CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS Blog

beyond the tutu

Interview+Slideshow: Adam Arnold on Designing for OBT’s Spring Show

The Portland fashion designer gives us a behind the scenes glimpse of the creative process for costuming a dance in OBT’s spring program, Chromatic Quartet, opening Thursday at the Newmark.

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 18, 2012 at 08:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Choreographer Matjash Mrozewski takes members of the Oregon Ballet Theatre through the steps of The Lost Dance, which will be one of four dances in OBT’s Chromatic Quartet, April 19–28, at the Newmark Theatre. Photo by Blaine Truitt Covert

View Slideshow »

Read our review of opening night.

OBT’s spring program, Chromatic Quartet, running from April 19–28, offers four short works that explore how surprising partnerships can make for unbridled inspiration. Opening with a love letter from George Balanchine to his mentor and creative partner, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, the program will also include duet by international contemporary choreographer superstar, Christopher Wheeldon, and an homage to the legendary humanitarian doctor Albert Schweitzer, Lambarena, that combines his beloved Bach with African rhythms. But we’re most excited about the world premier of The Lost Dance by Canadian choreographer Matjash Mrozewski, set to the soundscape of electronic music composer Owen Belton (listen to a preview of his dreamlike composition). Since Mrozewski is no stranger to beautiful costumes, for his Portland premiere, OBT suggested one of Portland’s premiere designers: Adam Arnold.

In between final fittings and filing his taxes, Arnold was kind enough to answer a few questions about the process.

How did this collaboration come about?

I received a call from OBT late last summer asking if I would be interested. Indeed I was! I learned that the choreographer had seen my work online and was impressed after a recommendation by Christopher Stowell for a local designers he should consider for his new work.

You’re a busy man. What excited you about the project enough to give it so much time?

Kind of a story. Back in 2007, I provided clothing for the campaign Who’s Your Dancer? that featured company dancers in fanciful shots, arranged by Alicia Rose. My studio was practically across the street at the time. The poster series lasted about a year as I remember, and at the end, I expressed interest in costuming a ballet for OBT. The coordinator at the time mentioned that what dancers wore was far different than what I did. Always ready for a challenge, and sort of the rebellious type, I designed and made a tutu and hung it in my window right across the street as if to say, “Look! Give me a chance!” I put that same tutu in the window of my current studio on MLK as a sort of celebration of this new work, and to bring it full circle.

So, yes, I am a busy man, but this was personal. And the premiere happened to coincide with the time that I typically have my spring show, so I thought, why not think of this as my spring show and do it?!

Since it’s a world premier, it’s not like you got to see the performance ahead of time. How did you come up with the designs and what served as inspiration?

I met with the choreographer last October, and we brainstormed a bit about the process and discussed a number of things he liked about my work. But it was really during the emails he and I exchanged over the next several months, while he worked with the composer, Owen Belton, that I was able to pull together ideas for the piece. I listened to the music over and over again and would sketch out ideas that came to my mind though the music.

I knew that I wouldn’t really know what the choreography was going to look like until Matjash arrived in the middle of March, but by then, I was definitely feeling a sort of anachronistic aesthetic emerging. He and I both wanted it to feel elegant, but sexy—a bit gritty, but not sloppy. I began surrounding myself with photographs of the work of Halston, with a touch of Rudi Gernreich. And because it was going through the Adam Arnold filter, there was a definite structured sensibility. Also, color became a focus. I used mostly neutrals with hints of color like persimmon, magenta, and the nostalgic grace of a color that I can only describe as pickled pheasant egg—a kind of greenish mustard gold.

Tell us about the actual creation process.

Being a sort of “method designer,” I decided that I should sketch the dancers as they practiced in their morning classes to get an in depth understanding of how they move, and to observe their natural movements. I also created the opportunity to have a couple of them try on some of my sample garments in the dance studio, have them dance, and see where the stress points were, so that I could design garments that were made for dancing, not merely costumes.

Knowing that time was going to be an issue, I decided that it would be necessary for me to create the garments in my studio, rather than hand it off to a costume department. I started with the fabric, which I draped on dress forms into pleasing silhouettes, and then, from the ones I liked, I would draft patterns and cut and sew them in the studio. I tried the sewn garments on the dancers in the OBT costume department, and then I would take them back to the studio to make changes.

My 95-year-old grandmother, who taught me to sew to begin with, was in and out of the hospital. I moved one of my sewing machines into her living room in Vancouver, so I could sew some of the costumes by her. I think all of the men’s shirts were sewn in her living room. It meant a lot to me to be able to share this with her.

Are there unique challenges to designing for dancers?

One of the biggest challenges came in the form of a men’s tailored dress shirt. Through those observations in the dance studio, I was able to draft a pattern for a dress shirt that allows for exceptional arm rotation, without the use of stretch fabrics or compromising the fitted quality I wanted in the final piece.

