2024

This dance was created in 2 days through collaboration with 7 facilitators and 52 dancers. It was an autobiographical exploration of the people in the work and how moments of life are like different chapters in time.

2023

An evening length new dance created in response to the urgent call to save the Great Salt Lake. Galvanized by the declining water levels and catastrophic impact on both the air quality and the Lake’s teeming ecosystem, this dance reckons with our interconnected environmental fates. To See Beyond Our Time bears witness to what is happening to the Great Salt Lake and our response. It is an invitation to greater attention, recognition, and shared action.

2022

This rollicking new dance by Artistic Director, Daniel Charon is an ebullient musical visualization of John Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra. The new dance looks forward from the moment we are in with a playful sense of release and momentum––all told through a rhythmic language, spatial exploration, and familiar connections. The Break of Day emerges like the sun rising into a new day, arriving into the clarity of the present time.

2021

On Being was created as a response to being able to dance together once again. After a hiatus from our usual day-to-day ways of working, it’s been exhilarating to step back into a familiar dancing world, flexing our physical and creative abilities again. On Being explores physical connection through partnering, lifting, sharing weight, and moving in space together. As we created this piece, there was a tangible sense of re-appreciation for the art form and what is embedded within its DNA––connection, community, and an awareness of those around us. There is such wonder in being able to connect––the mere act of being together has become such a wondrous thing. I hope that this piece can offer a sense of solace, an opportunity to reflect, and moments for your imagination to feel free.

2020

This dance, featuring a series of duets, is set amongst the backdrop of a physically distanced world and reflects upon what it means to connect both casually and intimately from afar. The title evokes the idea that there is something both comforting and sad about it at the same time.

2020

Aberrations of Light which is inspired by Carl Sagan’s spellbinding book Pale Blue Dot. Sagan’s insightful writing considers humanity’s place in the universe and how the Earth is the only home that we have. The dance reflects upon our connection to the planet and how it is vital to exist in collaboration with the world around us. In honor of the breadth of Utah’s dance community, 11 dancers from Utah Valley University’s Department of Dance will join Ririe-Woodbury’s six dancers, creating a compelling and dynamic ensemble.

2019

Now or Never encapsulates the state of the world through an intimate duet and considers how there is so much to contend with on a daily basis–the constant onslaught of information, mis-information, identity politics, and an unknown future. This work, set to Leonard Cohen’s weighty Everybody Knows, finds two people in the regularity of their daily lives embracing the necessity to lean on each other for support. Through fast-paced gestures, partnering, and intertwining interactions this couple vents what’s needed to be said as a process to cope and to find normalcy amongst uncertainty.

2019

Dance for a Liminal Space is imagined to exist in a realm of transition where one finds themself at the threshold of a process, boundary, or beginning. This work will be presented in two parts, bookending intermission, encouraging a sense of return, nostalgia, and recollection. This piece contemplates the idea of transition and how it seems as though this state of being is actually quite constant. It examines the life changing moments where we step out of the ordinary to process an event that has happened––something that suspends our everyday life.

2019

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company is thrilled to present a world premiere show for all ages. ‘the live creature & ethereal things’. Consider this work a journey of the imagination, choreographed by Artistic Director, Daniel Charon, a collaborative story line written by Alexandra Harbold and Robert Scott Smith of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory, and an original score by John Paul Hayward–all local SLC artists. This magical adventure transports you past the threshold of the ordinary into a world of fantastical possibilities and asks, “If you could tell a story and share it with the entire world, what story would you tell?” With storytelling in both English and Spanish, ‘the live creature & ethereal things’ explores ways our individual voices matter, and how our intimate social connections weave the patterns of our lives. This new production is inspired by the mission of the Red Fred Project, founded by Executive Director, Dallas Graham, which gives voice to young storytellers living in extraordinary circumstances.

2018

An evening-length science-fiction inspired dance-work that imagines our future selves as a result of this current age of accelerations. Set in the future onboard a spacecraft that is in the midst of a multigenerational journey, six galactic immigrants are isolated within the confines of an artificial ecosystem where the natural world no longer exists. Outcast and abandoned by their ancestors, these travelers seek to discover their humanity in the artificial world in which they now exist––they seek to find out who they are as they search for a new home. Conceived and choreographed by Artistic Director Daniel Charon and with an original score by the Salt Lake Electric Ensemble, this project considers how our current interactions with technology are affecting who we will become, and are impacting our ability to take care of our planet. 

2017

This dance (set to the invigorating rhythms of klezmer music) is a musical theater styled exploration of the irony and perils associated with immigration. It honors community, identity, and the idea of embracing the stranger. 

“Exilic Dances is dedicated to anyone who has ever been the peace-maker, the bully, the friend, the stranger, the smoker, the drinker, the parent, or the child. It’s for anyone who has felt lost or found. It’s for those who belong to a community or don’t belong to a community. It’s for lovers, it’s for potential, and it’s for trying to belong. It’s for anyone who has ever handled an egg or been yelled at. It’s for what’s real and what’s pretend.”

2017

Snowmelt considers the impact of the human footprint on our fragile biosphere. Joining the company for this work will be guest dancers from the University of Utah’s esteemed Department of Dance. 

2016

Elegy is a poetic reflection choreographed in response to the current epidemic of senseless killings plaguing our World. It is created in the memory of the Orlando shooting victims.

2016

Enter is inspired by the notion of our abstracted existence within the vastness of a new, digital ecosystem. Who are we within the immense openness of this borderless digital landscape––a space where we can be anonymous, real, or imagined? Author Neal Stephenson suggests our digital consciousness exists in a Metaverse where our interactions occur within “the black desert of the electronic night.”

2015

An intimate examination of existing in a digitally saturated world; how relentless connection can actually lead to new types of solitude.

“Our human evolution is fundamentally changing as we relate to each other more and more in a mediated landscape. A new solitude emerges as we expect more from technology and less from each other. Together Alone is a journey into our future selves where risk, vulnerability, and connection have new meaning.”

2015

A Collaboration with the Salt Lake Electric Ensemble and the University of Utah Department of Modern Dance

“In C, the musical work accompanying this dance, consists of 53 short musical phrases. Each phrase is repeated an arbitrary number of times with each musician deciding, on their own, when to transition to the next phrase. It’s an incredibly structured score that through rigorous interpretation remains flexible to the needs of the moment. The interpretation of these compartmentalized phrases drew me to think about the modularization of our own lives – about how a singular relationship can be perceived in multiple ways. My piece, 53 Rooms, evolved into a physical narrative by considering the balance between the constrained and free, the ordered and open, the personal and the communal. My hope is that you will  take in this event as something to be experienced without feeling the necessity to define it.”

2014

“The piece sparked thoughts on the meaning of individuality and if that concept is even realistic in our world as society seems to construct us more than we can ever shape it.” – 15 Bytes

2013

This piece is inspired by the notion that time is continually moving forward and that change is inevitable––how in life, we are faced with many passing moments that affect who we are. 

2013

A multi-media dance theater piece set in a world where time fractures, folds and unfolds for seven people navigating a warped and variable reality created by their discreet and interconnected stories. The disjointed moments of their lives, distorted in scale, hold the characters apart, bind them together, or confine them in their own minds. Weaving together images from dreams and memories, Blink utilizes live video projections, an original score for two player pianos, and off-center, highly charged dancing to present a world where nonsense makes perfect sense, and time is a relentless driving force. 

2013

Storm is inspired by the individual energy inherent in each of us that when put together, make a community’s life force so unique. The component parts that make up this community are the constantly shifting energy fields between individuals. The vitality of this living organism that is community, depends on how these relationships coexist.