CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

Helping Oregon’s Cash-Poor
Stay Culture-Rich

A recent announcement from Portland’s arts & culture director Cary Clarke.

Posted by: The Culturegang on Oct 15, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

After a hugely successful pilot last year, the program Music for All returned starting Monday, Oct. 3 with a new name – Arts for All – to reflect its expanded reach. This season, 32 arts organizations spanning disciplines such as theater, dance and music will make performances more accessible to low-income citizens by providing $5 tickets for those with Oregon Trail Cards, almost tripling the previous options. For those eligible for $5 tickets—or the more fortunate looking to support a worthy cause—here’s a list of organizations currently participating in Arts for All:

All Classical | Artists Repertory Theatre | Aurora Chorus | BodyVox | Cappella Romana | Chamber Music Northwest | Friends of Chamber Music | Miracle Theatre Group | Northwest Dance Project | Northwest Film Center | Oregon Bach Festival (June/July) | Oregon Ballet Theatre | Oregon Children’s Theatre | Oregon Symphony | Pacific Youth Choir | Polaris Dance Theatre | Portland Baroque Orchestra | Portland Center Stage | Portland Chamber Orchestra | Portland Opera | Portland Piano International | Portland Playhouse | Portland Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade | Portland Symphonic Choir | Portland Taiko | Portland Vocal Consort | Portland Youth Philharmonic | Tears of Joy Theatre | The Circus Project | The Portland Ballet | Third Angle Ensemble | Wisdom’s NW Indian Storytelling Festival

In the six-month period the program ran last year, 1,410 people who receive food assistance using the Oregon Trail Card bought deeply discounted tickets to the Oregon Symphony, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Friends of Chamber Music and Portland Youth Philharmonic. The program, organized by members of Go Classical PDX (GCPDX), an association of classical music organizations in the Portland tri-county region, “allowed each of the participating organizations, PYP included, to elevate our current outreach efforts,” said Ingrid Arnett, Community Relations Director for the Portland Youth Philharmonic. “PYP is here to inspire and educate…Arts for All helps us share that inspiration with more people.”

After the pilot season, word spread among Portland arts organizations about the effectiveness of this program in breaking down barriers, and GCPDX led the campaign to expand the program beyond classical music. “Providing opportunities for all kids and their families to experience the performing arts is at the heart of our mission,” says Ross McKeen, managing director of Oregon Children’s Theatre. “When Music for All was launched last year, my first thought was, ‘What a great idea. I wish we could be part of that.’ Now, with the expansion of the program as Arts for All, we’re joining our colleagues in removing barriers to access to the arts.”

Hunger remains a significant problem in Oregon. One in five households in the state have an Oregon Trail card that‘s part of the federal SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) plan. Nationally, that number is one in seven households. Arts for All helps make life-enriching arts events more accessible and affordable for these citizens and is made possible by the support of participating arts organizations, the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), Work for Art, the City of Portland and All Classical 89.9 FM.

Eloise Damrosh, Executive Director of the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) states “We at RACC are thrilled to support this wonderful endeavor and applaud the groups who have joined forces to make this happen for our community. It is yet another example of how important the arts are to us all and how collaborative and generous our arts providers can be. We wish the program increasing success, and new audiences many happy hours in our theaters, music halls and dance facilities.”

SNAP enrollees can buy a minimum of two tickets for five dollars each to eligible events by showing their Oregon Trail Card at the time of purchase and paying with personal funds. SNAP benefits cannot be used to purchase tickets or other non-food items. “The performing arts nourish our soul and are an important part of the shared culture for any community, but especially ours,” says Mayor Sam Adams. “Participating in the arts shouldn’t be out of reach for Portlanders struggling through these hard times – whether that’s living on a fixed income, struggling through underemployment or the loss of a steady job. My appreciation goes out to the Portland arts organizations that have stepped up to make this program happen.”

All ticket costs are sponsored in-kind by participating organizations; printing and marketing are sponsored by Work for Art, RACC, Business for Culture and the Arts, and the City of Portland; marketing distribution is in partnership with the Multnomah branch of the Oregon Department of Human Services. For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, PCS, symphony, charity

TBA 2011: Jesse Sugarmann

Sometimes Nothing (everything) Happens

Posted by: Claudia La Rocco on Sep 13, 2011 at 12:02PM 0 Comments

Oh, you guys. I blew it.

For those of us (lunatics) who try to see everything at these cluster**** smorgasbords, there are always at least two festivals. The first is the ideal one, the one we see in our mind’s eye, when every event we intend to catch has been laid out neatly on paper and, because things like nerves, exhaustion, afternoon drinking binges and the like do not exist on paper, seems totally doable.

