CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

POV Dance and The Ford Building Project

dancing about and with architecture

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Mar 10, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

POV Dance is going to dance the Ford Building (2505 SE 11th), its stairwells, walls, windows, and rails. What’s the Ford Building you say? You know it as home of Gallery HOMELAND.

Mandy Christiansen, Noel Plemmons have choreographed an evening-length work called “The Ford Building Project” in which their nine dancers will move from one end of the building’s ground floor to another, making a moving landscape of architecture, bodies, light and sound. $15 at brownpapertickets.com

Note: The performance runs approximately 65 minutes with no intermission. Seating is extremely limited and options include sitting or kneeling on the ground, with the option of standing. All performances are ADA compliant.

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See ’em This Weekend

Remember how you totally meant to see American Buffalo? This weekend is your last chance.

Posted by: Alexis Rehrmann on Mar 04, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

I hate how these things creep up on me.

Sometimes I am distracted from the theater by drama of mine own (Parental Visit! Boyfriend’s Job Search! Massive Attack of the Blues! Netflicks delivers Battestar Galactica Season 3!)

I always get my act back together, eventually. Like right now, I’ve just poked my head back out into the cultured world, and realized that there are a bunch of plays I want to see, and this weekend is my last chance. Assuming I’m not alone in this predicament, here is a list of worthwhile shows that are wrapping up their stage runs this weekend. Go check one out!

American Buffalo at the trusty Third Rail Rep.

Before he raised four-letter words to an art form—and before the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross made him the irascible darling of the theater world—playwright David Mamet composed this dense, dialogue-heavy study of a heist gone wrong. First staged in 1975, it was only Mamet’s fourth play, but it contained the sturdy framework of what was to come: bawdy, brazen language; gallows humor; and men plotting, scheming, and struggling to break free from the soulless grind their lives had become.

King Lear at Mt. Hood Community College.

Veteran voice actor Sam Mowry from Willamette Radio Theatre tackles the title role in this, one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.

You Can’t Take it With You at Portland Actors Conservatory

(someone, perhaps, might have mentioned this to Lear) Future in-laws clash as the conservative, money-motivated Kirby clan and the free-spirited, highly eccentric Vanderhof-Sycamore family are forced to rub elbows. Things go downhill from there in this Pulitzer Prize winning comedy from George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.

Entre Villa y Una Mujer Desnuda at Milagro Theater

Gina and Adrian have a relationship that’s primarily physical—and that’s good enough for Adrian. But when Gina seeks commitment elsewhere, her neglected lover summons all his inner resources, including the spirit of Pancho Villa, to win her back.

Go forth! See shows!

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Tags: Theater

First Thursday March

too much good

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Mar 04, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Portland has come out swinging in the field of art for 2010 with strong shows right and left, from regional masters to intriguing visitors, excellent group shows…and March looks just as good. Here are some shows you might hit.

Marker
Marie Watt
PDX Contemporary Art
925 NW Flanders

Show of new work by Watt including “Trunk,” this incredible, sinuous cedar sculpture.

Clouds
Lucinda Parker
Laura Russo
805 NW 21st

Regional abstract expressionist powerhouse and longtime arts educator Parker with a show of new paintings inspired by the weather. Parker gives a talk Saturday, March 27, at 11 AM.

Letters from Switzerland
Melody Owen
Elizabeth Leach
417 NW 9th

“For Letters from Switzerland, using the tools and media of the Swiss-originated Dadaists, Owen created a precise and strange group of collages, examining feelings of dislocation and disconnection. Featuring bisected animals spilling flowers from their guts, and hotels sprouting roots that can’t find purchase, these works allude to the deracinated experience of the contemporary traveler.”

Laurie Danial
Froelick Gallery
714 NW Davis

Abstract paintings by Danial that feature tracings, structures, transparencies, the built and the organic.

Grassland Alphabet
Seth Nehil
In House Gallery
625 NE Everett St. #106

“…calligraphic exercises – letter-forms constructed from waves and clusters of marks. I imagined a field of wheat attempting to form itself into words, a mute landscape swelling in the wind, blades of grass arranging and aligning themselves.”