Also, the fact that more than one sized dancer might use the same costume, adjustments and certain kinds of engineering were necessary. For example, the same dress worn by a dancer who is 5’3", might also be worn by one who is 5’7". This required the dress to be made in two pieces, a bodice and skirt. Because of this, you might see the line where the bodice ended under the skirt, so I built underwear into the skirt to hopefully smooth that line. These are all things that would not be necessary in the design and making of a dress for a client, but it is the same kind of problem solving that any designer in any field knows very well.

For those who want to see the show, but price is an issue, OBT offers a “Pay Your Age” discount for all patrons under 35 years old and also participates in Arts for All.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Dance, Slideshow, ballet, preview

last laugh

Post-Bridgetown Podcasts

So the big comedy fest is over. You can still relive it online!

by Sara Gates

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 17, 2012 at 06:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

The wristbands are worthless, the hand stamps are fading away, and the fifth year of Bridgetown Comedy Festival is officially behind us. However, if you missed out on this year’s stellar lineup, fear not. Thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of comedy podcasts, a number of acts this year recorded live tapings that will be coming soon to an Internet near you. Here’s a short list of podcasts that promise to prolong the best laughs from Bridgetown 2012:

RISK! with Kevin Allison
Kevin Allison, a former member of well-known comedy troupe The State, regularly hosts live shows in New York and LA with an undeniably enticing premise: famous comedians share their most embarrassing moments. Allison brought the act to the Bagdad Theater both Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, along with special guests that included Maria Bamford, Eric Andre, Sean Patton, and Janine Brito. Cringe in delight while listening to tales of ill-fated midnight forays into Central Park, meeting the locals in Amsterdam, and more than a few mentions of untimely projectile illness.

Who Charted
Hosts Howard Kramer and Kulap Vilaysack recorded their pop culture commentary Who Charted? on Saturday night at the Bagdad, and included guests Brett Gelman and Brody Stevens.

Roast the Week with Mike Bridenstine
Helium Comedy Club was overtaken on Friday night by a taping of Mike Bridenstine’s regular headline-skewering podcast and a special eight-guest panel of comics, including Pete Holmes, Myq Kaplan, and Matt Braunger. Gathering such a large group of funny folks on stage together can sometimes get a little out of control, but this group kept the interruptions and talking-over-one-another to a respectable level that should make for a stellar broadcast as well as a great live show.

Improv4Humans with Matt Besser
Improv on the radio? It works, we promise. With the ultimate in improve pedigree (he hails from LA’s famous Upright Citizens Brigade), Matt Besser led a pack of talented performers on the stage of the Hawthorne Theatre Friday night. It was the popular podcast’s first foray into a live performance, and the cast couldn’t have been better: Brett Gelman, Jon Glaser, and Joe Wengert made the most of the opportunity. Don’t miss this one.

Gelmania
Brett Gelman’s podcast, Gelmania, lives up to its name. Far from understated and completely self-involved, Gelman’s taping on Friday night at the Hawthorne Theatre involved doomsday messages, scolding of other comics for chatting in the green room too loudly, and invitations for female audience members to join him in his room at the Ace Hotel. Cult favorite Tim Heidecker was undoubtedly the big-name guest of the night, but Portland native Maria Thayer, now featured on Adult Swim’s Eagleheart, was undoubtedly the most charming.

Doug Loves Movies
One of the most popular comedy podcasts out there today, Super High Me’s Doug Benson’s weekly film buff audio extravaganza invaded the Helium Comedy Club for two tapings. Guests like Matt Besser, Jay Hollingsworth, and Pete Holmes joined Benson for movie-centric discussion, trivia games, and general merriment.

Comedy Film Nerds
This weekly podcast, hosted by Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini (two stand-up comics who both love and make movies), saw some of the weekend’s biggest-name guests: Doug Benson and Janeane Garofolo, no strangers to the film biz themselves, both dropped by to talk movies.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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byzantine vocal ensemble killed the radio star

Portland’s Cappella Romana on NPR

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday marked the Eastern Orthodox Easter with a story about a new exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum: “Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition.” Portland’s own internationally recognized vocal ensemble, Cappella Romana, opened the exhibition with a concert of medieval Byzantine music, and NPR focused their story in large part on the group, giving their sublime voices extended play. From the story:

Lingas says it’s essential to remember this music is a living tradition that connects the far-flung roots of early Christian history to today.

“You have types of scales and ways of singing vocal ornaments that are not what Western classical singers are used to doing,” Lingas says. Instead of standard Western vocal technique, he and his singers use a different vocal placement, a more Eastern-sounding vocal timbre, and what he calls “the same notes but with a few added little twiddly bits in between.”