The second is the actual, where all of those things and their like exist with a vengeance, and prevent us from even approaching the ideal.

And, so: I didn’t make it to the Jesse Sugarmann performances. In my ideal festival, see, I managed to be in two places at once.

Well, whatever. What’s done is done. I don’t get to see that slo-mo walrus ballet of minivans and mattresses. The actual has to live in the ideal.

But.

Last night I was in only one place, and it was grand (ideal and actual): Barry Sanders’ writing class at PNCA. Barry is marvelous. His students are marvelous. I just tried to keep up.

We spent awhile workshopping some of the writing about tba they’ve been doing. And, as luck would have it, some of them chose to write about Sugarmann. And how:

“Negative space between the stacks of mattresses shrinks and you’re almost sure that something is going to happen. One of the vans is going to slip off and topple to the ground. One of the mattresses is going to burst. It is going to be violent, you’re sure. You want it to happen because if it doesn’t, you won’t be satisfied.” – Rebecca

“The beads trickle along the folds and angles of my positioned self; I am enjoying my sweat now. The lifeless chunks of sheet metal slowly move toward the sky in the escalating moment.” – Travis

“I too share this type of admiration for the car & yet, I am the first to admit the lunacy of the attraction as well. Those old cars, some with ridiculously useless twelve cylinder engines, others with quirky hand tooled bodies, the types of cars in which you don’t care if they break down daily, because you’ve given them a name.” -Jeremy

I wouldn’t have said it that way. I wouldn’t have said it better.

For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, galleries, contemporary, tba2011

TBA 2011: ©ardiff

How David Eckard’s “carnival barker” character, and TBA lookie-loos, got their mettle sorely tested by a drunk bystander.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 10, 2011 at 01:00PM 11 Comments

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

From the get-go, David Eckard’s demeanor was more “Okey dokey” than “Step right up!”

He’d gotten a late start setting up his mobile podium, so all eyes were already following his every move as he unfurled banners, popped panels, and generally transformed what had looked like a rolling refrigerator into a beguiling little circus spectacle. Each revelation begged him to eye the audience, to flourish and mime—but he didn’t. The performance hadn’t “started,” so instead he deadpanned, evaded eyes, and tried to act as his own roadie. Hence the desired “Ladies and gentlemen,” turned into an unspoken “Just a moment, folks,” already weakening the command his character could have taken. In other words, if this medicine man had rolled into my town square, he’d have already given us pause to mistrust him.

“Cut the guy a break,” you may say. And we did. But the patience of an arts festival audience isn’t something a carnival barker can bank on—as Eckard would soon learn.

Finally getting into character, Eckard dipped behind a banner and dramatically tipped back a bottle of brown liquid, inspiring a few laughs. Straightening his natty plaid suit and his rakish bowler, he took to his podium. A little too quietly and with a few discrediting hitches and stammers, he began reciting an ornately verbose introduction. “He’s not being big enough,” I scribbled in my notebook, then tuned back in. Having dispensed his intro, Eckard launched into a story that seemed to be about a sleeping giant. This was too great a temptation for Fate to forebear.

I should mention that a few of us were already aware of a real “sleeping giant” in our midst: a man who had been passed out drunk on the grass throughout Eckard’s aforementioned machinations. Four or five minutes into the speech, this man awoke with a start. “All you gotta-do…is just STAND in a woodenBOX and start talking, and people gather?” marveled the waking wonderer. Eckard ignored him, nattering his next lines: “…borne, by chance…”

“I was born by CHANCE!” chimed the drunk.

“…to upstate New York…”

“Upstate New York? You’re a long WAY from THERE! If I hadta pay to hear this, I tellya whut: I’d want my MONEY back.”

Though the drunk man was beating Eckard at the loudness game by half, both forged forward. Several in the crowd cleared their throats, or shifted onto their other buttock, but no one yet addressed the awakened threat.

After several more shouted retorts, acknowledgment became unavoidable. “Did JUDAS go to heaven?” heckled the drunk. Eckard’s eye brightened. “That’ll be chapter seven, Sir,” he replied before returning to his script, which offered up this uncanny next line:

“Who is he, and how did he end up here?” Seizing the moment, Eckard leveled these word directly at his challenger.

A slight woman in a beige dress steeled her nerves, got up, and approached the man, who was now standing. “Come over here,” she murmured sweetly, moving to the outskirts of the crowd. When he stood firm and loudly refused, she looked stunned, as though she had spent her entire life up to this moment luring any person to any place, simply by asking nicely.

“You’re spoiling the show for everyone!” shouted a plucky Englishwoman.

“Why?” screamed the drunk. “Why can he talk and I can’t?”

“He’s performing,” said several.

“I’m PERFORMING!” yelled the drunk (in all fairness, making a bloody good point).

