RDT Launches New Commission Celebrating Bears Ears National Monument

Repertory Dance Theatre, the nation's oldest and most successful modern dance repertory company, is excited to announce the launch of our newest commission and project, Sacred Lands/Sacred Waters with long-standing collaborator, Zvi Gotheiner.

The development of this project begins this May when RDT will bring Zvi Gotheiner and his company ZviDance to Utah. The two companies will travel together to the newly-proclaimed Bears Ears National Monument in the southeastern part of the state to gain inspiration from the land and insight from members of the Utah Dine Bikeyah who have been working to preserve their collective sacred lands for themselves and for the nation.

The premiere of Sacred Lands/Sacred Waters will be in October 2017 in Salt Lake City.

Before traveling to Bears Ears, RDT and ZviDance dancers invite the public to join them for an Orientation Presentation featuring a panel that includes Jonah Yellowman (Dine), Mary Benally (Dine), Stephen Trimble (author/historian), and Gavin Noyes (moderator). This event is funded by a grant from Utah Humanities.

This panel will give a multi-media presentation about the Monument, and describe how the Bears Ears Inter-tribal Coalition (Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute and Ute Mountain Ute) came together to support the protection of 1.3 million acres of federal public lands around the Bears Ears Buttes in southeastern Utah. This event will also be the launch of the crowdfunding campaign: DANCING THE BEARS EARS, which will help to raise funds for this project.

Repertory Dance Theatre believes that each of us has a unique "sense of place" that can be explored through movement and art. Over the years, RDT has explored this connection in countless ways. DANCING THE BEARS EARS will continue this tradition to celebrate the sacred land of Bears Ears.