The ensemble recently released their new album, Mt. Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium, but it’s even grander to hear them live. Either go for a fancy Byzantine meal and intimate performance at their A Taste of Byzantium benefit event at the University Club of Portland on May 12, or head to their Be Radiant, O Peoples! concert on May 19 at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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political theater

Review: The American Pilot

Theatre Vertigo presents an incredibly perceptive play on the complex moral conundrums of war.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 16, 2012 at 07:00AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

THROUGH APRIL 28 Try as they might, few dramas—and even fewer political plays—manage to show all sides. While the opinions dearest to the dramatist get fully developed, opposing forces on all flanks are too often conceived as two-dimensional foils beside which the lead characters’ views are brightened. Not so for David Greig’s The American Pilot from Theatre Vertigo , which gives equal weight to all factions of “the enemy,” from innocent farmers to a blood-stained, besieged regional warlord.

“Another political play?” regular local theatergoers may whine, having recently been read the riot act for moneyed liberal hypocrisy in Third Rail Rep’s The Pain and the Itch, or seeing PCS’s The North Plan twist a doomsday scenario into uproarious bipartisan slapstick, with a Skynyrd fan and a gay New Yorker teaming up to stick it to the CIA. Well, The American Pilot has another entirely different take, a decidedly flinching look at modern warfare that articulates competing crises of conscience for all sides.

The title character, a crashed, wounded navy pilot, is rescued by villagers in a deliberately unspecified nation that America is bombing. Given lodging and then held hostage in a barn by a local farmer, he observes but fails to comprehend the conversation that his presence inspires. (Though the whole play is in English, clever stage cues help the audience understand the scenario as bilingual.) But a language barrier is nothing compared to the ideological divide between a free market capitalist and a bartering low-tech society.

Through expository monologues between scenes, the characters contextualize themselves in the overall struggle. “I am the captain,” bellows the local resistance army commander (Gavin Hoffman). “When I come to a village I bring money. I speak to the farmer about his crops, I know the name of his oldest son. I always wear sunglasses.” At turns ruthless and benevolent, he’s installed himself in a way that occupying troops cannot, inspiring both fear and gratitude among his people from point-blank range. Still, he’s haunted by his own losses and nagging concerns about whether a middleman can really impact world affairs. This portrait of a “terrorist leader” seems incredibly perceptive, and explains some things Westerners—keen to target such a figure—tend to misunderstand about such climates.

We also meet the pilot’s hosts: a stoically religious, longsuffering wife (Brooke Fletcher); a starry-eyed Western-TV-watching teen (Britt Harris), and a sincere but irresolute farmer (Gary Norman)—and we observe that this family has its own regionally imposed concerns, like crop loss, marriage arrangement, barter for safety and favors, and now the fear that their humanitarian impulse to help a wounded man will ultimately be repaid by more bloodshed.

A fixed point in a morally tumultuous world, the pilot himself (Mario Calcagno) embodies universal suffering, but also a uniquely American mix of congeniality and entitlement. Likable, enviable and pitiful all at once, he hopes for the best while his captors (secretly marveling at his movie-star handsomeness and his fully-stocked iPod) discuss “doing the right thing.” That very phrase (echoing Spike Lee), gets plenty of play in Pilot as wildly different plans are proposed. Beautifully and sensitively inhabiting torrid turf, Theatre Vertigo delivers a visceral good-samaritan stunner, an immersive experience that defies any glib summation. What is the “right thing” to do? It just depends who’s asking.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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a smashing arts soiree

PICA Rolls Up the Rug for Its Office Warming

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 14, 2012 at 01:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

No one scolds you for touching the art at PICA’s new space, as a man interacts with artist Glen Fogel’s sculpture, 15’ ". Photo courtesy Wayne Bund

If Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts’ coming year is anything like last night’s opening celebration at its new building, we’re in for an art adventure of epic proportions. From the kickoff at 6pm until well after closing at 10, the space was packed with a gradually shifting, glorious swath of folks, the median age dropping as the crowd transitioned from the getting off work shift to the Friday night party shift. Beer and wine flowed (thanks to two extra beer runs), finger-licking appetizers were passed around, Brooklyn artist Glen Fogel’s painted love letters covered the walls, and his giant pink phallic carwash noodle with a painted-on face flapped above the crowd and poked at the rafters. In other words, it felt like your favorite night at the TBA Works.

“I had that anxiety that no one would come,” said visual art curator Kristen Kennedy afterward. “Then I turned around and it was packed.”

PICA kept the remarks short: executive director Victoria Frey, artistic director Angela Mattox, and Kennedy spoke about the space, Fogel’s installation, and a preview of what’s to come in the spring (mark your calendars for two big deals: a May 15 preview by the deliciously transgressive Big Art Group of their TBA collaboration with Portland artists and a June 21–24 visit from legendary San Francisco choreographer and provocateur Keith Hennessee and his company for a series of workshops, lectures, and in-progress performances).