A middle-aged, fit man in a pumpkin-colored polo shirt got up and squared his broad shoulders at the stranger, saying something inaudible.

“You’re in the MOOD for a FIGHT? Is that what you just said?” the drunk outed him, and—caught—he nodded. “Hit me. Hit me right here in front of all these people!”

Polo Shirt changed tactics: “You like your hat?” he asked (insinuating he might take it).

“It belonged to my brother David,” said the drunk.

Now Polo Shirt launched the lowest blow, which spun the drunk into a whirlwind of incomprehensible preaching and yelling that didn’t abate til the rent-a-cops came. “Is your brother dead?” he intoned—not compassionately, but coolly. Challenging, smooth, and smug, he seemed to imply: Vagrants like you happen on hard times. Some of them die. Ha. The well-heeled for the win.

As you might imagine, the presentation called ©ardiff had long since drifted into insignificance. Despite trying to tune back in, it couldn’t be farther from anyone’s mind. The new questions were plentiful and pressing:

What qualifies as “performance?”

Whence our entitlement to curate our own “entertainment” in a public space?

How comfortable have “performance artists” gotten, and how far have they drifted from comedians, musicians, orators, mimes—and, yes, carnival barkers —all of whom are used to having to fight for the floor?

How many minutes of provocation can you as a private citizen withstand, before you show your ugliest side?

Now, don’t get me wrong: This drunk was no hero. He was a worn-down, uncouth specimen, and he was, in legal parlance, “disturbing the peace.” But like a hurricane, he blew through and toppled a structure that had already evidently been unsound.

What’s next for Eckard, who was quick to remind the crowd that he’d scheduled several more performances? We have some suggestions for weatherproofing:

For a start, pour some real booze in that brown bottle and offer an honest swig to would-be interrupters. (Liquor control can’t have been that strict in the 1860’s—and if you’d thought of it this time, you’d have made an instant friend.) And be louder. If you have to, yell through the bell of an old gramophone. Next, know that any salesman worth his snake-oil is “on” the moment he rolls up—and use the time it takes to set up your bells and whistles, to also build suspense and crowd rapport (Perhaps take a private lesson or two from Vockah Redu ). And most importantly, be prepared to dart swiftly off of your script to slash detractors with your rapier wit. This is a life-or-death racket you’re running. Toughen up so the next town drunk won’t see you tarred and feathered.

Meanwhile, fellow onlookers, we’d be remiss to dismiss this performance as “ruined.” It offered as much spontaneity, philosophy, politics and pith as anything we’re likely to see at this year’s TBA.

For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, Theater, performance, TBA, circus, tba2011

John Henry Egan at Red E

John Henry Egan’s abstract textures expertly mimic a lucky accident.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 19, 2011 at 06:00AM 2 Comments

by John Henry Egan

View Slideshow » Illustration:

by John Henry Egan

View Slideshow » Illustration:

by John Henry Egan

View Slideshow » Illustration:

by John Henry Egan

Ever meditatively stare at a water-spot? In the bulging plaster and chipping paint, you might start to make out an image. Perhaps the shape itself just embosses onto your mind. (Amorphous as it may be, you’d know that water-spot anywhere.) Or maybe you muse about the cause. Who left the water on, for how long? What alloys in the paint or pipes, bled into this ring of rust? What happy accidents converged to make the shape turn out just so?

John Henry Egan’s latest works are no accident. Using a trial-and-error tested combination of materials (coffee grounds, plaster, rust) developed in part by Eric Adrian Lee, Egan creates a false—yet strangely satisfying—sense of spontaneity. Click through the slideshow, or view the real thing at the Red E Café, 1006 N Killingsworth.

For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, Galleries, modern

April’s First Thursday

A fly-by of a few April arts impressions.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 12, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

Trude Parkinson’s figures seem to wander off into another dimension.

SCENE & HERD

WHAT: First Thursday | WHEN: April 7 | WHERE: The Pearl District, Selected Galleries

FROELICK

Each of Theresa Wingert’s large-scale pigment print landscapes, overexposed as though seared by sunlight, was accompanied by a pair of headphones that played ambient sound effects—the flap of pigeons scaring out of sagebrush, the snort of a horse…

In stark contrast, each of Susan Seubert ’s small, dark, underexposed sepia ambrotypes zeroed in on a singular careworn object: a pair of sandals, a packet of letters, an uninhabited antique bird cage.

AUGEN

Trude Parkinson‘s paintings, large solid colorscapes with small, clothed figures as subjects, were hung on hinges so that they could be flipped free of the wall like a page, and viewed two-sided. The paintings’ “backs” revealed silhouettes of the front-side figures, and each had a recessed box containing an anatomical sculpture: here a vertebra, there a foot.

