We also are bringing in Clara Cravey from the University of Oklahoma, formerly of Houston Ballet Academy. Former Principal of the JKO school in NYC, Franco de Vita, is coming as well. So, really high-level teachers who know technique at the most intrinsic level will be training students here. And no, they are not of one training style and that is on purpose...dancers have to be able to adapt in order to work, so we strive to challenge dancers to move between teacher's styles with ease...eventually!”

UBSI’s guest artist list will also include Victoria Morgan, Melanie Person, Jerry Opdenaker, and Peter Boal as well as School of Dance faculty members Maggie Wright Tesch, James Ady, Sharee Lane, Molly Heller, Rob Wood, Justine Sheedy-Kramer, Melissa Bobick, and Jan Fugit. In addition to these teachers, students will also receive training opportunities from artistic directors who will teach Master Classes for all levels. The four week intensive is designed to give students a taste of the curriculum offered by a University level Ballet Program, and to show what makes the U’s program unique.

“The biggest difference between our program and others is the amount of time spent in the area of creative research, which in our field is considered choreography” explains Tesch. “We bring in instructors who are experienced teachers of choreography and they spend time teaching the craft. The students aren't just choreographed on, as in most summer intensives, which has its value, and we do that as well, but we teach them the craft. That element of our profession is grossly overlooked in student's training below the university level.”

The summer intensive is meant to be rigorous, and to push dancers to learn and grow. Tesch explains that participants should come ready to dance, be prepared to be faced with a lot of new information and experiences in a short period of time. “Dancing in a university setting is just as challenging as any other pre professional training program, but here, they will be working towards a degree. I hope they leave with a taste of how challenging our program is and how much they will learn and experience here, from classical work to contemporary, technique in both ballet as well as modern, African and jazz. We try to show what creating movement is. Not something to be afraid of, but another form of expression they should perhaps explore. Most young students are only ever told how to dance, or what steps to do and how.... We want them leaving with a small taste of how to find their own voice in dance through choreographic exploration and critical thinking skills.”

The Intensive will culminate in a performance, allowing family and friends a glimpse of the dancer’s work and progress during their time at UBSI. The performance will be Friday, July 14, at the Marriott Center for Dance at 6PM.

The School of Dance is gearing up for Salt Dance Fest, an annual festival that brings internationally renowned dance artists to the U’s campus for 2 weeks of dance-making and a spirited exchange of ideas. This year’s guests include Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga, Joanna Kotze, Katie Scherman, and Idan Shirabi, along with esteemed SLC dance artists School of Dance Visiting Assistant Professor Molly Heller and Satu Hummasti. These significant, influential artists in residence will share their unique artistic perspectives, along with a range and diversity of aesthetics and approaches to dance with the Salt Dance Fest participants.

In its 7-year history, Salt Dance Fest has included such artists as: Eiko & Koma, Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, Marina Mascarell, Paul Selwyn Norton, Kyle Abraham, Maura Keefe, Miguel Gutierrez, Netta Yerushalmy, Faye Driscoll, Zoe Scofield, Juniper Shuey, Pavel Zuštiak, Paul Matteson, Sara Shelton Mann, Jeanine Durning, Alex Ketley, Jennifer Nugent, Daniel Charon, and Jesse Zaritt. The workshop is housed at the School of Dance – a hub of dance pedagogy, performance and choreographic creation for the American West.

Salt Dance Fest is committed to the exploration of the creative process in addition to contemporary technique and repertory work. With participants from around the country and the world, the workshop highlights and investigates the creative process and is designed to be a laboratory that nurtures and supports experimentation, exploration, curiosity, collaboration and the development of innovative choreography. Participants work intimately with acclaimed artists, developing and exploring ideas in dance and choreography. One such exploration will be Visiting Assistant Professor, Molly Heller’s, course entitled “Tennis Shoe Technique.” This course will investigate the concept of “utilizing (and playing with) athletic shoes as a medium for developing new dynamics within the body, spatial surfaces and partnerships.” 

"Shoes (tennis shoes in particular) have always been an integral part of my dance training and development as well as a significant part of my work. My formative dance experiences were in shoe-based forms, which created a specific relationship between my feet and the floor – purposefulness, yielding, push-pull, greater tonal range, and a dynamic athleticism that can be experienced from the surfaces of a shoe partnering with the floor. "Tennis Shoe Technique" will utilize (and play with) tennis shoes as a medium for engaging our feet as the living, feeling, deciding, and probing extensions of ourselves. We will bounce, spring, direct, and texture our active feet (in and outside of the studio), testing our perceptions of effort, nuance, and rhythmic complexity. We will also experience the floor at times without shoes as a ways of integrating new information into a non-shoe practice." - Molly Heller.