Then, as DJs New Dadz started up the turntables at 8pm, the rug was literally rolled up in the library space and the dancing began. That folks felt comfortable enough to turn a library and an art installation into a house party bodes well for PICA’s desire that the space provide a platform for artistic dialogue, both locally and globally.

And what a space it is. Having lived in the Wieden+Kennedy building since 2000, PICA’s been confined in what amounts to a corner. Now they have the entire top floor of the long-empty iconic midcentury building at 415 SW 10th. You know the one: big colorful panels on its façade, sandwiched between the Ace’s Cleaners space and the Pita Pit. They’ve done minimal buildout (it’s remarkable how the right lighting can turn raw, textured concrete into the most beautiful of canvases). The 5,500 square feet floor is divided into open office space in the front (“Coming from cubicles, we originally made Victoria put in dividers,” said communications director Patrick Leonard, “but then we hated them, and took them out. Now I look up and see someone staring at me. I love it.”), the Resource Room collection in the middle, and then a wide-open events/exhibition space in the back. The currently off limits 4,500 square foot roof deck at the back makes me drool with dreams of summer evening performances (or Guantanamo Baywatch Slip-n-Slide beach parties).

Then they’ve turned the second floor into a temporary installation space, taken over by Fogel’s videos of his female relative’s spinning rings. It’s a complex, meditative experience, but I’ll save that for another post.

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concert review

Portland Cello Project: Two-Night Album Release at Doug Fir

PCP plays an all-ages matinee today at 5, followed by their second evening show at 9
—Review by Camille Grigsby-Rocca

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 14, 2012 at 12:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Last night was the first in a two-night album release blowout by Portland’s prodigious, genre-defying string ensemble, Portland Cello Project. In fitting with the group’s history of cello-ifying everything from Britney Spears to Pantera, their new album, Homage, out May 1, is a collection of hip-hop covers interspersed with classical compositions.

In preview, last night’s performance included a lively rendition of Outkast’s “Hey Ya,” soulful interpretations of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” (supported by Steven Bak, who blew the audience’s collective mind with his vocal range), and covers of hip-hop tracks by artists such as Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West. In true hip-hop form, a vinyl edition of the album will be released on April 21, including a bonus track: long-time crowd favorite “All of the Lights.”

Jumping from the Mission Impossible theme song to celebrity-cellist Gideon Freudmann’s somber and evocative “Denmark,” the group transitioned seamlessly from genre to genre—and the audience followed eagerly, swaying silently from side to side for one song, madly jumping up and down for another, or belting out the vocals to “Rolling in the Deep” (luckily, Bak was louder). After tonight’s show, PCP hits the road, taking the cello to the people nationwide.

Portland Cello Project performing Kanye West’s "All of the Lights” at the Crystal Ballroom.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Review, music, Doug Fir

album review

Radiation City’s Cool Nightmare

Review by Kit Mauldin

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 13, 2012 at 02:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Singular sources can sometimes offer almost infinite inspiration to artists and musicians. Neil Young famously buys guitar after guitar for the unique songs hidden in each; British sound artist Matthew Herbert routinely selects unorthodox subjects for his dance floor experiments (his latest, One Pig, needs little elaboration). In Radiation City’s case, mining the mystique of a dying upright piano for all its worth becomes the starting point for Cool Nightmare, the follow up to last year’s acclaimed debut. Over the album’s brief duration, the band wastes no time setting scene after scene and finding a home for every filtered, fiddled-with sound coaxed from the upright’s vertical strings.

Radiation City excels at elegant dialogues between genres, effortlessly weaving Roland 808 cowbells under classic Latin rhythms; layering shoe-gaze coos over spring-reverbed jangle. “Find it of Use,” their first single (with an accompanying music video where they destroy their piano muse—see below), is a year of seasons unto itself, blooming into sunny bachelor-pad boogie, moving into a shivering, decadent, desperate sprawl for its climax, and then transitioning back again. And however much the acrobatic synth bass in “Winter Blind” sounds like it could’ve been lifted from the Menomena songbook, it effectively underpins a baroque doo-wop shuffle and then waltzes right into a big room of minor-key call and response for its powerful bridge.

Lizzy Ellison’s voice maneuvers varied terrain within the album’s short length, and, listening to her navigate and adapt, we can hear her torn between the carefree twee of any number of the superficial, insubstantial female vocalists of late and the bold clarity of earnest 70’s icons such as Joni Mitchell or Stevie Nicks. Guitarist and part-time vocalist Cameron Spies fares a little better, consistently settling into the well-worn tenor of so many of his indie-rock peers.

Cool Nightmare is a tidy statement perfectly tailored for the growing population of attention deficient files-haring junkies of Portland and beyond, sweeping us off our feet and kissing us goodnight before we even finish our lunch break.