BLUE SKY

Michael Light‘s large bird’s-eye landscapes evoked the liftoff view from an airplane window—still close enough to discern detail, but far enough away to reveal prevailing patterns, whether natural or man-made. Light flipped through a massive book of his prints, expounding on different locations. “This is Paradise Valley, in Pheonix, Arizona,” Light indicated. “I’m pretty sure Darth Vader lives there.”

Meanwhile, Mitch Dubrowner patiently fielded a vague question about his epic, thunderous black-and-whites of twisters, lightning, and billowing cumulus clouds. “Do you have a process for finding storms?” asked an enthusiastic gallery-goer.

In the embedded Nine Gallery, Culturephile finally tracked down the exhibit that had been promoted by a single cryptic piece of chalk, sent to our editor last week in an envelope. The work, Bill Will and Lebrie Rich’s Blank Slate, was a world-map on the wall, and a globe sitting on a pedestal, both rendered in blackboard texture-paint, with chalk on-hand so that visitors could contribute.

BUTTERS

Michael Kessler ‘s acrylic on panel provided the latest answer to the classic riddle, "What’s black and white and red all over," incorporating subtle, polished texture techniques that made creamy whites and grays glide over bolder strokes like a fog.

Andrea Maki’s giant horse prints were muzzle-nuzzlingly close, and huge in scale. The wisps of hay that jutted out here and there, were in places as wide as a wrist.

WHITE BOX

Chinese multimedia interactive artist Hung Keung entertained an attentive audience with an explanation of his piece, Bloated City | Skinny Language. “In the advertising in China, they always encourage the lady to be more skinny, in the language. And to make the breasts more bigger.” At the same time, he said, the cities are burgeoning beyond their bounds (like bloated breasts). “Let’s get away from short cuts,” said Keung. “Slim gradually. Grow a city gradually.”

A walk through Keung’s piece gradually revealed Chinese calligraphy han characters installed on corners and walls, and finally opened on a giant back wall which magically projected an image of the viewer, and fluttering han characters that appeared to follow each subject’s movement and perch on his or her head and arms.

For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, Galleries, First Thursday, scene & herd

Moves Management
at North View Gallery

Posted by: Anne Adams on Mar 28, 2011 at 03:00AM 3 Comments

Today’s Monday Fun is less “ha-ha, tra-la-la,” than it is mind-bending and melancholy. Entitled Moves Manager , it’s the centerpiece of an art exhibit called Moves Management which will be featured at PCC’s North View Gallery starting March 31.

The guy in the suit is artist Evertt Beidler. He’s already gotten some love from RACC and OAC, and Culturephile has to agree: this thing—equal parts performance art, cyborg craft, and social-practice confrontation—is mad cool.

Moves Management will continue at North View Gallery throughout April. For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, performance, Film, monday fun, video, galleries

Dance Discussion: In Site Part I

Jeans, waves, wind…and a bright red stumbling-block.
A viewer’s impressions, and the artist’s response.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Mar 08, 2011 at 01:00PM 5 Comments

Photos provided by Breck Warren. Click for slideshow.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Photos provided by Breck Warren. Click for slideshow.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Photos provided by Breck Warren.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Photos provided by Breck Warren.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Photos provided by Breck Warren.

For the month of March, Disjecta Gallery (8371 N Interstate) hosts In-Site, an installation by Karl Burkheimer combined with a series of dance performances staged on the installation. The next two Saturdays of In-Site feature Kathleen Keogh and Linda Austin. Last Saturday, Culturephile saw Tahni Holt and company (see slideshow). In case you missed it, here are a few lingering impressions:

REVIEW

To begin, there is one dancer*, making swanlike arm movements and brushing a bare foot along the floor. Her hair hangs forward, and ambient sounds haunt the PA, like rushing wind trapped in a can. It’s 1pm. Sharp. A crowd of fifty-some onlookers has sifted around the edges of an imposing slanted wooden platform, anticipating an improvised dance performance led by local choreographer Tahni Holt* and musician Thomas Thorson (Culture Machine). It’s an impressive turnout , especially considering its post-brunch timeslot and Disjecta’s far-out location. This is going to be something.

