BY KATHY VALIN

Charlotte Boye-Christensen is a new addition to the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

Collage of Images
The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, founded in 1968, has become a respected modern dance repertory company grown out of Salt Lake City. The Utah city might seem remote, but it's a powerhouse of dance, strong in both companies and training, drawing dancers and choreographers alike. One of the most recent arrivals is Charlotte Boye-Christensen, recently named associate artistic director by Ririe-Woodbury founders, Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury.

This week she's in Cincinnati with six company members for a mixed bill at the Jarson-Kaplan Theater, presented by Contemporary Dance Theater (CDT) on Friday and Saturday as part of CDT's guest artist season.

Two of Boye-Christensen's works are on the program. "I created 'Stirrings' on commission from Singapore Dance Theater in 1998," she says by phone in a voice tinged with her Danish roots and London training. To a score by John Adams, "Shaker Loops," the dancers draw candid comparisons to Boye-Christensen's impressions of Singaporean society ("wretched, dying to burst out," she says) and the Shakers' ritualistic approach to life ("for instance, separate entrances for men and women") mixed together with dynamic and passionate outbursts of emotion.

Boye-Christensen's "The Visit" was inspired by Mexican artist Remedios Varo's painting of a woman leaving her psychoanalyst's office. Her movement style reflects her varied cultural experience. A Fulbright scholar, trained in London and New York City, she's choreographed and danced in the U.S., Singapore, Denmark, Mexico and England. She's reluctant to nail her style down specifically.

"It's based on an enormous amount of things I've done over the years. I was trained early in Graham technique but, eventually, I started working more from a kind of release-based place -- however, my training was tremendously beneficial in terms of giving me an incredibly strong core. You need that sense of centering -- otherwise, you have nothing to release from."

Also on the bill are Laura Dean's "Tenmile," inspired by the rich natural beauty of Utah's canyon landscapes, and Keith Johnson's "Running/Still/Life."

"It's a beautiful collage of different images, interpersonal relationships," she says. "You're gonna see the dancers in many different sorts of stylistic formats, which I think is very important."

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