Radiation City / Find It Of Use from Andrew Sloan on Vimeo.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Review, music

army of one

Rachel Maddow’s In Town!

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 12, 2012 at 02:00PM Speech Bubble 3 Comments

… and just because her appearance at the Crystal Ballroom is sold out, doesn’t mean it should be overlooked. Clearly bearing a message Portland wants to hear in her new book release, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power , the no-nonsense MSNBC show host tackles a heavy question: How did the US military machine go so far afield from its original intentions? If you want a taste of what she’ll tell her audience at tomorrow’s noon chat, listen to her recent Fresh Air interview or read the transcript. Examining everything from the CIA’s secrecy to the public’s detachment from war efforts abroad, Maddow minces no words in calling certain modern warfare conceits “un-American.”

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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break out your calendars

The 2012/2013 Season(s) Announced!

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 12, 2012 at 01:30PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Over the last month or so, announcements have been trickling and then rolling in for the upcoming 2012/2013 season. It’s like debutante ball season where everyone’s parading in their new dresses—bows, tiaras, and all. Which means it’s time to break out the calendar and dream about all the majestic cultural joy to come in the next year (and start shopping for all those show gowns).

Below are highlights and lineups for some of the bigger arts organizations in town, beginning with theater and moving into classical, dance, and opera. I’ll be updating these regularly as more orgs announce.

Fred Meyer Broadway Across America Portland

Memphis
Sep 11–16
“One of the top 100 longest running Broadway shows of all time!” (Is it just me, or does that somehow fail to be even modestly seductive? Is it 32nd or 95th?)

The Book Of Mormon
Jan 1–6, 2013
A total coup for Portland’s Broadway season, our city will be the fifth stop in the first national tour of the play the New York Times called “the best musical of the century.” From the creators of South Park, The Book Of Mormon won nine Tony Awards including Best Musical, nabbed the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and is nigh impossible to actually see on Broadway because tickets are always sold out, so get them here as soon as they go on sale!

War Horse
Feb 26–Mar 3, 2013
Made famous by Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film, War Horse was a play before that (and a book before that). It won the Tony for Best Play in 2011 as well as major praise for the magic of the puppetry that brought it’s leading horse to life. Also just starting its first national tour, it’s another feather in Portland’s Broadway costume-room hat.

Flashdance
Apr 23–28, 2013
What a feeling!

Rock Of Ages
May 28–June 2, 2013
A jukebox musical for lovers of ‘80s music (aka everybody).

The Addams Family
June 25–30, 2013
I’ll see it just because I want to know how they’re going to pull off Thing.

Portland Center Stage

On the Main Stage:

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sep 18 – Oct 21
Looking past the Tim Burton debacle, Sweeney Todd is one of the most daring, and certainly grisly, musicals ever written. Can we say we’re more than just a little exciting for “A Little Priest.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Nov 13 – Dec 23
Shakespeare’s most magical comedy. You know it.

I Love to Eat
Jan 8 – Feb 3, 2013
A one-man play about Portland’s own Julia Child, our original culinary star: James Beard. While Beard got his start in Portland and the play takes place in his New York home (where his phone becomes basically the other character in the show), the play itself oddly premiered in Indianapolis last year. But you can expect Portland to take it back with a locally-focused foodie extravaganza surrounding the performances.

The Whipping Man
Feb 26 – Mar 24, 2013
Having premiered in New York earlier this year to great acclaim, The Whipping Man tells the story of a badly-wounded Jewish Confederate soldier who returns home at war’s end only to find his house abandoned but for two former slaves, who were raised by his family as Jews. In other words, not your grandparents’ Civil War play.

Clybourne Park
Apr 9 – May 5, 2013
Continuing its push for both fresh theater and shows that explore race, PCS will put on the 2011 Pulitzer winner about how we deal when someone different moves in next door. In a tale of two periods, the first act is about a white family in the 1950s struggling with a black family moving in next door, while the second act focuses on the same house 50 years later, after the neighborhood has shifted black and is now facing gentrification.

Ella: The Musical
May 28 – June 23, 2013
The queen of jazz prepares for one of the most important concerts of her career, jamming and scatting her way through her greatest hits with her band and her famed trumpeting collaborator Louis Armstrong.

In the Ellyn Bye Studio

The Body of an American
Oct 2 – Nov 11
A highlight at JAW playwrights festival in 2011, this story spans the globe to tell the tale of two men who’s paths continue to cross: war reporter Paul Watson and troubled playwright Dan O’Brien.

The Santaland Diaries
Nov 27 – Dec 30
It’s like the new Nutcracker, except you don’t actually want to see anyone on stage in tights.

Lungs
Jan 29 – Mar 10, 2013
A young couple wants to have a baby: ambivalent, existential drama ensues.