As Thomas Thorson holds down the fort, running sound and playing keyboard from a hole in center stage, five dancers emerge:
• A long-limbed, graceful blonde man in a red flannel shirt (Robert Tyree)
• A tall, slender woman with a balletic bun (Sally Garrido-Spencer)
• A shorter man with a seemingly subdued demeanor (Richard Decker)
• Two medium-height, medium-build women with medium-length brown hair (Noelle Stiles and Tahni Holt*)

All wear jeans, creating a look that is literally “pedestrian,” puzzlingly at odds with the performance-art-in-a-gallery context. As each denim-clad dancer begins to explore the space, we see sweeping gestures and varied postures. Slow rotations. Sudden thrashes. Creative ambulation. Walking, rolling, crawling. Many movements seem detached, incubated, almost fetal. The soundscape evokes the roar of a tunnel, a vacuum. And the faces of the dancers remain…placid? determined? blank. Music is sans melody; movement is, for the most part, sans pattern or narrative. There is nothing to attach to beyond a feeling of “happening.”

As a viewer who yearns for narrative, I start to seek it. I notice one dancer placing a hand on another’s back. This seems to inspire a natural reaction where the pair end up rocking back and forth together, as though the wavelike sounds were actual waves—or, more metaphorically, throes. Their movements speed up, peak, and then subside. This event happens more than once, with different pairs of dancers, and I can’t help but process these instances as erotic pantomimes. I’m relieved to see a couple of the dancers’ stoic masks crack to reveal a faint flicker of passion.

Hang on, what’s that? And has that been there this whole time?
What I thought was a blank stage, actually contains one object: a large red block, mounted on a wooden base. Think small sawhorse, hurdle, gymnastic balance beam—though it’s none of those things. When I see it, I think “stumbling block,” and my hunger for narrative practically growls. But as I watch dancers interact with the red prop, sitting on it, resting against it, looking at it…I realize it’s not going to end up meaning anything particular. It’s just one more object to explore.

Now there are Twister poses. There are electro-shock spasms. In a particularly inspired moment, three dancers brace themselves between the stage and the wall to make some acrobatic formations (see slides). In another memorable flourish of duénde, Holt kicks into a stomping rhythm, throwing all her weight on her forward foot, then rocking back on her other foot, her hair dramatically thrashing. This movement, proven hypnotic by countless indigenous dances, could go on forever. But Holt’s version is a brief dalliance as the music reaches a thundering crescendo, then wisps away into silence. Cameras stop clicking, notebooks are folded and bagged. I look at the clock: 1:41. It’s over. Right? Wrong.

The music resumes, this time sounding like a twinkly twilit bat cave with dripping stalactites. Dancers momentarily do windsprints. For 19 more minutes, there are more happenings, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s already over. Now, I realize there was a predetermined schedule, and an hour is tidy in a way that 40-odd minutes is not. But while the 19 extra minutes didn’t minimize the experience of the previous 41, they also didn’t enhance it. If the group had been instructed to stop when the piece felt “done,” they might have walked off at the same time that the crowd tuned out, rather than cuing off their music guy, who must have been instructed to fill the time. By the time we hit 2pm, the dancers had (perhaps instinctively) crawled into the center-stage sound booth and taken the headphones from Thorson, almost as if to say, “Make it stop!” To be fair, I hadn’t realized how much I was “into” this piece, until I spent 19 minutes “out of it.” And if that’s part of the Holt & Co. strategy—well played. But if not, a note for next time: when you improvise a piece, maybe improvise when it ends.

While my wish for narrative elements fell on blank faces, sensory impressions remain. Moments of color and gesture, whips of hair, points of toes, wisps of sonic texture. This was a thing that happened. This Saturday and next, there will be more happenings, and you might decide to catch them.

TAHNI HOLT RESPONDS

Thank you for coming. It was a pleasure getting to move in and around the environment that Karl created with his installation. As part of his desires there was nothing precious about his work, it is to be walked on and explored by gallery goers. So although it is in a gallery setting he embeds In-Site with a lingering sense of construction. If you traverse the installation you feel the rough edges and the textured plywood. Underneath there is more refinement, visual patterning and curved edges. We costumed to match our feelings about the installation. It felt funny to wear anything but something that we couldn’t get dirty or would rip. Yet, like the installation, we did not stay in pedestrian movements (although we alluded to them certainly). We danced our training and moved with specific intentions that, at times, I would like to think highlighted the immediacy of now and our odd connections to each other, the installation, the space, the sound, the audience, etc.

As you stated in your review you are a “viewer who yearns for narrative”. These are your desires and wants, maybe needs(?), for a performance. The context that you are viewing the work from when your “hunger for narrative practically growls,” is at odds with the context in which we are working. And thus there is a disconnect. I think this disconnect is rich with potential for a greater understanding. Clearly there are many debates about what should and shouldn’t be in a review of dance. I fear this debate, yet I would like to offer that without discussing this disconnect you are doing your readers and our performance a disservice.

SUMMARY THOUGHTS

I’m sorry if you think this review does a disservice. I actually enjoyed the piece, and the confession that I “yearn for narrative,” isn’t intended to invalidate other kinds of work. That said, I don’t see the desire for narrative as irrelevant to a dance discussion, because many dance performances do contain narrative elements. I also want to clarify that I’ve described the movement in lay terms rather than dance terms not to dismiss your professional training, but to paint a picture for readers, regardless of their level of dance knowledge.

