When Salt Lake City’s Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company received an invitation to tour Mongolia and South Korea as cultural ambassadors on behalf of the U.S. State Department, it was in the last days of the Obama administration.
Now, as the company prepares to leave May 1, the Salt Lake City dancers are appreciating the notion of a possible international summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Ririe-Woodbury could volunteer to lead a session in physical movement as an international cultural ice-breaker, jokes Daniel Charon, the company’s artistic director.
More serious, he says, is the way art can break down barriers in a divisive political environment.