The final curtain call on April 24 of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company won't just signal the end of its 2009-2010 season, but a change in the company profile.

With four of the six dancers leaving, "Propel" offers the last chance to see this uniquely talented ensemble -- a group who has used its considerable training to inform the contours of the choreography, and just as often, push us to examine and reflect ourselves.

Dancers come and go from companies, moving outward and upward is the nature of the competitive beast. And although auditions have been held, and there will be replacements, it's unusual to have 66 percent of a company leave at the same time, particularly at the peak of their success.


Watching their last performance as a group in Salt Lake City was particularly poignant, and highlighted their strengths.

Erin Lehua Brown, in her fourth season with R-W, is one of the longest standing members of the company. She is an amazing dancer with a clarity of line and fluidity, who gathers and unfolds the movement with gentle command.

Her solo at the end of the last piece of the evening, "If My Right Hand Would Say What My Left Hand Thought," was particularly captivating on April 22, as she weaved around her own body, as if lost in her thoughts, yet wholly present. Brown will be moving with her dancer-husband, who has been accepted to a highly regarded graduate school, University of Maryland, College Park.

Andrea Jane Dispenziere, one of the newest company members in her second season, is a dancer who makes her movement not just accurate but necessary. She owns the stage with her intensity. In Charlotte Boye-Christensen's opus, "Lost," Dispenziere's fulfills the work's underlying emotional quality with her utterly novel technique and punch. She will be leaving to join the New York City dance world.

T.J Spaur, also in his fourth season, is moving to New York City to pursue musical theater. And if Artistic director Charlotte Boye-Christensen is correct in her assessment, Spaur's charm and sense of humor will have him on Broadway in no time. This season, Spaur's stage presence elevated to the level of his skill as a dancer. Spaur's noticeable strength and physicality made him an energetic tango partner in Joan Woodbury's reconstruction of her piece "L'invasion," as well as a restrained equal in John Jasperse's "Spurts of Activity Before the Emptiness of Late Afternoon."

In his first -- and now last -- season with RW, Prentice Whitlow is returning home to Washington D.C. to support his ailing mother. Hopefully, Whitlow will find a place to continue to demonstrate his marvelous dance talent. Although his presence in Salt Lake City was brief, his authority on stage will be missed.

And as for the dancers who are staying, Caine Keenan and Betsy Wilberg, the company is lucky to be keeping two strong dancers to build on. Keenan takes the movement to the edge of the music and then slides right over the top of it as if the music were following him rather than vice versa. Wilberg has a cleanliness of movement (which must make her a dream to dance with in ensemble pieces) and precise ballet technique without looking fussy.

Jasperse's piece "Spurts..." was the only new work performed in the concert. It's a delicate and complex piece, with sophisticated spatial relationships and subtle changes in theme and variation. And although it begins as an application of an idea, the abstract concept is fulfilled and clarified emotionally. The lighting design by Cliff Wallgren was more like a painting, creating an onstage environment.

This review wouldn't be complete with mentioning the virtuosic, classical guitar performance by Todd Woodbury and Tully Cathey which accompanied Joan Woodbury's entertaining "L'invision." It was hard to take your eyes off the technical wizardry and magnetism of the two musicians and watch the dance.