The People’s Republic of Portland
Apr 30 – June 9, 2013
Everyone loves Portland! Including, apparently, comedian Lauren Weedman, who was so taken by our civic virtues while she was here performing last season’s BUST that, at PCS’s invitation, she decided to do her own show. About us. Wait, haven’t we seen this already…?

Artists Repertory Theatre

And So It Goes…
Sep 4 – Oct 7
This quirky love letter to the human race is a world premiere adapted from Kurt Vonnegut’s first collection Welcome to the Monkey House by Aaron Posner

Seven Guitars
Oct 9 – Nov 11
The rhythm of 1948 Pittsburgh is given life in this Portland Premiere of the sixth play in August Wilson’s set of 10 plays exploring the African-American experience in the 20th Century.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol
Nov 27 – Dec 23
The return of last year’s Christmas caper from Seattle playwright John Longenbaugh (read “Culturephile’s review”: http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/blogs/culturephile-portland-arts/review-sherlock-holmes-and-the-case-of-the-christmas-carol-november-2011/)

The Lost Boy
Jan 8 – Feb 10, 2013
Loosely based on the true story of an 1874 kidnapping of a 4-year-old boy that became a media circus, literally, given the involvement of P.T. Barnum and others, this world premiere by Susan Mach promises plenty of intrigue, not to mention Tiny Tim, the Strong Man, a trapeze artist, and a Circassian psychic.

Red Herring
Feb 12 – Mar 17, 2013
A comedic noir fable.

The Invisible Hand
Mar 26 – Apr 28
It’s James Bond meets Goldman Sachs in this thriller about a futures trader who gets kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, and inadvertently gives his captor the tools for financial destruction. This is the kind of thing that keeps Wall Street awake at night.

Ten Chimneys
Apr 23 – May 26, 2013
This comedy for the theater insider goes backstage in the lives of Broadway power-pair Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as their lives come to mirror their production of Chekhov’s The Seagull. Love triangles and family dysfunction abounds.

Fowler-Levin Prize Award-winning New Play Commission
May 28 – Jun 30
The world premiere of a commissioned work by Oregon playwright Andrea Stolowitz about the return of two female Marines who served in Afghanistan, which draws from interviews with veterans and their families.

Portland Playhouse

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Oct 11 – Nov 4
Billed as “the brashest, boldest musical on American political history—ever” (also as “an emo rock musical”), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson follows the nation’s first populous president (and perhaps its most savage) from his presidential campaign to the Trail of Tears. The New York Times called the play “devastatingly shrewd,” “a goofy delight,” and “the most entertaining and most perceptive political theater of the season.”

New Play Commission
Dec 6–23
Rising playwriting star Christina Anderson, who American Theatre predicted “will be transforming America’s stages for decades to come,” pens a show for the Playhouse about internet guru Simone the Believer and her campaign to convince Black Americans to return to an Oregon town that was rebuilt without them after a devastating fire. An allegory, perhaps?

The Huntsman
Jan 17 – Feb 10
Just your average fare of a teenage serial killer, Doo Wop harmony, and a club of teen misfits. This world premiere by Quincy Long riveted audiences at last summer’s JAW Festival.

Mother Teresa is Dead
Mar 14 – Apr 7
The story of a young wife and mother who flees her family and her home in the UK, only to be tracked down by her husband in rural India, by British playwright Helen Edmundson.

The Left Hand of Darkness
May 2–26
Can I say that I’m really excited about this Made in Oregon genre-busting collaboration fantasy? Two of Portland’s most interesting and innovative theater companies, Portland Playhouse and Hand2Mouth Theatre, join forces with UO’s theater department head, John Schmor, to create a new adaptation of Oregon sci-fi queen Ursula K. LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness, a 1969 gender-bending, sexuality-squashing sci-fi tale of love, jealousy, power and betrayal.

The Oregon Symphony

Entering its 117th year (and Carlos Kalmar’s 10th season as Music Director), the Oregon Symphony is proving to be anything but tired and stuck in its ways. Here’re some of the highlights in another promising and innovative season (for a full schedule, visit orsymphony.org:http://tickets.orsymphony.org/auxiliary/AUXListing.aspx):

Having romanced New York audiences and critics alike, the Symphony returns to Carnegie Hall on May 9, 2013 (and performs the concerts at the Schnitz on May 4 & 5, 2013). Knowing they’ll need even more pizazz to top last year’s performance, they’re bringing along Portland not-so-secret weapon (thanks Oprah and Rosie!: http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/blogs/culturephile-portland-arts/oprah-and-rosie-endorse-storm-large-march-2012/): Portland punk-chanteuse Storm Large will sing Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins.

But the Symphony is also branching out in its local collaborations. One of the most exciting surprises in their year’s lineup to me is bringing to stage a local band ripe for symphony arrangements: Blind Pilot (Apr 27, 2013). Also exciting is the return of pianist/songwriter Dave Frishberg, who the New York Times called "the Stephen Sondheim of jazz songwriting,” and saxophonist Patrick Lamb (Apr 6–7, 2013).