The craft of writing, like the craft of dance, can be endlessly refined. Placement of paragraph breaks, word choices, and instances of repetition all contribute to the overall impression that is left. I have done a fresh edit of the piece since the above response, and while I haven’t removed my few criticisms, I’ve put them in a more representative context. Something that sticks with me is the phrase “nothing to attach to.” Is that seen as a negative statement? And if so, is that part of a larger Western ideology? Readers, what do you look for in a performance—dance or otherwise? And if there’s nothing to attach to, are you disappointed, or do you feel more enlightened for it? Please feel free to comment.

The In Site series is ongoing, with Kathleen Keogh on March 12 and Linda Austin on March 19. All performances start at 1pm. For more about Portland arts events, 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: Art, Dance, Review, Interview, modern

TBA 2011: First news

Curator Cathy Edwards says “cults, demigods, proselytizing, and fracturing” are the themes for this year’s dynamic September festival of dance, music and, and uncategorizable performance and visual art.

Posted by: Randy Gragg on Mar 03, 2011 at 07:30AM 2 Comments

Kyle Abraham

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Kyle Abraham

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Rachid Ouramdane

The first trickle of news about this year’s TBA festival arrived last week during conversations with curators Cathy Edwards, gearing up for her third and final year as guest curator, and Kristan Kennedy, visual arts curator. Both are still making the hard choices, but here’s a sneak peak at few things they have decided on:

One of the rising talents of the New York dance world, Kyle Abraham will present both his ensemble choreography and one of his celebrated solo works. Writing about his solo, "Brick,” at the Dance Theatre Workshop, New York Times critic Claudia La Rocco described his compelling mix of images from Kara Walker’s dynamic cutouts and 17th-century Japanese prints as offering “a swagger that paradoxically denied and laid bare a core of throbbing hurt.”

Edwards is also cuing French Algerian choreographer Rachid Ouramdane’s “Ordinary Witness,” which PICA will bring on an American tour with the Wexner Center. “Rashid’s work is political—but not in the American sense,” says Edwards. “He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. The work is deep and meditative and amazingly beautiful.”

Finally, Edwards plans to bring back a performer Portland has particularly embraced, Mike Daisey , to present his epic “All the Hours in the Day,” as the name suggests, 24 hours of straight performance. Daisey’s Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs wowed many audiences last year (though, it should be noted, some found it inspiring in moments, but also grating, self-indulgent, and long). Edwards is still figuring out exactly how PICA will present this round-the-clock endurance work. “It’s really a series of monologues specific to each hour of the day and linked globally,” says Edwards. “He follows an idea as it ricochets around the world.”

Since TBA’s visual arts exhibits are often installations developed specifically for the festival, Kennedy may know some of the artists, but what they’ll make is still vague. New Yorker Kate Gilmore, she says, will create something “about building and conquering something—endurance—strange logic and color.” Jesse Sugarmann , of the Springfield-based collective Ditch Projects will reportedly mount a piece “in which he uses air mattresses to topple cars—each one slowly blowing up and creating an anti-climatic crash.” And Patrick Rock, ringleader of the North Portland gallery Rocksbox has proposed “a new giant jump room—part carnival, part sculpture.”

Kennedy adds that she’s taking a chunk of inspiration from the idea of “a brick”—as both foundation and weapon—“the cobblestones pulled from the Paris streets in May of ’68.” Edwards says no theme has yet emerged for her, but “I’ve been thinking about cults, demigods, proselytizing, and fractioning—words like that.” Asked if TBA Central will still be the incredibly well-fitting Washington High School, Edwards and TBA communications director Patrick Leonard both held up crossed fingers. The full festival line-up will be announced at the Tada Ball, April 23.

For more upcoming arts events, 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: Art, performance, festival, galleries, TBA, PICA

Act Now to Double Arts Funding

Don’t just wish Oregon arts a happy new year; fill our cultural coffers before the 31st, to ensure it!

Posted by: Anne Adams on Dec 28, 2010 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

Give to the arts, but wish you could give more? This year, join other shrewd patrons in making use of a tax credit to double your contribution.

Here’s the deal: First, make a donation to any of the 1,300 arts, heritage and humanities nonprofits supported by the Oregon Cultural Trust. Then, make a matching gift to the Trust. When you do your 2010 Oregon taxes, you’ll be able to claim a tax credit, reducing what you owe the State of Oregon, for the full amount of your gift to the Trust, effectively doubling your support of libraries and writing programs, historical societies and heritage festivals, visual and performing arts centers, theater and dance companies… at no additional cost.

