For 60 years now, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City has asserted that “dance is for everybody.” This year, five student dancers from Weber State University had their chance to be included.
The company’s fall performance this year opens with a piece from choreographer Monica Bill Barnes and incorporates 35 dances from Weber State, University of Utah, Utah Valley University, Brigham Young University, Southern Utah University and Westminster University.
The piece, called “Wish You Were Here,” focuses on themes of collaboration and connection. Ririe-Woodbury Art Director Daniel Charon said that every time the company commissions a choreographer for a piece, they like to think about how they can turn it into an opportunity for community involvement.
“We’d like to stay really close and connected to our community and provide opportunities as well as just networking and getting to know everybody and being connected,” Charon said.
The company has done collaborations before, but this is the first time they’ve invited multiple schools across the state to work together on a piece.
Joseph “Jo” Blake, the advanced program director for dance at Weber State, has previously worked with Ririe-Woodbury, as a dancer from 2003-2013, as a choreographer and now as a board of trustees member. This opportunity comes full circle as he’s helped five students get their own start with working with company dance members.
Blake said he wanted to give this opportunity to students who are towards the end of their coursework so they could have an experience going out into the professional world and start meeting those in the industry. He reached out to students who fit this description and asked them to complete an essay if they were interested.
Gabriella Miller, one of the student dancers, said she wrote her essay about how she will be graduating at the end of this semester and how she’d done research on diversity and inclusivity in the industry and wants to see it in a professional dance setting.
The dancers were given a week to learn the choreography between Aug. 26-30, with rehearsals from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. This is extremely fast, Miller said, because normally they will receive a few months with 2-3 rehearsals a week for performances like Weber State’s Orchesis shows.
Miller said it was fun watching everyone go through the week, starting as complete strangers and learning a whole high-energy piece together by the end of it. She said that the last rehearsal was emotional because the dancers wouldn’t see each other again for a few weeks.
“The dance world is so small, especially in Utah,” Kennedy Johnston, another student dancer participating in the piece, said. She’s seen some of these other dancers at other events like summer intensives and the American College Dance Association, which was held at Weber State last year. “It’s been really cool to make those connections and see those people again.”
Both Miller and Johnston said it was nice to participate and get their foot in the door into the professional world.
“Wish You Were Here,” is set to “Under Pressure,” by David Bowie and Queen and is about a four-minute piece. Charon said it is joyful and upbeat.
“There’s a lot of heavy things in the news, and a lot of work that you see tends to be heavy. I wanted something a little bit more light-hearted, and that’s why I reached out to Monica Bill Barnes,” Charon said.
Barnes founded a dance company in 1997 and has worked on projects for Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and even Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.” Her website describes her choreography as finding interest in “the underlying comedy and work in our lives.”
Johnston said the piece was difficult but fun to learn, focusing on footwork rather than big moves or turns.
“This piece represents that life’s not that serious,” Johnston said. “We’re all here to just have a good time — to do your very best — but to have a good time. And I feel like this dance really shows that, and it shows that we’re all connected.”
The piece wraps up in a finale with all the student dancers and the six Ririe-Woodbury dancers combined, ending in a conga line.
“It’s crazy because it’s a high-energy piece throughout the whole thing. And then we get to the end and it’s like the energy explodes,” Miller said.
This performance will be on stage at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake from Sept. 19-21. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Regular tickets are $35, but students who show their IDs can purchase $15 tickets instead.
“What’s really nice about our performance is it always feels a little bit like going to an art gallery, a very eclectic art gallery, where one room or one painting will be one artist’s and then you wander onto the next, and then there’s something brand new or unexpected and exciting,” Charon said.