Participants of Salt Dance Fest select from three blocks of daily classes, engaging with the artists in: Contemporary Technique, Improvisational Practices, Performance Research, Composition, Creative Process, Repertory, Somatics, and Dance Theater (see Class Descriptions). The Salt Dance Fest 2017 class schedule will operate on a block system – meaning participants may sign up for up to three blocks of classes as they prefer. The festival additionally includes a free morning somatic practice and/or barre as an introduction to the day, lectures and panel discussions with the guest artists, an improvisation jam and social events, as well as opportunities to present work in showings and concerts.This year, Salt Dance Fest runs from June 5-16. Participants must be 18 or older, and are expected to dance at an intermediate or advanced level. For more information about enrollment, the courses offered, and the guest artists, visit Salt Dance Fest. 

Giacomo Puccini is one of opera’s most famous composers. His music permeates the great opera halls of the world and even makes its way in to movies and television advertising advertisements. His opera “La Rondine” has been maligned and un-appreciated for a host of reasons. The music is certainly beautiful: Magda's Aria di Doretta is well-known and beloved, but most people have a hard time humming anything else from this wonderful score.

By guest writer Robert Breault.

As both a singer and a director, I've been involved in five productions of “La Rondine” and I've appreciated the complexity and intricate structure more and more with each visit. As a director, sharing it with audiences in Italy remains one of my most significant professional achievements. For the first time in my 24 years as the U’s Director of Opera, I’ll direct a fantastic student cast as we present “La Rondine” in historic, Kingsbury Hall with the incomparable Utah Philharmonia under Dr. Robert Baldwin. It’s my hope that we’ll change some minds about this under-appreciated gem.

The opera deals primarily with love. The poet Prunier sarcastically exclaims early in Act I: "In elegant Paris people are falling in love...old fashioned, sentimental love is all the rage!" We've been taught that art imitates life and nature. In essence, the concept mimesis holds that the creation of art is relative to, and directly inspired by, the physical world which was held to be a model for truth, beauty, and what was considered "good". Throughout Western history, Nature was the inspiration for writers, painters and musicians. Oscar Wilde, in his 1889 essay "The Decay of Lying", noted that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". It is within this context of "life imitating art" that I chose to set and illuminate "La Rondine".

Early in the show we find our heroine Magda decides to visit one of the many famous night clubs, whose façades lit up the sky, and whose dance floors were redolent with the smells and sounds of the all-night waltz, the champagne-induced frivolity, and the endless quest for a good time. She is one of the most famous courtesans in Paris but finds herself trapped in a cage of opulence and duty which she finds tiring. I've set the opera in the lead-up to the outbreak of WWI, a war which saw the end of the era in Paris known as "La Belle Époque". Magda is led to a one of many famous night clubs, whose façades lit up the sky, were redolent with the smells and sounds of the all-night waltz, the champagne-induced frivolity, and the endless quest for a good time. Will the happiness she finds there last? Throughout the story, she is lead into fantasy inspired by art and music. Will she trade the riches and opulence of the demi-monde for true love? The Swallow (La Rondine) flies to the land of love and happiness. Will she remain in her new-found world with Ruggero, the love of her life - is that world reality, or mere fantasy? Puccini, with the pen of a mature and brilliant composer, accompanies Magda on the path to her past, present, and to the tragedy of her future. Come join us for the journey!

LA RONDINE runs 4/21 - 4/22 at Kingsbury Hall.
U of U student tickets are FREE, non- U students with ID are $10, general public tickets are $20
youth 18 and under are $10, U staff/faculty save 10% with ID.
Tickets available at music.utah.edu

The University of Utah Department of Theatre closes the 2017-18 season with The Two Noble Kinsmen at the Babcock Theatre 4/7 – 4/15. As one of 39 plays to be translated into modern English for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! Project, this play was translated by Professor Tim Slover with production dramaturgy from Alex Vermillion and Play On! Project dramaturgy from Assistant Professor Martine Kei Green-Rogers. The production is directed by College of Fine Arts Distinguished Alum Randy Reyes, with Artistic Director Bill Rauch and Executive Director Cynthia Rider.

The themes of The Two Noble Kinsmen are universal—love, honor, respect—but in the world of our protagonists, Arcite and Palamon, these ideas come at a much higher cost than for the average modern US citizen. “The world these cousins live in is one of turmoil, it’s war-torn, blood-drenched, and controlled by the gods. And yet, The Two Noble Kinsmen reminds us that even in the darkest of times, there are moments of humor, gentleness, and celebration,” said Vermillion.

MU Performing Arts Artistic Director Randy Reyes has created a world inspired by ancient Greece, the Blackfriars’ stage, war, “The Hunger Games,” hip-hop culture, and high fashion. “By combining all these elements we are creating a unique world reflective of the past (Shakespeare’s original inspirations), the present (Slover’s translation), and the future (with the next generation of Shakespearean actors),” said Reyes. The translation celebrates Shakespeare’s masterwork by focusing directly on translating the antiquated language to increase understanding, while maintaining the vibrancy of the original.

