Homecoming 2014 Distinguished Service - Joan Woodbury

Few people, if any, have matched the profound impact on Utah contemporary modern dance, as has Joan Jones Woodbury, a 1947 graduate of what is today Southern Utah University. As co-founder of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, coupled with a 47-year-career teaching at the University of Utah, she has brought dance to countless people in our state, nation, and the world, and done so with passion and humor. This year, in the 50th year of her dance company, the SUU Alumni Association celebrates her pioneering life in dance and dance education, and warmly appreciates that her service to the arts over the years has been truly extraordinary.

She was born in Cedar City to a musical family in 1927, and her progenitors were among those revered stalwarts who built this institution. She enjoyed an idyllic country life on the family farm west of town before moving into a home on Cedar City’s Main Street. It was then that the five-year-old was enrolled in a tap dance class, as she loved to move and, truly, has never stopped. While she excelled as a dancer, she found even deeper pleasure in choreographing and creating dance programs, and that would prove to be a hallmark of her life. She credits her teachers for allowing her to explore her possibilities and to express herself. Joan also embraced a strong work ethic through her father’s ranching and businesses enterprises, and her mother’s busy performance schedule and teaching of the piano.

The venerable LaVeve Whetten was Joan’s dance teacher in both high school and college and it was through her encouragement, as well as that of her parents Lehi M. and Bernella Gardner Jones, that she matriculated at the University of Wisconsin. There she studied with the renowned teacher/philosopher Margaret H’Doubler for four years, receiving both her BA and MFA degrees.

She began teaching at the University of Utah, studied as the first Fulbright Scholar in dance with Mary Wigman in Berlin, and in 1964 she and Shirley Ririe founded the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. Joan’s earlier studies with choreographer Alwin Nikolais, helped shape her philosophy and aesthetic sensibility for the rest of her career. She was privileged to teach with, and for him, in many locales. Joan has choreographed more than 95 works and has danced or taught workshops and master classes throughout the United States, as well as in more than a dozen countries.

The sterling legacy of the Jones family in Cedar City history is assured, and Jo-An’s siblings have also lived lives of certain consequence. Brother Kerry has been a businessman and banker, and served as mayor and a council member. Kenneth has boldly carried on the fabled family ranching tradition in Iron County and into Nevada. Sister Cynthia, herself a former dance teacher, has long been a major force in the Cedar City Music Arts Association. Marolyn, who served with U.S. Representative Walter Granger, went on to be an active violinist in Salt Lake City. All are thriving to this day.

Joan is married to BAC graduate Charles E Woodbury and has three remarkable children—Todd, Jeff and Jena—with spouses Heidi, Debby, and Casey Jarman, and two grandchildren, Lauren and Cali.

In addition to many choreographic grants and commissions, Jo-An’s many honors include a Chimera Award from the Nikolais Dance Theatre, alumni recognition from Southern Utah University and the University of Wisconsin, the Utah Governor’s Award in the Arts, and the Heritage Award from the National Dance Association. She holds honorary doctorates from both SUU and the U. Today, Joan works to support the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company as it continues its next 50 years into the future.

Joan’s motto of ‘Dance is for everybody’ continues to be a clarion call in our state. A lifetime of sharing her love of dance and what it can contribute to the public good, and to the souls of individuals, has set Joan Jones Woodbury apart as a most special sort of artist and educator: one who reaches from the heart, and without regard to convention for convention’s sake.