NEVADA ARTS COUNCIL NEWS RELEASE – The Utah Repertory Dance Theatre will visit Winnemucca and Elko, April 29 through May 4, as part of the Sense of Place touring initiative, coordinated by the Nevada Arts Council, and supported by Barrick Gold of North America. The local partners, Great Basin College in Winnemucca, and Great Basin Arts & Entertainment in Winnemucca, worked with members of the Salt Lake City dance company to schedule community-specific activities. These include workshops for students and senior citizens, movement classes, school lecture-demonstrations, collaborations with local dancers, full-length performances and related visual arts exhibits.
“These initiatives provide access to quality arts experiences for citizens that reside in the state’s rural counties, and offer students the opportunity to explore the creative process under the guidance of professional artists,” said Susan Boskoff, executive director of the Nevada Arts Council. “It’s all about creating a sense of place in communities across the state to enhance the quality of life for everyone.” The Arts Council will produce video vignettes of residency activities in Winnemucca that will be shared with the public on the agency’s website this summer. Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre was founded in 1966 as a professional modern dance company through a cooperative effort involving the Salt Lake City community, the University of Utah and a major grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
RDT has toured to more than 300 cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe; and has performed for diverse audiences from Utah to Vienna, Austria, in schoolrooms and opera houses, from gymnasiums to the Kennedy Center. RDT’s mission is to broaden the public’s understanding of the art of modern dance through a variety of community-based programs; and it acts as a resource center and laboratory for dancers, choreographers, visual artists, writers and composers. The company offers annual summer workshops and year-round classes to train aspiring professionals and inspire the creative potential in people of all ages.
For schedule details in Winnemucca, please contact Bill Sims, Great Basin Arts & Entertainment at [email protected]. For schedule details in Elko, please contact Christine Young-Gerber, Great Basin College at [email protected]. For information about RDT, please visit http://rdtutah.org, or contact Rick Nobis, Booking Coordinator at [email protected].
The Nevada Arts Council, a division of the Nevada Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, is the agency charged with ensuring that state and national funds support cultural activity and encourage participation in the arts throughout Nevada. In addition to providing hundreds of grants to arts and community-based organizations, schools, artists and local municipalities throughout the state, the Arts Council coordinates a variety of statewide programs and activities such as the annual Poetry Out Loud recitation competition for high-school aged students, traveling exhibits, artist residencies, workshops and cultural assessments. For more information, please visit the department’s website at nac.nevadaculture.org/.
