Tanner Dance at the University of Utah

Virginia Tanner created the Tanner Dance Program in 1949, and today the program continues to nurture an appreciation of dance, music, literature, theater and visual arts in a beautiful home, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex. The program reaches over 40,000 children and adults throughout Utah each year.

Tanner Dance class registration for the 2019-2020 school year will open June 5th.
Classes will run August 19 - December 7, 2019 for the fall session and January 6- April 25, 2020 for the spring session.

Tanner Dance will offer week-long summer camps for preschool through high school students. Camps are designed as half or full day programs, and they will run June 3 - August 2, 2019.

Summer Performances of "The Dancing Man"

Children’s Dance Theater 70th Anniversary performances of "The Dancing Man" continue in June 2019 at the Sandy Amphitheater and Utah Arts Festival and in the fall at Weber State in Ogden.

Join the University of Utah Children's Dance Theatre as they present The Dancing Man, a moving portrayal of a creative life from beginning to end. In a poor village by the Baltic Sea, an orphan boy named Joseph receives a pair of silver shoes, and with them the courage to follow a secret dream. Over the years, Joseph dances his way down the road to the southernmost sea, dancing hope and delight into the lives of those who need it most, until at last it is time to pass the silver shoes — and the dancing man's destiny — to another boy. First staged by the Children's Dance Theatre in 1986, The Dancing Man pays eloquent tribute to the lifelong pursuit of a dream and the joy of dance.

Sandy Amphitheater performance:  June 18, 2019 (Free) - 8:00 pm. More information about the Sandy Amphitheater can be found here.

Utah Arts Festival performance: June 22, 2019 (UAF admission) - 5:15 at the Festival Stage. More information about the Utah Arts Festival can be found by clicking here.

70th anniversary

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Come join us as we kick off the 70^th Year Anniversary of Tanner Dance. Although Virginia began teaching children’s classes in the early 1940s, it was in 1949 when the Children’s Dance Theatre gave its first official performance at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus. We mark the beginning of this incredible program of dance for children from that time when Doris Humphrey, a leader in American modern dance first saw Virginia’s small company perform and wrote to Virginia, “Your children have left an indelible impression with me of true creative dance.  Your children offer a wonderful proof of the power of the young artist, guided wisely, untarnished by dogma or routine, un-stereotyped and lovely.  This source of fresh ideas in dance-art is a treasure house to which you have found the key.  Only to one who believes in children and understands them could this treasure have been unlocked. Congratulations for bringing Children’s Dance Theatre to reality, and for being its faithful guardian and creator. Their performance I saw in Salt Lake gave me a lift in spirit which I shall always remember.  I think beautiful children dancing have more to teach us than we have to teach them.”

Please refer to your Tanner Dance eNews emails, or click below for important studio dates. Bookmarking our calendar on your computer and phone is a great way to stay up-to-date!