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SALT LAKE CITY — The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company is celebrating 60 years of inspiring people to find joy through movement.

The female-founded company was started by Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury in 1964, with a mission that every person deserves to dance.

Both Ririe and Woodbury left the teaching and directing worlds behind after decades of work, but their legacy is continued by the company.

A company with a mission

Joan Woodbury didn’t know dance was going to be her career, but she did know it was the “one thing in my life that brought joy and pleasure,” she told KSL.com.

The Cedar City native, received an honorary doctorate degree and a standing ovation for her dedication to the craft at her alma mater Southern Utah University’s April commencement.

“You worked hard to get here and there’s so many wonderful unknowns in your future,” Joan Woodbury told the graduates. “Don’t judge people, but relish those differences. These are the necessary ingredients to a life full of adventure, purpose and love.”

She became the first full-time dance instructor at the University of Utah in 1951, at age 26. Because dance was part of the women’s physical education department, she taught dance technique, improvisation and composition, folk and square dance, swimming, tennis and body mechanics.

The next year Joan Woodbury met Ririe, who was her teaching counterpart at Brigham Young University. The two started working together on choreography and created the company Choreodancers, for university students.

Choreodancers was disbanded in 1955 because Joan Woodbury, her husband and her brand new baby moved to Berlin so she could study there as a first Fulbright Scholar in dance. Ririe stepped in for Woodbury at the U. while she was away, and once Joan Woodbury returned, the two job-shared the professor position so they could both take care of their young children.

Joan Woodbury was a professor for 47 years, and Ririe a professor for 39 years.

The women started the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in the hopes of creating a space for choreography, performance and dance education. According to Joan Woodbury’s daughter, Jena Woodbury, they did exactly that.

“I went to the U. of U. because of my mother and Shirley. Because as I grew up, I saw them teach — and they were both phenomenal teachers, just really spectacular teachers,” Jena Woodbury said. “I was really lucky. I’ve had great role models. As two women, I have just the utmost respect for them for what they managed to accomplish in Utah, in what was relatively a fairly new art form in America.”

Jena Woodbury said the two founders were so successful because they were teachers, dancers and choreographers who played on each other’s strengths to make a well-rounded performance company and a robust dance education and outreach department.

“They had no funding that started them,” she said. “They just started it; and through their tenacity and business smarts, they built a company.”

Jena Woodbury grew up in dance, being born just a year before the company was started.

“It’s been part of my life experience, my entire life. I call it the other sibling,” Jena Woodbury joked, saying her brothers would agree.

She danced from age 3 to age 22 before switching to working in arts administration for companies in Portland, Oregon, and on international tours. She moved back to Utah to be the booking and touring manager for Ririe-Woodbury then took over as executive director in 2011.

The legacy of the founders

Ririe and Joan Woodbury, both now in their 90s, agree their hard work has made an impact.

“The work we did for all those years reflects in our motto: Dance is for everybody! We made dance accessible to as many people as possible,” Ririe said.

Joan Woodbury said through the company she has been able to give back by passing on the gift of dance.

“Sometimes I look and think I haven’t accomplished much of anything,” she said. “But I’ve opened the doors for many people to come into a field and dedicate their information and their spirits and their love to something they love just as much as I do.”

Increasing dance education has allowed people to experience human existence in a way they might not have been able to discover before, she said.

“People everywhere — children, adults, any human being who has a lifeblood of movement and enjoys participating in an activity that is so beautiful — has been affected by what Shirley and I and the rest of the dance crew have done in this state,” Joan Woodbury said.

Teaching children to dance affects their minds, bodies and souls and helps them learn to be joyful and love life, she said.

The founders were educators with a philosophy that everyone should have access to dance as an art, no matter their physical ability, race or economic background. Because of Ririe and Joan Woodbury, dance education was transformed and Utah is one of few states that has a dance instructor in every high school.

“It really is something that is truly a human experience to dance. It is a community builder, it builds self-esteem, it builds your cultural awareness,” Jena Woodbury said. “They really believed that dance … really builds us as human beings. It also builds future dancers and future audience members and dance appreciators.”

Jena Woodbury was the first executive director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company after her mother, and she was tasked with ensuring the company mission continued even though her mother and Ririe were slowly stepping out. In June, she passed the position on to Thom Dancy in preparation for the company’s 60th season.

“During my tenure, I’ve always known I wouldn’t be working like my mom did, in her 80s, but I’ve always felt it was important for my time there to prepare the company for the future when a Woodbury or Ririe wasn’t sitting at the head of the table. I was putting policies in motion, getting some stability for the company so it could continue for another 60 years,” Jena Woodbury said.

Artistic director Daniel Charon said the work Ririe and Joan Woodbury did create a reputation that enables the company to continue impacting people. He said many dancers and administrators who have worked for the company have gone on to do great things because the founders brought out the best in everyone — mentoring, nurturing and encouraging each person.

The founders have been slowly phasing out of their involvement in the company, but they still attend events and shows. And Joan Woodbury has been “a steadfast member” on the board of directors for the last 10 years, Charon said.

Charon didn’t get to see Woodbury teach too much, but he could always feel how passionate she was about dance, saying dance almost became a religion because it seemed so sacred to her.

“I’ve seen her light up so many times coming into the studio and being around dancers and helping with performances, giving people advice. She is so seeped with information and knowledge and is very forthcoming in expressing her ideas,” Charon said.

Charon said he has learned so much from and been inspired by Woodbury, who he says would always share her opinion with a sparkle in her eye.

“I find that often, about 99% of the time, she is actually very correct, so I really learned to listen to her because she knows what she’s talking about,” he said. “She’s just the kind of woman you never forget.”

The founders’ legacy lies in their belief that dance is crucial for a developing child as they learn creativity, cooperation, trust, relationship building and more, Charon said.

Ririe and Woodbury created curriculums for dance in schools and toured the state doing lecture demonstrations, something the company still does.

“You think about 60 years of dance and how many people will go through that company and how many kids you reach through the education, that’s a lot,” Charon said.

The future of the company

“The lovely and brilliant thing about the company mission is that the way you fulfill it is very fluid and flexible. I would hope that it continues with a true commitment to the mission and to being an arts and humanities organization,” Jena Woodbury said.

The company has a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; and the education department focuses on individuals and the community to “build a better humanity,” she said. The way things are run will change, Jena Woodbury said, but that’s how the company will keep growing.

Charon said the company is now in a place of evolution, but everything they do moving forward will be deeply embedded with the mission of dance for everybody. The company rests on the founders’ shoulders, he said.

“Our programming and what we do is a total extension of both of them. It’s hard to separate Shirley and Joan, but I think it’s just baked into the fabric of the company,” he said.

The company’s performance season will kick off the 60th anniversary with a “retrospective tribute” to Ririe and Woodbury that showcases their choreography on Sept. 21-23. Other performances of the season will include a young artist showcase, choreography from company members, and new works by Charon and the previous artistic director Charlotte Boye-Christensen.

“I hope people attend the shows, because Ririe-Woodbury plays such an important role on the national dance scene. We bring a relevant voice to the national dance scene in the creation of contemporary dance,” Jena Woodbury said. She hopes people will recognize the influence the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company has had on the state.

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