The Department of Theatre’s production of The Two Noble Kinsmen hopes to reach Shakespeare fanatics and make Shakespeare more accessible and inclusive to audiences who have little to no experience with his work.

About the Play On! Project: Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioned 36 playwrights and paired them with dramaturgs to translate 39 plays attributed to Shakespeare into contemporary modern English. By seeking out a diverse set of playwrights (more than half writers of color and more than half women), they hope to bring fresh voices and perspectives to the rigorous work of translation. Each playwright is being asked to put the same pressure and rigor of language as Shakespeare did on his, keeping in mind meter, rhythm, metaphor, image, rhyme, rhetoric and emotional content. By the end there will be 39 unique side-by-side companion translations of Shakespeare’s plays that are both performable and extremely useful reference texts for both classrooms and productions.

Join us for a post production “Shakespeare Translation Discussion” with Dr.Lou Douthit on 4/7. Dr. Lue Morgan Douthit is the Director of Play on! 36 playwrights translate Shakespeare, the post-show discussion will include the highly debated topic of translating Shakespeare and the impact that Play on! is achieving through making Shakespeare more accessible and inclusive. Other members of the post-show discussion will include The Two Noble Kinsmen Director, Randy Reyes and Assistant Director for Play on!, Taylor Bailey. Reyes is an alumni of the University of Utah Actor Training Program who received a College of Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016 and graduated from The Juilliard School Drama Division in 1999. He is currently Mu Performing Art’s Artistic Director.

Two Noble Kinsmen runs 4/7- 4/9 and 4/13- 4/15 at 7:30PM with a matinee at 4/15 at 2PM. Located in The Babcock Theatre, located at 300 South and University Street (1400 East) in the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, lower level. Free parking is available to the south of the theatre and at Rice Eccles Stadium.

Post-Performance Discussion is on 4/7 with Randy Reyes, Director; Dr. Lue Douthit, Play On! Director; and Taylor Bailey, Assistant Director of Play On! and the Post-Performance Panel on 4/14 with Dr. Ann Engar, Professor of Intellectual Traditions and the Honors College; Dr. Richard Preiss, Associate Professor of English; and Dr. Disa Gambera, Associate Professor of English.

General Admission tickets are $18, University of Utah faculty and staff are $15, U of U students are free with UCard and all other students with valid student ID are $8.50. Tickets can be obtained by calling 801-581-7100, online or at the Performing Arts Box Office, located at Kingsbury Hall.

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By Emerging Leaders Ambassador and Guest Writer, Rachel Luebbert

The notes of the saxophone flood the air, quivering like a butterfly’s wings. Then, the piano paints the space in a melodic portrait. The percussion pulses the room with rhythmic vibrations. The music is soft and tender, but at the same time driving and powerful. It demands all of your attention, all of your presence. Suddenly, the trumpet calls out, dancing with new, spontaneous notes and the other instruments follow this line of improvisation as they embark on a new journey. This is jazz music.

On Thursday 2/16 at 7:30PM this jazz music will flood the walls of Libby Gardner Hall during the Jazz Spotlight Concert. Denson Angulo will conduct three different groups; the Jazz Ensemble, a large band of 17 musicians, the Red Hot Jazz Quintet, and the Jazz Repertory with 10 musicians. Each of these students auditioned to be a part of these bands at the beginning of the school year.

John Kim, a fourth year student studying Jazz Bass Performance will be performing with the Jazz Repertory Band on Thursday. Kim explained that this is his first year performing with a larger group, “A big band is a very different experience and my role as a bass player is to be rock solid in time and feel.” The Repertory Band will be performing arrangements created by Kris Johnson, which are standard selections with an added twist of metric modulation and his own flair. The show will also feature exciting sections of improvisation. The Repertory Band, for instance, will transition between order and spontaneity where the improvised sections will be predetermined in length and instrument, yet there will still be a freeness and a sense of play as the musicians create new strands of notes in the moment.

Jazz music runs deep through the veins of the United States. Christopher Kaukali a senior studying Jazz Guitar Performance describes jazz as “the Great American art form”. This music was not adopted from another country but was born on our very soil. John Kim explains a common misconception, “Often people group jazz and classical music into one lump of ‘historical music’. However, jazz music is the music of our past as Americans. It is a never-ending protest. More than ever, it is important to not forget what this music is saying.” So come to the Jazz Spotlight Concert, to play an active role in keeping Jazz alive and continuing the never-ending protest for social justice and individual expression.

Date: 2/16 at 7:30PM
Location: Libby Gardner Hall
Tickets: UofU Students tickers are free with ArtsPass (Ucard), Other Students are $3, General Admission is $9, UofU Faculty, Staff, and Seniors are $3.