Arts & Culture

Salt Lake City is one of the West’s most varied communities when it comes to the arts and culture. Even from its earliest days, Salt Lake has placed a high priority on the arts. The Utah Arts Council, the country’s oldest state arts agency, was organized in Utah in 1899. Once established, theaters were built as quickly as churches. Today, Salt Lake is home to the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and boasts its own symphony, ballet, theatre, opera, and modern dance companies. Salt Lake’s galleries showcase compelling visual art collections, while museums preserve treasures of the past, including pioneer artifacts, military aircraft, prehistoric fossils, and fine art.

Visual Arts

Ever since the Anasazi and Fremont Indians inscribed their history on rock walls in southern Utah, the state has offered a place where the work of visual artists can flourish. The Utah Arts Council’s Visual Arts Program preserves and promotes Utah’s artistic heritage through the collection, preservation, documentation, and exhibition of the State Fine Art Collection. It also provides traveling art exhibitions, which are cosponsored by museums, libraries, schools, and community centers throughout the state.

Salt Lake City is home to the Intermountain West’s largest collection of world art, which is found at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the University of Utah campus. One of the best places to experience what Utah’s visual arts community has to offer is Salt Lake City’s Gallery Stroll–with an average of 15 galleries participating each month, the stroll represents a large spectrum of artistic media and expression. There are more than 25 art galleries and museums throughout the valley, such as the Salt Lake Art Center and the Springville Museum of Art that showcase an eclectic array of early and contemporary work by local, regional, and international artists. The Museum of Church History and Art highlights LDS Church history and art from pioneer times to the present day. The Museum of Utah Art & History, the newest museum in the heart of Salt Lake City, fosters an awareness of, and excitement about, Utah art and history.

Performing Arts

Within one year of arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Utah pioneers constructed a social hall where dances, concerts, and plays provided entertainment for the community. Today the tradition continues with the 2,800-seat Abravanel Hall/Art Center Complex and the elegant 1,943-seat Capitol Theatre, which are spectacular venues for showcasing Utah’s performing arts.

The world-class Utah Symphony orchestra has earned international renown among classical music cognoscenti and performs a 52-week season in Abravanel Hall and other concert venues within the region. Utah Opera enhances the area’s cultural mix. Since 1978, Utah Opera has stirred the emotions of a growing audience, performing annually for more than 130,000 people in Utah and its neighboring states. In 2002 the symphony and opera combined their management operations in a historical merger to form the Utah Symphony & Opera.

The Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation, headquartered in Salt Lake, hosts one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the country. The world-famous Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs in the Conference Center on Temple Square each week. (The public is invited to attend rehearsal performances on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 9:30 a.m., during their global network broadcast. The Choir is performing in the Conference Center while the famous dome-shaped Tabernacle undergoes renovation.)

The art of dance is alive and well in many forms in Salt Lake. Ballet West is one of the six largest ballet companies in the country and attracts professional dancers from around the world.

The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and The Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) are premiere modern dance companies based in Salt Lake City. The two companies present works of distinguished modern dance choreographers, as well as original works by their artistic directors and dancers. Both companies take their work on the road to perform and conduct workshops and classes in schools and local communities. Located in South Valley, Odyssey Dance Theatre offers professional jazz ballet that produces four homes seasons a year.

The Children’s Dance Theatre, the second oldest performing arts organization in Utah, is designed for young dancers. It is housed at the Virginia Tanner Creative Dance Studio on the University of Utah campus.

Of note is the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center that includes a 500-seat theater, orchestra pit, and rehearsal studio. In addition, the Theater League of Utah brings Broadway shows to the Salt Lake area.

Theater productions at the Pioneer Theatre Company at the University of Utah, Salt Lake Acting Company, Hale Centre Theatre at Harman Hall, The Grand Theater at Salt Lake Community College, and numerous other local acting groups are found around the Salt Lake area.

Just outside of St. George, the outdoor Tuacahn Amphitheatre is the home of the annual Broadway in the Desert theatre series, featuring productions of classic musicals, June - October. In Logan you can enjoy the Utah Festival Opera.

Literary Arts

Utah writers, whose stories celebrate the landscape and lore of the American West, are receiving national acclaim for their work. Readers often gather at Salt Lake bookstores and coffeehouses to hear the works of local and regional authors.

There are also noteworthy writers’ conferences scheduled in the cool mountains of the north and the desert landscape of the south. One conference that has gained a national reputation among writers is the Writers at Work Conference at Westminster College. There is also one of the country’s most prestigious Creative Writing Programs for MFA and PhD degrees at the University of Utah.

