Creative dance

The wait is over. School is back in session and the music and dance seasons are gearing up to begin.

Last week, the Utah Symphony and Opera launched its 2004-05 season with pianist Olga Kern (see the Sept. 5 edition of the Deseret Morning News).

This week, two dance companies, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Ballet West, take center stage at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center and the Capitol Theatre, respectively, and officially open the performing arts season.

RWDC's evening of repertory, titled "Nomads," will include works from Douglas Nielsen's "Land of Nod," an untitled work by Carolyn Carlson and associate artistic director Charlotte Boye-Christensen's "In Passing."

"Land of Nod" was sparked by Nielsen's thoughts about dreams. "I always imagined it as a dream place," Nielsen said in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center during a rehearsal break. "I did some research on it and the whole 'after-Eden' idea really caught my imagination. I started to think about it in terms of fantasy. According to the Bible, it's the place where Cain went to after he killed Abel."

In other legends, the Land of Nod is where Cainites, or vampires, originated. But, said Nielsen, "I wanted to go for more of a dreamlike surreal place."

Nielsen utilizes themes of mortality, memory, confusion, spoken lines and audience interaction in "Land of Nod."

The work is done to a score, which is, in actuality, a series of audio episodes to which the dancers not only dance, but also act. "That was something we worked on for a while," Nielsen said. "The dancers had to get used to the idea that they were not only dancers, but actors in this work. And not only do they act, but they actually address the audience at certain points of the production.

"The dancers needed to get into their characters and find them. And I also wanted to involve the audience without using angst or anger as provocation. I feel the audience deserves that. And the audience will also get a chance to interpret the work as it chooses, but also the dancers can step out of the role of being the dancers and see the work in a different light."

Ballet West is also doing a Utah premiere as part of its season kick-off.

Antony Tudor's "Offenbach in the Underworld," which the company premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland earlier this month, will be part of the dance company's "Fall Festival" production that will open Friday.