Repertory Dance Theatre

Virginia Tanner (April 25, 1915 – May 20, 1979) was an American dance instructor and founder of the University of Utah Children's Dance Theatre. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, she began her formal dance training at the University of Utah. She studied with Doris Humphrey in New York City before returning to Salt Lake City in the early 1940s to establish her school for creative dance for children.

Virginia Tanner began teaching children at the McCune School of Music and Art in Salt Lake City in 1941, where she was director of the dance program. She went on to establish her own school within the University of Utah's continuing education program, which survives today under the direction of Mary Ann Lee as an auxiliary of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. In 1943, she formed the Modern Dance Theatre, a company that she co-directed with local dancer Barry Lynn. In 1949, she formed the Children's Dance Theatre.

In 1953, the Children's Dance Theatre performed at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Theatre in Massachusetts, the American Dance Festival in Connecticut, and New York University's summer camp in upstate New York to critical acclaim. Following the 1953 performances, the Children's Dance Theatre performed throughout the United States, including the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 and the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 1975. Tanner and her students were featured in Life, Newsweek and Dance Magazine and on national television.

In 1960, Tanner was instrumental in gaining a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to bring great choreographers to Salt Lake City to set work on dancers at the University of Utah. In 1966, through her efforts, a larger grant from the Foundation was awarded to the University to establish the Utah Repertory Dance Theatre.

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