Festivals

Unique festivals and celebrations take place in Utah throughout the year.

• Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival is staged each January in Park City with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance. The Festival attracts 50,000 visitors annually—and screens more than 125 dramatic and documentary feature length films and 90 short films, selected from more than 5,000 submissions.
• The annual Utah Arts Festival, held in downtown Salt Lake City in late June, celebrates the visual and performing arts, crafts, demonstrations, and children’s art projects.
• Salt Lake’s multi-cultural community produces events like the popular Greek Festival, the Japanese Obon Festival, Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort’s Oktoberfest, and more.
• The Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City is recognized as one of the finest in the country. In 2005, the festival completed its 44th season. The 45th season of this Tony Award-winning festival will run from June 22 to October 28, 2006 and includes nine plays in three theaters.
• Living Traditions: A Celebration of Salt Lake’s Folk & Ethnic Arts is in May on the grounds of the City & County Building. This free three-day festival features ongoing performances, crafts demonstrations and sales, and 20 ethnic food booths selling traditional cuisine.
• The Downtown Farmers’ Market is a local growers market, featuring fresh produce from over 50 Utah farmers. In addition to the produce, the Market also offers a wide variety of fresh baked breads and pastries, cheeses, meat and seafood, jams and honeys, house and garden plants, and arranged planters. Unique food vendors also are a part of the Market, offering prepared foods and beverages. The Market runs every Saturday morning for 19 weeks at Historic Pioneer Park in downtown Salt Lake City, from mid-June through mid-October.
• The Downtown Art and Craft Market features over 60 vendors who create all categories of hand-made, non-imported crafts and visual arts. Traditional and non-traditional artists showcase and sell a colorful and varied display of high quality, handmade crafts and artworks each Saturday morning; adjacent to the Downtown Farmers’ Market in Historic Pioneer Park.
• The annual Festival of the American West relives the cultural history of the American West. The American West Heritage Foundation sponsors various festival events throughout the year that highlight a specific western theme.
• The annual Park City Kimball Arts Festival, held the first weekend in August, is a two-day visual arts exhibition staged on the streets of the historic mining town. About 200 artists from throughout the West exhibit their work for more than 100,000 attendees.

The Film Industry

Chances are you’ve seen areas of the state of Utah on the big screen in one of the more than 700 films and TV movies filmed here. The reasons filmmakers come to Utah are similar to what attracts other visitors to the state: the scenic beauty, geographic diversity, people, and services. Hollywood first discovered Utah in the 1920s. Since then, Utah has been the backdrop for hundreds of films, such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Mission Impossible 2, The World’s Fastest Indian, Footloose, Con Air, Independence Day, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Thelma and Louise, Austin Powers in Gold Member, and Hulk; as well as such galactic flicks as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rocket Man, and Galaxy Quest. Salt Lake City and the surrounding areas have doubled for some unusual locations, such as the Alps and as Beijing and the Sudan for the CBS TV series Touched By An Angel. WB’s popular series Everwood was filmed in Ogden and other areas of northern Utah. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was another popular TV series that filmed in northern Utah during the late 1970s. In 2005 the film industry in Utah contributed nearly $110 million in the state’s economy through film related activities.

Film companies have been attracted to the area not only because of the awesome and diversified scenery but also because of the efforts of the local film commissions and the film incentive programs our state offers. Utah has become widely recognized for the talent and professionalism of its residents.

For more about films in Utah, go to http://film.utah.gov, www.slcfilmcenter.org, and www.saltlakefilmsociety.org.

Attractions

Salt Lake sites located close-by include historic Temple Square, the Utah State Capitol, the Great Salt Lake, Kennecott Bingham Copper Mine, Hogle Zoo, Clark Planetarium, the Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts, the Children’s Museum of Utah, Lagoon Amusement Park, Thanksgiving Point (home of amazing gardens and also the world’s largest dinosaur museum), Daughters of Utah Pioneers Memorial Museum, and This is the Place Heritage Park. In addition, Trolley Square and Gardner Village offer unique shopping experiences. The Gail Benjamin Aquarium Experience (part of the Living Planet Aquarium projects) is open in Sandy.

The Future

The Salt Lake Chamber and Downtown Alliance are committed to planning and implementing a Salt Lake Cultural District in the capital city. Coordinating with current facilities, such as Abravanel Hall, Capitol Theater, and the Rose Wagner, the future plan hopes to incorporate many other arts groups to encourage economic development. It is a vital part of the Chamber’s Downtown Rising initiative.

For many years, Salt Lake and Utah have interchangeably been called the “best of the west.” This is a description that continues to ring true for the area’s arts and culture community.