This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company is trying something a little different this year for its midseason February performance. Ticket buyers have two options — the full-length evening performance titled "Winter Season" or "Elements," a one-hour matinee edited from the same material yet guided by a narrator with insights and movement activities.

"Family-friendly performances are part of our tradition of educating children," RW executive director Jena Woodbury said. "And while it's important those performances are manageable in terms of length, we want all ages to experience a professional dance company performing material that speaks to the role of art and dance in our lives and communities."

Both performances include the restaging of "Physalia," commissioned by RW in 1977. Choreographers Alison Chase and Moses Pendleton, co-founders of Pilobolus Dance Theatre, came to Utah 40 years ago to set the work on RW at a time when Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury were still dancing with the company they co-founded. Last month at RW's January Meet the Choreographer series, current company members demonstrated alongside the grainy archival footage of the original choreography as Joan Woodbury described the original dancemaking process. Ririe, who sat in the front row, offered nods of approval to Woodbury, who often looked to her to validate a humorous story or historical fact — illustrating a timeless friendship and artistic bond extending beyond the name of their 52-year-old company.

Daniel Charon, RW's artistic director since 2013, is premiering his new work titled "Snowmelt" featuring company dancers and eight additional dancers from the University of Utah. A total of 14 dancers will be on the Capitol Theatre stage to drive home his spirited comment on global warming and the glacial meltoff from which the piece derives its name.

"The political climate causes concern for us as artists, with the [National Endowment for the Arts] in peril and climate change affecting all of us; I felt empowered to move forward and make work that considers our humanity," Charon said. "I feel like we need to involve each other in our process and say 'Let's go make art! Let's go see art!' "

Also on the program is a duet titled "Super We" created by Bulgarian-born choreographers Tveta Kassabova and Raja Feather Kelly, described as "a rapid and restless duet that examines contemporary life."

Kassabova's grippingly emotional "The Opposite of Killing" wowed audiences last fall at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in its Utah premiere. As part of a package deal, she taught her part of "Super We" to the RW dancers. Later, in November, Kelly flew in to teach his part and further coach and prepare the duet for the Winter Season performance.

The program rounds out by bringing back company alumnus Miguel Azcue's "You and the Space Between," which employs live video feed to create visual illusions lending a distorted sense of time and place.

"To have contrast and variation programmatically really helps an evening of dance stay interesting," Charon said. "When I go to a concert I'm finding that variation between the pieces sustains the concert."

That explains why "Winter Season/Elements" ranges from historic restaging to applying modern technology, and from an intimate duet to a cast of 14. —

Chilling out

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company presents its midseason program in two parts.

'Winter Season' • Four dances that investigate humanity's fascination with the physical world; Friday and Saturday, Feb. 3 and 4, 7:30 p.m.

'Elements' • Family matinee; Saturday, Feb. 4, 2 p.m.

Where • Capitol Theatre, 50 W, 200 South, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $35; $40 day of show; $15 for students/seniors; $10 per person or five for $45 (any combination of children and adults) for the matinee; ririewoodbury.com/performances/2016-17-season/elements