Mark World AIDS Day at Grace Cathedral and visit our AIDS Memorial Interfaith Chapel. You will see:

A film of the dance Mobile (5 minutes) performed in front of the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s Doors of Paradise (like our own Ghiberti Doors), choreographed by Tomm Ruud and set to Aram Khachaturian’s Adagio from Gayane Suite. Tom Ruud, a principal at the San Francisco Ballet, died of AIDS-related causes in 1994. The film is presented in partnership with Kansas City Ballet.    

The exhibit of a panel of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which includes Tomm Ruud’s block.    

Altarpiece: The Life of Christ by Keith Haring. Altarpiece was his final work, completed a few weeks before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1990.  

Sightseeing entry to the cathedral is $12 general / $10 seniors & youth. For entry at no charge, please let our staff at the Welcome Desk know that you are visiting the cathedral to mark World AIDS Day.

More About Mobile

Tomm Ruud created Mobile while pursuing an MFA in Ballet at the University of Utah in 1969. A renowned ballet dance partner himself, in Mobile he explored the movement possibilities created by one man with two women. He had always been fascinated by the mobiles of Alexander Calder, and thus evolved his human mobile—an early collaborator sub-titled the work “Moving Objects Behaving In Linear Equipoise”. The music Ruud chose came to him from the soundtrack for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey; ironically, it was ballet music, the Adagio from the Gayane third suite, by Aram Khatchaturian. Mobile is found in the repertories of dozens of ballet companies world-wide.  

Raised in a western Wyoming village, Tomm was a charter member (1963) of Salt Lake City’s Ballet West, where he began his career as a choreographer and performed as a principal dancer until relocating to San Francisco in 1975. At San Francisco Ballet he was acclaimed as a romantic lead in the ballet classics and as a strong principal in the wide-ranging contemporary and neoclassical repertoire. As the AIDS crisis deepened in the late 1980s, and Tomm was diagnosed with HIV, he joined the congregation at Grace Cathedral and became active in the Men of Grace service ministry. He was baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter in 1993. His memorial service at the cathedral on March 7, 1994 was attended by nearly 500 people, and included Mobile, performed by San Francisco Ballet dancers in front of the High Altar. He is in repose in the Columbarium at Grace Cathedral, and his AIDS Memorial Quilt panel is frequently on display in the AIDS Memorial Interfaith Chapel. 

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GraceArts connects a wider community of people through art and cultural events held in our awe-inspiring space. If you have a passion for the arts, become a GraceArts member and enjoy discounts and benefits while supporting our cathedral. Learn more and sign-up today!