“The more donations the Trust receives by December 31, the greater our grants will be for 2011-2012,” says spokeswoman Cynthia Kirk. “This year, we were able to distribute $1.47 million in grants benefiting 57 cultural nonprofits, 40 county and tribal coalitions and five statewide cultural partners.”

Oregon is the only state in the nation that allows its citizens to designate part of their state taxes to cultural funding. You’re free to exercise that right up until 11:59 PM on F/December 31 – New Year’s Eve – if you donate online at www.culturaltrust.org.

Donations can also be taken:

by phone 503-986-0088 (8 AM – 5 PM, including New Year’s Eve)

or by mail 775 Summer St, NE, Ste 200-M
Salem, OR 97301 (must be postmarked Dec 31, or earlier)

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Tags: Art, northwest, charity

Review: The Little Prince

Shaking The Tree presents The Little Prince, a delicate allegory that’s never been just for kids.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 25, 2010 at 12:00PM 2 Comments

Annabel Cantor charms as the iconic interstellar wanderer in The Little Prince.

The popular 1942 illustrated French book The Little Prince must be familiar to many Portlanders—heck, it must have inspired a dozen local tattoos. But though much beloved, it’s not a narrative that seeks to satisfy. Instead, it’s the kind of tale that strikes a tuning fork in the hollows of the heart, letting its echoes explore the empty space. Ah, l’ennui. The most prized French export beside champagne.

Philosophy

From the Little Prince, we learn:

The king’s perspective is pointless; he deludes himself about his dominion. The businessman’s perspective is pointless; he numbers among his assets things that he can neither use, nor caretake. The workman has become an unquestioning slave to ever-hastening external demands, and can never rest.

The main item of good news is that these are all “grown up” problems, and becoming a grownup, the text asserts, is preventable. One needs to carefully maintain a child’s mind, to see beyond the BS. “What is essential,” we’re told, “is invisible to the eye.”

To oversimplify this content for children’s theater, is probably a big temptation—but would also ultimately be a shame. Thank goodness Shaking The Tree has made the effort to get it right.

Cast

As the Little Prince, Annabel Cantor strikes several nice balances. Her stage presence is completely gender-neutral, and her body language easily slips between playful and proud, as befits a little prince. Her excellent delivery of the material itself, and her undeniable cuteness in a curly wig, prove she’s primed for her next role as Annie at Northwest Children’s Theater. Unable to be fazed, she even corrected a dialogue slip-up by costar Erich England on Sunday, without missing a beat.

As the Aviator, England serves as narrator, and worldly straight-man to the Little Prince’s otherworldly mystique. But you don’t get the sense (as you might from the script alone) that he’s fighting very hard to be a rational adult, “concerned with matters of importance.” While trying to decide whether the word “amateur” would ring too harsh for England, I scoped his bio. Looks like this is his second production, and his main avocation is rock climbing—so, “amateur” is apt. He coasts through the role in a dreamlike languor, but he’s a believable dreamer, and brings warmth and sensitivity to the role.

Phillip Cuomo, in contrast, is a veteran, (Artists Rep, Third Rail Rep, Imago and more) and the production heaps demands upon him accordingly. Cuomo plays all the characters the prince meets on his interstellar journey, and then resurfaces as the fox the prince tames on earth. While the former four roles seem like they could be making a philosophical point (“all grownups are the same”), seeing him emerge yet again as a fox strains the suspension of even a small child’s disbelief. Fortunately, he effects each role with a different voice and with a slightly clownish, child-favoring flair, giving little ones something to enjoy, whether or not they’re catching the philosophical point.

Megan Sky Hale (Imago/Theater Vertigo alum) plays two roles, rose and snake, with grace, but she brings the most convincing carriage to the latter. She wears menacing and hypnotic, better than coquettish. (And from this reviewer, that is a compliment.)

Tech

This play comes with major staging challenges, most notably: how do you show space travel? The single stationary set with varied lighting actually does a pretty admirable job of showing both a planetary, and a terrestrial desert landscape. And costumes which ingeniously come with their own “planets” attached, help sell the story.

Costumer Rachelle Waldie (of AEQUANIMITAS) wisely chose to bring Exupery’s illustrations to life, outfitting the Little Prince in bright colors and crisp dandy details like brass buttons, broad collars, and fitted darts. Fans of the drawings will be delighted by the faithful reproduction. Other characters are dressed suitably for their various roles; some looks are cartoonish, and others workaday. An additional bugaboo, talking flowers and plants, has been deftly dispatched with unique designs, such as the snake costume, which frees the actress’s arms to serve as graceful, slithering snake-puppets, even as her whole body is also attired as a hooded cobra.

