Cedar City Welcomes Repertory Dance Theatre For A Special Performance

The 96^th season for Cedar City Music Arts continues this week with a Tuesday night performance from Salt Lake City's Repertory Dance Theatre. The production is set for 7:30pm at the Heritage Theater.

RDT was founded in 1966 in Salt Lake City, Utah, as a fully-professional modern dance repertory company, born from a cooperative effort involving the local community, the University of Utah and a major grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The idea behind the company was to establish an institution outside the usual coastal major cities that would both preserve the heritage of American modern dance and serve as a laboratory for new choreography.

Marty Warburton from Cedar City Music Arts was on the radio with us and talked about the presentation and the group coming to Cedar City. “They're going to be in town for four days, actually,” Warburton told us. While here, they will be doing outreach to Southern Utah University and the Iron County School District.

Warburton also mentioned that reffering to those performing as dancers is not how they like to be labeled. “I got corrected. I was talking to the director. We were talking about housing. I said 'when are the dancers going to be coming into town?' The director said 'we refer to them as athletes,” according to Warburton.

RDT Is More Than A Performing Company

From its outset RDT was envisioned not only as a performance company but as a “living museum” of modern dance — acquiring and performing works by early 20th-century choreographic pioneers (such as José Limón, Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan) and also commissioning and presenting cutting-edge contemporary choreographers. Under the longtime leadership of artistic director Linda C. Smith (who assumed the role in 1983) RDT has maintained its dual mission of preservation and innovation.

Education and outreach have been central to RDT’s mission: early on the company was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for arts-in-education residencies, and it now reaches tens of thousands of students with workshops, classes, lectures and performances each year.

RDT is celebrating its 60th “Diamond” season this year, marking six decades of sustained artistic growth, community engagement, historical stewardship and creative vitality.

Read More: Utah Is A Great Place To Live. Just Don't Tell Anybody!

Tickets for the performance are available at the Heritage Theater Box Office or online at the Cedar City Music Arts website.

You can hear our entire interview with Marty Warburton in the podcast below.