Fourteen Oregon Symphony premieres include the U.S. premiere of Finnish composer Kalevi Aho’s Percussion Concerto (during Opening with a Bang! on Sep 8), Hugo Alfvén’s Swedish Rhapsody No. 1 and Andrew Norman’s “Drip, Blip, Sparkle…” (both on Sep 22–24), Bach’s Cantata No. 51 (Praise Ye God) (Sep 29), Haydn’s Symphony No. 82 (“The Bear”) (Nov 18–19, 2013), Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (Dec 1–3), and many more.

And though premieres and debuts are good, we can’t overlook classical favorites, such as Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony No. 6 (Oct 13–15, 2013), Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto No. 5 (Jan 12–14, 2013), Copland’s Symphony No. 3 (which includes the popular Fanfare for the Common Man, Apr 20–22, 2013), and Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet (Oct 27–29), to name a few.

Oregon Ballet Theatre

Body Beautiful
Oct 13–20
In conjunction with the Portland Art Museum’s Body Beautiful Exhibit, which explores the human form through sculptures from the British Museum’s Greek and Roman collection, OBT will produce a program that includes Balanchine’s 1928 neoclassical ode to godlike forms, Apollo; an exploration of the dancer as superhuman choreographed by artistic titan William Forsythe called Second Detail; a live chamber orchestra; a re-imagining of the Orpheus myth; and a collaboration with a yet to be named NW visual artist.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker
Dec 8–23
You know, the old Santaland Diaries where you do want to see the performers in tights.

Swan Lake
Feb 16–23, 2013
The audience favorite that cemented artistic director Christopher Stowell and OBT’s reputation for elegance and virtuosity.

American Music Festival
April 18–28, 2013
This show brings together three exciting pairs of contemporary choreographers and music makers:
Trey McIntyre + the NW folk band The Fleet Foxes
Morphoses Artistic Director Pontus Lidberg + Portland-born and Julliard-trained composer Ryan Francis and a live chamber orchestra
Mathew Neenan’s At the Border + John Adams

Celebrating Balanchine
June 14–16, 2013
Three very different examples of George Balanchine’s choreography on the 30th anniversary of his death.

Also of note, Oregon Ballet Theatre will return to Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center as one of nine companies for the Ballet Across America Festival, June 4–9.

For the Portland Opera’s season, go here.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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bug life

Cirque du Soleil’s OVO:
Review & Slideshow

Cirque du Soleil is back, and it’s in tents.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 12, 2012 at 10:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Click this image to open the slide show.
Wisely returning to a “grand chapiteau” after last season’s stint in the Rose Garden, Cirque du Soleil’s month-long footprint is marked by this fanciful blue and yellow big top on Marine Drive.

Photo by Darryl James

View Slideshow »

THIS JUST IN: A SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR OVO!

Last summer and fall, Cirque du Soleil ditched rather than pitched its famous tent, with press literature explaining that the spiky installation that had, in prior years, inhabited a waterfront spot near Macadam was no more, recycled into tote bags as part of a company-wide green initiative. But the reduction of Cirque’s carbon footprint seemed to bear unforeseen creative costs. Dralion and the Michael Jackson the Immortal World Tour , presented at the Rose Garden with stripped-down staging, notably lacked the sensory immersion, intimacy, and pure otherworldliness that typically accompany Cirque under the “grand chapiteau.” Read review…

But any Cirque du Soleil connoisseurs who had braced themselves for a stripped-down era of “Cirque du Compromise” (or defected altogether to equestrian offshoot Cavalia) can take heart. Last Thursday, Cirque returned to Portland with OVO, a whimsical microcosm where cute-as-a-bug clowns and agile insect acrobats spin a web of mystery and delight while Brazilian beats gently coax giant flowers to bloom. Under a dark blue big-top, Cirque regains the home-field advantage, marshaling every light, seat, set-piece and sound to draw the audience deeper into its fanciful scenes. In place of last season’s onslaught of stadium-scale blowout numbers, Cirque returns to the varied pacing and broad emotional spectrum that originally grew its household name.

Gabbling in a universal tongue, a large ladybug, a spiky centipede and an elder caterpillar usher us through the acrobatic action via accessible themes: boy-meets-girl, caretaker (or single parent?) gets separated from his nest-egg and goes on a quest to retrieve it; aging pedant struggles to train an unruly troupe of young grubs. Additional character designations fold the acrobats’ feats into the narrative context: Ants are transporting food, fleas are leaping (like they do), and spiders, naturally, are balancing on a thin strand of web. The pairing of insect personas with acrobatic acts is an elegant fit, making perfect sense both visually and thematically.

