THE ESSENTIAL A&E PICKS FOR AUG 5 - 11 

• Beau Pearson

Ballet West @ Park City Eccles Center
As trying a time as the past 17 months have been for arts organizations of all kinds, Ballet West has remained almost impossibly busy. In addition to the spring live production Precious Gems, the company performed a live production in fall 2020, plus offering its Summer Intensive program. On top of all of that, Ballet West participated in the creation of the nine-episode documentary series In the Balance: Ballet for a Lost Year, which followed the company and several individual dancers over the course of a month as they prepared to stage live performances in the volatile COVID era.

Part of being a thriving performing arts company is also bringing your work to audiences beyond your usual theater space, and this month Ballet West visits Park City for a one-night-only show at the Eccles Center (1750 Kearns Blvd.) on Aug. 5 at 7:30 p.m. The program consists of three contemporary works, two of which received their world premieres in May of this year. Choreographer Emily Adams' The Thing With Feathers—a collaboration with the Sundance Institute's Music Film Program—set to the violin of Isabella Reyes. Matthew Neenan's The Solo Year showcases the technical skills of eight dancers and the bold costuming of Mark Zappon, with a score featuring the concertos of Pietro Locatelli. The closing piece, Piece of My Heart, brings us the work of Ballet West resident choreographer Nicolo Fonte as inspired by the music of Janis Joplin.

Tickets are $20-$200, available now. Visit balletwest.org for additional performance information, and for up-to-the-minute health and safety protocols. (Scott Renshaw)

• Courtesy Photo

Wayne Coyne: The King's Mouth
Anyone who has attended a live performance by the Flaming Lips understands that those shows are not so much rock concerts as they are performance art pieces—trippy multimedia experiences that might include frontman Wayne Coyne bouncing through the crowd in a plastic bubble (and this was pre-COVID!). Coyne's artistry has extended into a variety of different artistic disciplines, and as Flaming Lips returns to the Ogden Twilight series for a third time, locals will get a chance to see another manifestation of Coyne's seemingly limitless imagination.

Ogden Contemporary Arts (455 25th St., Ogden) hosts The King's Mouth, a multimedia arts installation that has been touring since 2015, and links to the story of Flaming Lips' 2019 album of the same name. The centerpiece is a giant head in the form of a gleaming chrome tree, with an open mouth inviting visitors inside. Original music, animation, video and lighting effects add to a dazzling sensory extravaganza. "This will be our third year (at Ogden Twilight) and now we've got this crazy art installation happening at the same time and for me it's like, wow, in just a couple years Ogden has become this great sort of art-y progressive place," says Coyne in a press release.

The King's Mouth visit to Ogden begins with a reserved-slot "King's Stroll" on Friday, Aug. 6, with openings beginning at 4 p.m. for $15 per person. Tickets are also available for a special pre-party with Coyne before the Flaming Lips show on Aug. 20. The King's Mouth runs through Sept. 19; visit ogdencontemporaryarts.org for additional information. (Scott Renshaw)

• Mark Maziarz

Park City Kimball Arts Festival
You really shouldn't need an excuse to head into the local mountain during the summertime, what with the clean air and temperatures 10-15 degrees cooler than the ones that are baking the Wasatch Front. But in case you've been dragging your feet, the delights of Park City's historic Main Street being turned into an open-air showplace for visual art and music should give you the necessary nudge.

The Park City Kimball Arts Festival returns Aug. 6-8 for its 52nd installment, presenting three days of exhibiting artists and craftspeople, food (in the Brewpub parking lot and on Heber Avenue) and live music. Participating artist booths have been reduced slightly to allow for greater distancing, but there's still plenty to see and do in the open air, plus the Studio on Main to provide examples of Kimball Art Center's year-round hands-on programs. Whether your interests run to painting and sculpture, or textiles and jewelry, there's something for everyone in the nearly 200 participating artists, with 40 of them coming from Utah, including local favorites like Chris Bodily, Stephanie Swift, Anna Leigh Moore and Erik Jensen. Music headliners scheduled at press time include Tenshin Taiko drummers, Ballet Folklorico Sabor Latino, Los Chaskis, Swagger and Hot House West.

Tickets are $10 per day or $25 for a three-day festival pass, with Friday free for Summit County Residents. Festival hours are 5-9 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Sunday. Proceeds from the event support Kimball Art Center's year-round programming and educational outreach. Visit parkcitykimballartsfestival.org for additional event information. (SR)

• Modern West Fine Art

Modern West Fine Art: Earth
Among the many results of the COVID-19 pandemic was an increased collaboration between artistic organizations—a recognition that especially in a time of crisis, it was necessary to pull together in order to help ensure the sustainability of each organization. It's encouraging and enlightening every time these collaborations occur, and a current exhibition at Modern West Fine Art (412 S. 700 West) marks a special joint effort between the gallery and Cedar City's Southern Utah Museum of Art.

Earth serves as a preview of sorts for SUMA's upcoming exhibition This Earth, albeit with a few added goodies. Selected works from This Earth are on display alongside new work by artists represented by Modern West, as well as pieces by invited guests who also explored the theme of works inspired by the natural world and humanity's interactions with it. Among the works on display is "Swarm", by local artist Lenka Konopasek, continuing the kind of three-dimensional sculpture-style work that she has previously demonstrated in pieces like "Indoor Tornado." "Swarm" takes inspiration both from the 2017 solar eclipse and from the movements of birds, with interwoven semi-circles that evoke both the shadows case by moving celestial bodies and the choreography of birds in flight. Other participating artists include Shonto Begay, Rebecca Campbell, Day Christensen, Michael Coles, Ash Ferlito, Kiki Gaffney, Tom Judd, Courtney Leonard, Anna Laurie Mackay, Colour Maisch and Christopher Woodward.

Earth runs at Modern West Fine Art (modernwestfineart.com) now through Sept. 30; This Earth opens at Southern Utah Museum of Art (suu.edu/suma) in October. Visit each organization's website for additional information. (SR)