Forty
years of dance with Ririe-Woodbury
Maestro
Arts & Reviews is pleased to profile a dynamic dance company
in the Salt Lake City area. Before founding Ririe-Woodbury Dance
Company in 1964, Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury helped create
Choreodancers, a company of professional dance performers and
teachers. After the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company name became
permanent, the company choreographed and performed in Utah and
throughout Arizona, California and Colorado.
While
assisting Alwin Nikolais in 1968 at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre
in Minneapolis, Joan accepted a Minnesota Arts Council
invitation to perform at four colleges. The council asked if the
company could be ready to perform in a week. "Yes, of
course," Joan replied. She returned to Salt Lake City where
she and Shirley choreographed a whole zany performance and
lecture demonstration especially for the Minnesota tour. The
resulting production was a hit. In 1971, the show was seen in
Canada by representatives of the first U.S.-Canada dance
conference. Performance invitations came immediately from the
east and west coasts of both countries.
A
breakthrough came in the following year when the company
performed at The Space in New York through the generosity of
Artistic Director Alwin Nikolais. Representatives of the
National Endowment for the Arts attended the performance and
accepted the company for the Endowment's Artists In Schools and
Dance Touring Programs.
The
company's acceptance in these prestigious programs offered new
full-time touring as a national company and the most Artists In
Schools performances in the United States of any company for 12
years. More than a third of all program performances were the
result of the company's work and more than half of all program
movement specialists were trained by Shirley and Joan.
Ririe-Woodbury
Dance Company was chosen to be part of the Dance On Tour
state-touring program from 1990 to 1994 and performed in South
Carolina, Kentucky, Montana and New Mexico. The company has
become a Utah institution and is recognized as a successful
modern dance company combining formal performances and community
residencies.
Widely
recognized, the Company continued to receive many international
performance. In 1977 the International Congress of Girls' and
Women's Sports invited the Company to South Africa for an
extended tour of Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and
Pretoria, marking the first time that a nationally and racially
diverse performing group had performed in those areas. In 1978
the company was chosen to represent the United States at the
first Dance and the Child International meeting in Canada and
traveled to Puerto Rico to conduct a two-week residency tour.
In 1980
Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company was selected as the first U.S.
modern dance company to perform in Sibenik of former Yugoslavia.
The company also performed in Hong Kong, the Philippines and
Singapore. During this year, Ririe-Woodbury became the first
modern dance company to perform in Canton, China.
From
1987-1992 company tours included Europe, American Samoa, and the
former Soviet Union. Just one month before the destruction of
the Berlin Wall, the dancers performed in East Germany and were
the first modern dancers to perform in Karl-Marx Stadt (now
Chemnitz) in the former Soviet Union and East Berlin in 15
years. The company returned to Chemnitz in 1991.
1993
led the company to the young republic of Slovenia which is part
of former Yugoslavia. The company performed a benefit fundraiser
for the 70,000 Bosnian war refugees who were seeking shelter in
53 collection centers in Slovenia. The highlight of the tour was
a particularly moving performance for 500 refugees in a Maribor
collection center. Slovenia invited Ririe-Woodbury back for a
two week tour in July, 1996.
Ririe-Woodbury
is known for its tremendous work in the education system of
Utah. After working with teachers and students in schools for
many years, Ririe-Woodbury formalized its education program and
named it Step Lively. Step Lively is a
statewide program designed to assist classroom teachers in
meeting the objectives of the Utah Fine Arts Core Curriculum.
Ririe-Woodbury has pioneered dance education in Utah and
throughout the United States.
The
history of Ririe-Woodbury and the strength of its co-founders
and dancers built a company that fosters stability and growth in
the development of modern dance throughout the world. The
company's mission will carry the performing arts and dance
education into the next century.
Visit
the Ririe-Woodbury
Website
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