Karen Anne Webb

The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company takes a look at its past and bids farewell to an artist who has helped make the past all it could be when "Rewind" bows tonight at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City.

"Rewind" marks the final performances of company veteran Ai Fujii Nelson. Known for her lovely clarity of style whether she is moving at speed or with complete fluidity, Fujii Nelson is completing her eighth season with the company.

Born in Tokyo, Fujii Nelson began dancing at the age of 4.

"I knew from my first class that this was what I wanted to do," she said. "I got good training, but things are different in Japan than they are here. There's absolutely no money from the government, so students have to both pay to attend school and get out and sell tickets to performances. That's one thing that motivated me to come here."

At a big international dance conference held in Tokyo, she met several professors from the Modern Dance Department at the University of Utah.

"The University of Utah has an excellent reputation," she said. "It's one of the top three modern dance programs in the United States. For my parents, they felt it was a safer and cheaper alternative than my going to New York to study, so when I was accepted there, they agreed that I could go."

But Fujii Nelson ended up in New York anyway, apprenticing to the acclaimed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company.

"I had auditioned but didn't get into the main company," she said. "But Joan [Woodbury, co-founder of RWDC] remembered me from my work at the U.

"At the perfect time -- perfect because I didn't get in and my visa was about to expire -- she called and asked if I wanted to audition for her."

RWDC liked what it saw, and back she came to Salt Lake City. It worked out well for everyone.

Audiences loved her work, and she eventually hooked up with landscape architect Aaron Nelson through the Brazilian band, Jinga Boa, in which they both play.

"What I've liked about working with the company is all the different works they do and all the guest artists they bring in. The people here have been great mentors and are all very inspiring to me. Ririe-Woodbury does so much, and I love it all -- performing, touring, outreach, teaching. I'm constantly learning.

"Whether I have strengths I've contributed is a little hard to answer. Each dancer here has to be strong and unique. I think I'm strong and fast, and learn quickly. I like to think others see me as optimistic, as laid back and easy to work with."

Fujii Nelson especially said she has enjoyed dancing in the works choreographed by Varone and Carolyn Carlson, although she also has found Boye-Christensen "an amazing inspiration."

"And Nikolais!" she said, referring to the company's status as the only official repository of the works of the late Alwin Nikolais. "His work is really fun, each interesting in its own way because he choreographed in such a variety of styles. And I love working with people passionate about their work, as Tito del Saz is." (Del Saz co-directs the Nikolais/Murray Foundation for Dance and sets the company's Nikolais works.)

"Ai is someone you like and are drawn to immediately," said Boye-Christensen.

"She has an amazing ability to make any work her own while still staying true to the choreographer's intent, which is important, because this isn't gymnastics, it's art," she said. "Her sense of sophistication and refinement are just innate with her, which is not true of all dancers."

Fujii Nelson said she and her husband hope to travel, possibly for schooling in New Zealand, possibly to check out the dance scene in Europe.

"It's been a great feeling," she said, "to perform a work, then dance it again a few years later. It's like reading a good book at different points in your life: You find new and different things each time you do it. I hope I've done that."