Constrain to Vertical
Brenda Mallory
DOPPLER PDX
625 NW Everett Street #109

Fabric wall pieces inspired by stacks of UPS “end-of-day” barcodes + Agnes Martin.

GRIP, GRASP, GROPE, AND FONDLE
Lucas Murgida
Autzen Gallery
2nd Floor PSU Neuberger Hall, Room 205, 724 SW Harrison

SF artist Murgida makes work through (and addressing) his work … conducting “research” while employed as cabinetmaking, restaurant work, locksmithing, and now yoga instruction. Artist talk/performance at opening.

Wrecking Crüe
IGLOO
625 NW Everett #102

Titled cute, this is a group show of work by Jordan Tull, Josh Smith, Salvatore Reda, Joshua Pavlacky, and Jeff Jahn (like the j-alliteration…should Salvatore change his first name?). Bullet points from the quite poetic statement:

+ constructed space
+ structural invention
+ half-made/half-undone
+ hypershapes
+ blueprints and Outer Space
+ rendering philosophical material from impulsive architecture

3X_PWN_TRANZ
Future Death Toll
Tractor
328 NW Broadway

sometimes when you pick up the pwn, you don’t know who is on the other line.
sometimes when you pick up the pwn, you do all the talking.
sometimes when you pick up the pwn, the pwn does all the talking for you.

I’m into the idea of “evidence of a past or future mission to transmit” as well as the machines of communication.

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The New Season at Portland Center Stage

It’s epic. It’s local. Subscriptions are now on sale.

Posted by: Alexis Rehrmann on Mar 02, 2010 at 02:00PM 0 Comments

Dust off your turbans and any rhinestone gee-gaws left from your own Hollywood heyday, and get to the Armory theater. On September 14, Norma Desmond will lead the sweep down the stairs as Sunset Boulevard opens the 2010/2011 Season at Portland Center Stage.

The musical, about the fading silent film star whose obsession with the revitalization of her career and a young man named Joe might succeed, or fail in spectacular tragedy, gets the full star treatment with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The guy practically defined the enormous, earnest musical dramatics of Broadway in the 8’s (see: Phantom of the Opera. Cats. My tape collection from Junior High, et al). It’ll be a rafter shaker.

She is Big, But YouTube is Just… Teensy

More epic tales find footing onstage in the downstairs studio: also opening in September, An Iliad, a one-man telling of the ancient tale. The script was created by the wry, Tony-award-winning, character actor Denis O’Hare. Love him, so I’m curious to find out who is performing in Portland.

February 2011 brings a staging of a homegrown classic, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Nurse Ratchet terrorizes the gang at an Oregon mental hospital, and a destructive, inspirational rebellion begins in what some call the greatest anti-authority protest novel of the 20th century.

The season ends with rock ‘n’ roll legend Janis Joplin. Love, Janis includes full renderings of her hits “Piece of My Heart,” “Ball & Chain,” “Mercedes Benz,” “Me and Bobby McGee,” and “Get It While You Can.” Three actresses will tackle the role- one to play young Janis and two to alternate performance nights embodying the on-stage legend.

(Is one of these actresses Storm Large, do you think?)

Of course, there’s more: Christmas shows, a Moliere comedy, a world premiere of Futura, a script that got its start as a JAW Festival reading—read the full descriptions of all the shows here.

Season subscriptions are on sale today.

Season tickets start at $52.50 (for the 3 show Studio Preview Series) and include special pricing for EVERYONE under 30 years old. If you’re under 30, PCS is giving you the student discount. Call the box office for details and tickets: 503.445.3700. It’ll be another few weeks before the new season is available for online purchase, and I’ll post that link as soon as its up.

Go get yourself some theater tickets! It’ll do you good.

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Tags: Theater, PCS

8xPDX

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Mar 02, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Brian Libby, Southeast 11th

Architecture writer and filmmaker Brian Libby has curated 8 x PDX: Photographs of Portland Architecture, opening First Thursday with a reception from 5:30-8:30 PM at the American Institute of Architects/Portland Chapterʼs Center For Architecture (403 NW 11th). The show features work by eight Portland photographers including Jeremy Bitterman, Jeff Jahn, Chris Hornbecker, Shawn Records, Susan Seubert, Sally Schoolmaster, Michael Weeks, and Libby.

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