From the Artistic Director: Ballet West's Seventh Choreographic Festival
Welcome to Ballet West’s seventh Choreographic Festival. This Choreographic Festival marks Ballet West’s final performance of our 2025-26 season and it is a wonderful cap to what has been a powerful, dramatic, diverse and ground-breaking season.
This Festival is designed as a showcase for new choreography and a celebration of the broad diversity of dance companies from around the world. For each of these festivals, I have invited different companies, both national and international, to join Ballet West as our guests performing their own new creations alongside us. The Choreographic Festival is a wonderful bonding vehicle for the artists from Ballet West and our guest companies, sharing our unique styles and approaches in the spirit of camaraderie. The Festival also gives our community an opportunity to experience the art of companies they may not otherwise get a chance to see. From Scotland to New York, Canada to Charlotte NC, companies large and small have joined Ballet West for this marvelous bonding program.
The Choreographic Festival is a wonderful bonding vehicle for the artists from Ballet West and our guest companies, sharing our unique styles and approaches in the spirit of camaraderie.
This season, I have decided to keep things close in physical proximity, but worlds away in dance styles and approaches. For the first time ever, we join forces with modern dance instead of ballet, creating a never-before-seen program for Ballet West. I have invited three of Salt Lake City’s leading modern dance companies to share our stage.
Repertory Dance Theatre
Repertory Dance Theatre is one of Utah’s oldest dance companies. Renowned around the world, since 1966 RDT has been bringing Utah audiences an eclectic mix of great historical modern dance masterpieces and new, cutting-edge creations
Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company
The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company is an internationally acclaimed modern company known for its innovation and boundary-pushing choreography. Founded in 1964, it continues to tour the world.
SALT Contemporary Dance
Finally, the youngest of these Utah based organizations, SALT Contemporary Dance was founded in 2013 and brings a fresh new voice to the dance scene world-wide. For our part, Ballet West will be presenting a world-premiere by Tony-Award nominated choreographer Donald Byrd, whose compelling and unique style extend the classical idiom by fusing it with his own contemporary energy and movement style.
Our four companies represent only the tip of the iceberg of great dance and performing arts that Utah has to offer. Part of my mission in putting this program together is to really highlight that fact while in the process exposing the community to the brilliant spectrum of dance that we have right here in our state, exploring our special differences and our wonderful common grounds.