Arts and Culture

You can never get enough love can you?  So this Friday, on Utah NOW, we're offering an extended version - a special edition of our program on love.  We'll explore that powerful bond that draws one person to another by way of science and art, and of course, stories.  Here's the working question..."Just what is love?" (rebroadcast)

This week on Utah NOW we're profiling the StoryCorps Project.  It's a venture that's been traveling the country collecting stories.  They've been in Salt Lake since March and as they head out of town we'll take the opportunity to play some stories and talk about the model that drives the project...listening is an act of love. (rebroadcast)

This week on Utah NOW - National Public Radio's Diane Rehm. We're broadcasting our conversation with the popular radio host recorded live at the Rose Wagner Center in Salt Lake City. We talked about her compelling personal story, which includes a condition that threatened to take her voice. She also discussed the changing media landscape and tells a few stories along the way. (rebroadcast)

The Ken Burns' series on National Parks has gotten us thinking about the different facets in that relationship between Americans and Land. This week on Utah NOW we're exploring that relationship, from history and art to politics and spirituality... we'll talk about how land moves people and spurs them to action.

This week on Utah NOW, we're profiling a new documentary that traces the complicated history of Black people in Mormonism. We'll talk about how Black Mormons reconcile their racial and cultural identity with their faith and ask why the myths and misperceptions persist.

Watch the doucmentary "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons"  

Oct. 7th at 9 PM on KUED 7.1

This week on Utah NOW...reflections of America, on July 4th.  It's a program of stories and images and art that express the experience of a wide range of people who call themselves "Americans."

This week on Utah NOW a conversation with Richie Ramone, one of the drummers with the influential punk rock band The Ramones. He was in Utah recently performing his original arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.  As you can imagine Richie's take on the classic is packed with percussion.  We'll talk about music, his life and life with The Ramones.

This week on Utah NOW we're profiling the latest production from the Plan-B Theatre Company called "Block 8". It's the story of Ken, a young Japanese-American imprisoned by his country in an internment camp and expected to prove his loyalty. The play explores the boundaries in a society's drive to feel secure.

This week on Utah NOW we're profiling the Body World's exhibit now on display in Salt Lake City. The show uses real cadavers stripped of their fat and skin and arranged in poses. It's giving us an opportunity to explore our cultural, religious and artistic impressions of the human body - dead and alive.

This week on Utah NOW the historian Susan Sessions Rugh will be with us. In her new book, "Are We There Yet?" she traces the evolution of the family vacation from its beginnings in the forties to it's decline in the seventies. We'll talk about the changing patterns of family life and the tradition of the American road trip.

The Utah artist Brian Kershisnik's work has been described as a journey of exploration. From his vantage point in rural Utah, Kershisnik finds forms for the elements of the life he sees around him. This week on Utah NOW, we're profiling Brian's vision for life and art. (Re-broadcast)

In the one-man play he's written about his experience as a gay Marine serving in Iraq, Jeff Key explains he couldn't reconcile the reasons he had joined the military with the justification for what he came to believe was an immoral war.

Key's one-man play "The Eyes of Babylon" is opening this week in Salt Lake City. He'll join us to talk about it on Utah NOW.

It's not often we talk to international superstars on the program, but this week on Utah NOW the singer Sissel is with us.

Last Christmas she caused a sensation when she sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We'll talk about music and the inspiration she draws from her native Norway.

This week on Utah NOW -- we continue our conversation with filmmaker Ken Burns.

Burns' latest series premiers next week on PBS stations around the country. It is a deeply personal chronicle of World War Two and like all of Burns' work, it's history brought to life through stories.

This week on Utah NOW--we begin a series of conversations with the filmmaker and master storyteller Ken Burns.

From "The Civil War" to "Jazz" - from "Baseball" to his upcoming film on World War II; Burns' work has a breathtaking reach. But at its core, you'll find the American experiment expressed in a story.

This week on Utah NOW--as the state prepares to celebrate its pioneer history, we're talking about the legacy of Utah's early settlers in the artifacts they left behind.

What did their houses, buildings and furniture tell us about their lives and their communities? And what are the challenges to preserving this history?

This week the Utah NOW team travels down to Spring City for an on-location edition of Utah NOW.

Years ago the interstate bypassed Spring City here in Sanpete County, which didn't do much for the economy, but it did preserve the authentic character and the buildings of this pioneer settlement. This week on Utah NOW we're profiling this unique community. We're talking about its art, its history, and its challenges for the future.

For some, Sunday is a day of worship. For others the day is less about devotion as - a day off. This week on Utah NOW we're talking about Sunday; how people have observed it over time and just what the day has become, today.

She's a household name in the extreme ski industry, and he's the CEO and president of a successful financial firm. Kristen Ulmer and Kent Cannon spend their Sundays quite differently, but what do their Sundays reflect about the day as a whole?

Our studio guest is author Craig Harline. The History professor from BYU talks about his new book, "Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Super Bowl."

Mothers have always had ridiculous expectations to live up to, but the scholar Susan Douglas says a movement is growing that gives the moms of the world a break. This week on Utah NOW we're talking about the myths and the realities of being a mother in modern society.

Our studio guest Susan Douglas is a professor of communications at the University of Michigan and author of "The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women."

Doris Baizley's new play, "SEXSTING," which has just opened at the Salt Lake Acting Company, is more than a simple indictment of an internet predator. This week on Utah NOW we're talking about the questions of ethics and privacy in an effort to police the relationships of a virtual world.

Studio guests include playwrights Susan Raffanti and Doris Baizley.

Dance has a more fleeting nature than most art-forms- it lives in the moment. While it gives the experience its vitality – it also makes it difficult to account for or preserve. This week on Utah NOW we’re profiling the Ririe Woodbury Dance Company and asking how you perpetuate the ephemeral art of dance.

Along with throngs of supporters President Bush will be met by hundreds of protestors when he visits Utah next week. On Utah NOW we’re breaking down the elements of dissent…In a country founded by revolution how crucial is protest to a vibrant democracy and what are the limits?

Host Doug Fabrizio talks to Utah playwright, Aden Ross. Known internationally for her work, her latest production, Amerika is an examination of the relationship between money and power, lies and "terrorism." After a sold out Salt Lake run, Plan-B Theatre is taking the play, Amerika to the Toronto Fringe Festival this summer. What is Aden Ross' process of creating art while surrounded by our unique Utah culture? What does her work tell us about how we do or don't get along as a society?