In addition to Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Ballet West has also been invited to the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. Ballet West will present a collection of works by British choreographer Anthony Tudor.
"We are very excited to be a part of this festival," said Johann Jacobs, Ballet West executive director. "We are honored that we were asked."
Ballet West is scheduled to perform Aug. 27-30. The company will be accompanied by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Since its inception in 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival is considered one of the world's greatest celebrations of the arts. And all the artists who appear on the Edinburgh stage have all been personally invited by the festival director. "Apparently, the festival had been working on getting us for quite a while," said Jacobs. "The festival was interested in Tudor's works. And since we have two of his works in our current repertoire, the festival foundation contacted us and asked if we would be interested in doing a program with three of Tudor's works."
Ballet West artistic director Jonas Kage has worked with Tudor before. In 1977, "Leaves Are Fading" was created for Kage and Gelsey Kirkland while he was in the American Ballet Theatre in New York. When Kage became Ballet West's artistic director in 1996, "Leaves Are Fading" made its Utah premiere. In 2001, the company performed Tudor's "Lilac Garden" for Utah audiences.
"Anthony has always been right there with me in my career, especially during the last stages of his career" said Kage. "Since we had 'Leaves Are Fading' and 'Lilac Garden' in our rep, we just had to add one more — 'Offenbach in the Underworld.'
"That's one we've never done before. So it will be a little challenging doing it. We still have one or two dancers who did 'Leaves' when we did it. And there are more dancers who are still with us who did 'Lilac Garden.' We just need to get ourselves familiar with 'Offenbach' so we could take it to Scotland."
In addition to relearning the old works and learning the new work, Ballet West has much to prepare for its overseas tour. "We're taking the whole company and the tech crew," said Jacobs. "And since we're doing the new work, we need to take some of the costume crew as well.
"But we're a touring company. We have an efficient staff and they know what the company needs when we travel. The only real challenge we go through is finding good travel rates.
"We have always been known as a 'world-class' ballet company. And just who decides that? The world, of course. We have toured North America, China and now we are going to Scotland. That only solidifies the fact that we are 'world class.' "
(Ballet West is offering a patron package to those interested in accompanying the company to Scotland; contact Hess Travel at 801-292-8687 or 801-397-9117 ).
E-mail: scott@desnews.com