From the soaring scarabs to floating butterflies, Cirque’s acrobatic and aerial work is as thrilling as ever, although on opening night Culturephile’s Aaron Scott was particularly unnerved by one beetle’s ungainly fall. Not to worry: Cirque wisely strings a safety net for this dangerous number, letting acrobats enter and exit from underneath it like cockroaches scuttling under floorboards. Protocols are also in place for performers who botch a trick. On opening night, as a pained firefly made several passes at his juggling number’s finale, the band grooved on, repeating and subtly varying its refrain to keep the audience engaged until, finally, the frustrated fly triumphed to roaring applause. Considering the difficulty of these tricks, human error is inevitable and becomes a parallel demonstration of the performers’ additional skills: poise, patience, and tenacity.

Not content to simply show us tricks, OVO also instructs us how to watch. Curious insect voyeurs relax at the edge of scenes, observing the events that are taking place and effectively puncturing the “fourth wall” to legitimize the watcher’s role as a passive participant. As we watch a spider watching a dragonfly, we’re reminded that audience—arachnoid or otherwise—is a crucial character in any scene. Clown crowd-work also keeps the audience on its toes. There’s no tuning out when, at any moment, you might literally get pulled in.

Inadvertently echoing the rock-wall finale, OVO ‘s narrative closes with a cliffhanger. Without giving too much away, suffice to say some of the show’s big questions go unanswered. While we’d’ve preferred a bit more closure, we respect Cirque’s right to invoke French mystique. After all, do you really want to know? Or do you simply want to wonder?

Cirque du Soleil’s OVO continues through May 20 at the Expo Center.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Art World Rabble Rouser Assume Vivid Astro Focus to Talk at PNCA

Thursday, April 12 at 6:30pm

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 11, 2012 at 03:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

The NYC performance artist Julie Atlas Muz (you may recognize her from TBA) reclines in an avaf installation at John Connely Presents.

One of the highlights of my three years in New York was witnessing the multimedia art collective Assume Vivid Astro Focus take over Deitch Studio’s 12,000 square foot Long Island warehouse. The show was called “absolutely venomous accurately fallacious (Naturally Delicious),” and it was a full sensory psychedelic explosion consisting of sculpture (a giant woman laying through the façade of a house), their trademark frenetic 3-D wallpaper prints, bust your imagination avant garde performance involving cavemen outfits, live music, enough strobes and shiny objects to fuel a hundred strokes, and paper masks for the hordes of viewers to wear, just to give a truncated list.

avaf and its primary constituent, Eli Sudbrack (he’s like the lead singer in a band of rotating performers and visual artists), have made waves in the international art world with these maximalist, neon, psychedelic happenings. Sudbrack, a lover of lists and compilations, even curated a night of film at the semi-legendary, now-retired, local Fruit Farm Film Festival. Now he’s visiting PNCA to create a series of limited edition prints with the assistance of printmaking faculty and advanced students. He’ll also give a free talk open to the public on Thursday at 6:30pm at the main campus.

Here’s a video of Sudbrack talking about the graffiti murals he created for Art Basel 2010 in Miami’s Design District.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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first impressions

Hear Horse Feathers New Album at NPR Music

Cynic’s New Year comes out April 17

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Apr 11, 2012 at 09:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Horse Feathers is set to release its fourth album of lush, yearning, mournful chamber folk, and you can get a first listen at NPR Music.

Check out “Last Waltz,” which has all the layered emotion of heartbreak on a glorious spring day, or “Where I’ll Be,” which shows the band growing more sophisticated in their arrangements, singer Justin Ringle’s voice sliding softly between the bows of violin and pastoral drone of horn.

All in all, it makes me wish I lived a bucolic life on a farm where emotions were born of childhood forest adventures, first glances at barn dances, stolen porch swing kisses, and broken hearts in fallow fields beneath full moons. A little purple? Yes. A nostalgic fantasy? Certainly. But it sure seems nice from a crammed cubicle on a grey day, where, to quote “Where I’ll Be”: “It’s not a lack of will, but a lack of time.”

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

Interview+Slideshow: Adam Arnold on Designing for OBT’s Spring Show

Post-Bridgetown Podcasts

Portland’s Cappella Romana on NPR

Review: The American Pilot

PICA Rolls Up the Rug for Its Office Warming

Portland Cello Project: Two-Night Album Release at Doug Fir

Radiation City’s Cool Nightmare

Rachel Maddow’s In Town!

The 2012/2013 Season(s) Announced!

Fred Meyer Broadway Across America Portland

Portland Center Stage

Artists Repertory Theatre

Portland Playhouse

The Oregon Symphony

Oregon Ballet Theatre

Cirque du Soleil’s OVO:
Review & Slideshow

Art World Rabble Rouser Assume Vivid Astro Focus to Talk at PNCA

Hear Horse Feathers New Album at NPR Music

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