Shaking The Tree doesn’t mind trusting tikes with big tasks, as evidenced by the production’s lighting tech, eleven-year-old Jasper Jenkins. As far as Culturephile could tell, he was riding the sliders for the whole show, and he delivered the best kind of lighting performance: the kind you can take for granted.

In a couple spots, Culturephile wished for more. A pair of ears, or a snout, or both, would’ve been a welcome addition to the fox character, to disguise a face we’d seen already. Some sort of lines on the page of the aviator’s sketchpad, would have sold the illusion better than total blanks. And while quieter sound is generally preferred for an all-ages crowd, a tad more volume for ostensibly noisy elements (like the airplane) and some sort of whooshing sound effect for the Prince’s simulated space flight, would have sounded more convincing.

Lasting Impressions

This story wins the day because it makes the heaviest and most complex emotions feel playful and accessible. It says profound and humbling things about the nature of intimacy (“If you tame me, we shall need each other” [said the fox] “To me, you will be unique in all the world…. First you must sit down at a little distance from me…but you will sit a little closer to me every day.”) It echoes ancient beliefs about death and afterlife (“I cannot carry this body with me…it will be like an old abandoned shell…there’s nothing sad about old shells.”) And, in a surprise twist that jerks the most parental tears, it offers a stunning insight: the little prince has tamed the big aviator, and not the other way ’round.

For a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar anytime!

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Tags: Art, children, comics, book, book, Review, Theater, Literature, Portland Art, outer space

Shine A Light

Portland Art Museum

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 15, 2010 at 10:02AM 2 Comments

Tonight PAM shines a light on Wampire, and assorted other pop attractions.
Photo by Tyler Kohlhoff.

It’s been a big month for Social Practice Art, aka the “no more snootiness, let’s get everybody onboard” strategy of arts curation. First there was The People’s Biennial at TBA, (which closes this weekend), then there was last week’s FlashMob performance of Marian The Librarian at the Central Library, and tonight, PAM gets in on the action, hosting Shine A Light, an evening of accessible adventure, within its vaunted halls.

Says Wampire frontman (and natural cheerleader) Rocky Tinder, “There’s so much rad stuff going on at this show! I’ve never been to one of these yet but people have been telling me it’s super rad! Weird happenings throughout the whole museum. Food and beer too. Not bad, Portland Art Museum.”

Here’s a condensed list of events and times:

DJ Sexy Cousin 6-8:00

Music From The Milieu 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, 10:30

B-Boy Is For Break Dance 7:00

A Teaching Collection 7:45-8:15, 9-9:30

Two Boys, Wrestling 8:00, 9:30

Performance By Wampire 8:15

Guidance Counselor 9:45

Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside 11:00pm

Other attractions, including food and beverage provision, will occur throughout. For a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar anytime!

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Tags: Art, social practice art, modern art, weekend picks, portland, Live, Galleries, Portland Art, Portland Art Museum,

Gallery 903 hosts
Alexandra Becker-Black

These nuanced nudes are getting the gallery treatment Culturephile told you they deserved.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 15, 2010 at 10:01AM 0 Comments

“I told you so.” It’s an obnoxious statement, but occasionally so true.

Case in point:

Last week, Gallery 903 threw a moderately posh First Thursday opening, accompanied by a live flamenco guitarist and a gracious gallery hostess with a hint of a French accent.

I went. And while browsing Allen Stephenson’s golden pastoral landscapes, and admiring Jeff White’s vibrant firey cloudscapes—I was stopped in my tracks by Alexandra Becker-Black’s subtly masterful watercolor nudes. Where had I seen these before?

A quick search of this site * yielded the following post from a July edition of Weekend Picks:

There doesn’t have to be good art on the walls, for me to enjoy my coffee. Coffee shops know this, and so often when they see me coming, they whisk all the good art off the walls and tack up something unremarkable. However: yesterday as I happened into Backspace, I noticed several starkly beautiful pieces by Alexandra Becker-Black. Large expanses of white space and delicate splashes of monochromatic watercolor combined for surprisingly fresh depictions of the most classic subject: the female nude. Part of a show that will disappear at the close of July, these works seem worth visiting—even if you aren’t looking for a latte.

At the time of that post, Ms. Becker Black’s works were displayed—well, rather nakedly. They were hung on the wall poster-style, cringingly close to errant sprays of coffee spatter. Now that these delicate nudes are getting the star treatment they deserve, all the more reason to go see them. Why? Because I told you so.

Gallery 903 is open weekdays and Saturday, 10-5:30, Sunday, 12-5. For a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar anytime!

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Tags: Art, Portland Art, Museums, Galleries, painting, weekend picks, galleries, nudity