Utah's living dance legends

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Utah was settled by arts-loving people who, famously, built a social hall and theater soon after their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. But it was in the restless 1960s that the state's reputation as a regional hot spot for dance solidified. Those were the years when Salt Lake City's three acclaimed professional dance companies came into being -- an unprecedented phenomenon for a city of its size.

The talent and passion of four extraordinary women, all living legends, were essential to the gestation of Ballet West, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Repertory Dance Theatre.

Joan Woodbury, Shirley Ririe, Linda Smith and Bené Arnold not only presided at the birth of professional dance in Utah, their determination and dedication continue to nurture companies, the quality of dance education and the continuation of the state's fine-arts legacy.

Each woman remains active, vibrant and deeply involved in her profession, though all are past retirement age. And even though they have competed for audiences and funding over the years, they are bound by mutual respect, common goals and shared memories. Of Utah's 1960s dance scene, Woodbury says: "There was a new burst of energy and possibility."

And there was a nucleus of talented people to take advantage of it. It was a time when community excitement over conductor Maurice Abravanel's professionalizing of the Utah Symphony spilled over into the dance world. Willam Christensen, former artistic director of San Francisco Ballet, had returned to Utah in the 1950s and was itching to create a professional ballet company in this home state.

The decade's penchant for experimentation and boundary-busting heightened interest in modern dance, as well. New Yorker Elizabeth Hayes had already raised the standard of dance instruction at the U. through the 1940s and '50s, and Utah native Virginia Tanner was attracting national attention with her Children's Dance Theatre and her vision for modern dance.

Ririe and Woodbury, Utah natives who had trained in New York and Europe, had been job-sharing a position on the U.'s modern-dance faculty since the mid-1950s -- the beginnings of a relationship now in its sixth decade. Both were mothers of young families, who covered academic duties for each other as they took turns bearing their children and attending to family needs.

"It gave us double the energy in that job," Ririe said. "We were both giving full time, but we were paid for half. We didn't care about the pay, just what we could do, and it became very fruitful."

"We've known each other and worked together longer than most marriages last," Woodbury said. "We both believe the same things about dance. That's what's made it work."

The two professors formed alliances with national leaders on the modern-dance scene, such as Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis, and brought them to Utah for workshops. And they invented ways to continue their own performing careers -- supporting their dance habit with their teaching salaries while forming a company in 1964 that was the forerunner of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

"We would just bring our kids to the rehearsal," Ririe said. "My kids told me all kinds of stories later about what they did to stay busy. They felt like they owned the campus. They had a great time growing up."

Smith grew up in Salt Lake City, dancing in Virginia Tanner's Children's Dance Theatre. She studied at the U. with Ririe and Woodbury, among others. When Tanner secured a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1966 to form a professional modern-dance repertory company, Smith was in Detroit. She was recruited back to Utah to become a founding member of Repertory Dance Theatre.

"They carefully selected eight dancers, with a mission to be an artistic democracy," Smith said. "Those were the times -- those were the '60s. People were looking at new models for administration. It was a daring experiment, and many thought it would not survive. But here we are -- an artistic democracy from which would emerge a way to create the first successful American dance repertory company."

As RDT became more successful, more structure was necessary; Smith has been executive/artistic director since 1983. Woodbury, who knows what it takes to run a company, is impressed by Smith's accomplishment. "I have utmost respect for what Linda has done in keeping RDT together all these years. That's hard. Shirley and I have each other. She's done it alone, and that's quite remarkable."

Arnold got her first look at Utah in the 1950s while traveling and performing with San Francisco Ballet, where she later worked as the company's ballet mistress. "We all were impressed with the passion that we found here and how much enthusiasm there was for the art form," Arnold said.

The positive impression influenced Arnold to come to Utah for university study in 1961. Christensen knew her from their years with San Francisco Ballet and included her in discussions about starting a professional ballet company in Salt Lake City.

In 1963, when Utah Civic Ballet (later Ballet West) became Utah's first professional dance company, Arnold held the critical role of ballet mistress -- the first in a series of positions that would make her the living icon and institutional memory of Utah's ballet scene.

Part of that memory includes working with her dance colleagues to create something from nothing. "We didn't have a budget," Arnold said. "We desired it, we wanted it, and it was important. We wanted to make professionalism happen here, and everybody just went for it."

Smith, who was coming into her own as a modern dancer at the time, remembers Arnold's contribution. "I was always fascinated with the energy Bené gave in helping that company to grow and develop into a nationally renowned company," Smith said. "She brought wonderful talent and vision."

The challenge of getting the companies through their infancy was only the first stage of a long process. Each of the fledgling companies went through an adolescent period in which the artists who created them had to re-create themselves as administrators.

"At a certain point, you are given the great opportunity to do long-range planning, to administrate and to make the company continue," Smith said. "You have to call on those creative skills to administrate, fund-raise and teach all the things that are necessary in the dance world. All of us have had to do that. For me, RDT has been like a university. ... I have to say that if you want dance to continue in the lives of our communities, large and small, you have to find a way to make that happen. You have to learn how to make that happen."

The three professional companies, and the university dance departments that spawned them, are fully mature now. But for Arnold, Smith, Ririe and Woodbury, the work never stops.

Arnold, who followed her Ballet West career with a 26-year stint as a ballet professor at the U., retired in 2001. She returned as interim head of the ballet department last fall, an open-ended position that will continue at least through the next academic year.

Arnold reveres the U.'s arts departments as the crucible where such groups as the Utah Symphony, Ballet West, Ririe-Woodbury and RDT sprang into being, and can barely believe she is back in the middle of the action. "It's a lot of hard work," she said, "but you do become born again. You realize what had been missing in your life. I am pleased to be back, even though it will be for a short time. It's worth everything."

Ririe and Woodbury are taking steps to ensure a smooth transfer of leadership in their company. Ririe works part time for the company now -- more during legislative sessions, when she becomes an irresistible political advocate for arts-education funding.

Woodbury continues as the company's executive director, but is preparing to turn the position over to her daughter Jena Thompson Woodbury, who spent her growing-up years in theater wings and dance studios around the world as she traveled with her mother.

"It's very heart-warming to know that this is going to be carried on through her," Joan Woodbury said. "She has a wonderful philosophy of dance and understands how important education is to the future of dance."

Smith, youngest of the four, continues as RDT's executive/artistic director, with respect for the past and an eye to the future. She believes the reasons Utah's settlers made theater, music and dance a part of their lives are still valid ones for sustaining the arts community she and her colleagues have worked so hard to advance.

"It's a socializing mechanism," Smith said. "A place to gather to have wonderful activities that bring people together and establish entertainment on a higher plane -- a rich resource for a community that helps nurture growth, citizenship -- all those wonderful qualities we want in a community, like creativity and a place for young people to expand their interests."

All four recognize that ensuring survival of their artistic offspring, their companies as well as dance programs throughout the state, is a continuing struggle. "We've been here so long that people think we'll always be here," Arnold said. "They forget that in order for us to maintain this uniqueness, we must have the support of the community."