About
RDT is the country’s longest-running and most successful repertory dance group. They give you a varied spectrum of contemporary dance forms and choreographers mixed in dynamic and surprising performances, unlike traditional, modern dance companies.
New viewers often inquire about what to anticipate from an RDT performance. They tell them they have elegance, athleticism, beauty, and power. They also urge children to expect the unexpected. So, what exactly is RDT Dance? They said they are interested in art. Modern dance is art in motion portrayed through our bodies. Art that is both exhilarating and meaningful in its immediacy and closeness. Art that makes you think and art that you won’t see coming.
RDT has been pushing the frontiers of contemporary dance for over 55 years while also maintaining and honoring its past. It was revolutionary when they beat out the major city veterans, and Utah dancers earned a Rockefeller Foundation grant to launch the nation’s first repertory dance company. They’re still as revolutionary now as they were in 1966.
Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) is a professional contemporary dance repertory company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, committed to modern dance’s invention, performance, perpetuation, and enjoyment. RDT has been pushing the limits of contemporary dance for over 50 years while also maintaining and honoring its past.
RDT is a museum and contemporary gallery representing the extent and variety of modern dance, both past, and present. It is known internationally for its collection of dance treasures. From the art form’s early pioneers to today’s cutting-edge choreographers, the company has one of the world’s most significant collections of modern dance masterpieces. RDT serves as a resource center and laboratory for contemporary dancers, choreographers, visual artists, authors, and composers and a repository for this rich history.
RDT provides several community-based initiatives in addition to public performances and has a long-standing commitment to arts education. Outreach programs include talks, casual performances, teachers’ seminars, open rehearsals, yearly summer workshops, and year-round courses, all of which seek to develop and fire individuals’ creative voices of all ages. The Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, where the organization is based, contributes to the town’s cultural, social, and economic life. RDT is devoted to bridging understanding and demystifying the art of dance.
Mission
RDT is Devoted to modern dance creation, Performance Preservation, and Perpetuation
Classes
RDT’s Dance Center on Broadway
Beginning Modern
Students will improve their flexibility, strength, and coordination by using fundamental contemporary techniques and experimenting with other movement styles. People of all ages and dancing backgrounds are welcome to participate in this joyous movement experience.
Ballet
Discover the foundations of Ballet technique in a pleasant, easygoing setting. This fundamental ballet lesson will be personalized to each student’s ability while improving strength, flexibility, artistry, and coordination. Tights, leotards, and ballet tights are optional, although socks are recommended.
Bollywood
Bollywood is the colloquial term for India’s prominent Mumbai-based Hindi film industry. Bollywood dancing is one of the most popular dances nowadays! Every great Indian Bollywood film is built on it. The dances mix traditional and classical Indian dances with jazz, bhangra, hip-hop, and contemporary dance influences. Bollywood relies heavily on timing, rhythm, intensity, and precise, controlled expressive motions.
African Dance
A fast-paced event that combines West African and Congolese dancing traditions with live drumming in an exciting and supportive environment.
Flamenco
Flamenco is made up of three creative elements: cante (singing), Guitarra (guitar), and baile (dancing) (dance). The dancer’s moves, which include percussive footwork and precise hand, arm, and body movements, physically reflect the singer’s and guitarist’s emotions. The artists’ interaction is comparable to jazz in that a fundamental framework must be followed, but it is an improvisational genre at its core.
Jazz
Jazz dancing is an investigation of style and presentation. Jazz dance is a natural American art form rooted in the beat of jazz music. Includes a warm-up that builds strength, flexibility, coordination, and jazz dancing skills. Dynamic choreography set to popular music is included, and it stimulates individual expression and the development of own style.
Prime Movement
Everyone above the age of 40 is welcome. Increase your creativity, fitness, and lifespan by moving. Instructors will include a wide range of movement styles during the program.
Education
Who they are
Repertory Education programs in dance theater improve critical thinking and nonverbal reasoning abilities. Improve individual kinesthetic and spatial learning, as well as intra and interpersonal knowledge of self and others, by developing the capacity to communicate as part of a group to work collectively. RDT’s globally acclaimed and appreciated arts in education programs provide much more than fitness or amusement to students and teachers throughout Utah.
What are they doing
Repertory Dance Theatre is committed to dance production, performance, and education. Preservation and enjoyment of contemporary dance. RDT builds community everywhere it goes, whether it’s by physically or virtually welcoming the community to our home at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City or by traveling to urban and rural locations across Utah to celebrate shared and unique histories, goals, and experiences through performances, workshops, classes, and community- and school-based residencies.
why do arts education
- Dance is crucial to our perception of the world. Dance and creative expression, regardless of color, money, position, age, gender, or place, are essential human tools that connect, support, and heal.
- Dance fosters Life Skills by promoting good citizenship, assisting kids in being responsible, and understanding their connection to other members of their group, family, class, or community.
- Dance allows students to experiment with movement, improvisation, the creative process, and learning through the arts.
- Dance promotes emotional development and social effectiveness by teaching skills such as sharing, collaborating, integrating, and interacting.
The Heritage Initiative
The Legacy Project engages junior high and middle school students in examining personal histories, cultural experiences, and heritage’s tangible/intangible aspects via creative movement. Students learn about movement/choreographic concepts and explore the creative process with an RDT dance instructor.
Students participate in oral and written storytelling through discussion and writing activities. Students use the creative process, teamwork, and coaching to tell their stories through a movement study. This is then woven into an original piece with music that will be performed at their school concert and shown at the Rose Wagner Center’s annual Heritage Project Showcase on May 9, 2023, in the Jeanne Wagner Theater.
Women’s History
The Repertory Dance Theatre enjoys a variety of ideas and motion. Women’s History Month allows our company and customers to reflect on many remarkable and prominent women in dance history. Women have shaped dance into what they enjoy today, from pioneers and revolutionaries to current paradigms.
Modern dance started as a social movement. It began as a form of “self-expression.” It was a rejection of academia in favor of “natural movement.” Three renowned “movement reformers”
who started as soloists were Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Loie Fuller (unusual for the day). Their dance was a female affirmation. They utilized music to motivate them to move.
For more information, visit their website or call them at (801) 534-1000