CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

Meshi Chavez: …or be dragged

Fertile Ground Festival delivers tense, spooky Butoh with a layered live score.

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Jan 26, 2012 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Through a visceral solo performance titled …or to be dragged, Portland dancer, butoh performer, and choreographer Meshi Chavez explores the process of confronting the myriad choices life bombards us with. Set in a deep, blacked out theater mostly lit by single spotlights, with a live score of layered and filtered vocals by Lisa Degrace, his performance is stark, pained, and bombastic. He alternates between slow motion and frenetic movement, sometimes seeming to be literally tossed and torn by life’s options, though his white-painted face stays mostly frozen like a mask. Imagine peering into the dark, Butoh-tinted mind of a chronic undecider. Running less than 30 minutes in a studio intimately capped at 25 people, the show is like a quick but vigorous workout to energize you between longer Fertile Ground performances.

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Tags: Dance, Review, modern, fertile ground

tEEth Debuts Make/Believe As Part of Fertile Ground

At Lincoln Hall this Thursday through Saturday, Jan 26–28 at 8pm.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 24, 2012 at 05:00PM 3 Comments

tEEth dancers seem to have no problems getting heard. Photo by Aaron Rogosin

In 2010, longstanding local contemporary dance/performance art company tEEth launched Home Made, a minimalist, mostly-nude pas de deux about monogamy accompanied by a hypnotic vocal soundscape. It proved to be critics’ catnip, scoring a slew of rave reviews from local critics and garnering a $10,000 prize from Seattle’s premier arts promoters On The Boards.

Hoping to build on last season’s buzz and critical acclaim, tEEth is staging a quartet with Home Made’s Noel Plemmons and three dancers hand-selected from a national search as part of the Fertile Ground Festival. Presented by White Bird, the piece is called Make/Believe, and if the photos and video foretell anything, it’s going to wrap your brain up in knots.

“This piece will be more percussive, less melodic,” reveals artistic director Angelle Hebert. “The dancers will use mics and cabling as props to deconstruct the formalities of communication and social interaction.” Meanwhile, minimalist elements will heighten the audience’s somatic perception: sparse, sustained musical notes, warm lighting, sporadic outbursts of vocalization, and choreography that reveals and lingers on oft-overlooked body parts.

Make / Believe from tEEth on Vimeo.

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Tags: Dance, modern, fertile ground

OBT’s Holiday Revue:
Assorted Delights

Posted by: Anne Adams on Dec 13, 2011 at 05:00AM 0 Comments

Every year, Oregon Ballet Theatre serves up its delectable Balanchine* version of The Nutcracker, attracting droves of all-ages devotees. But Holiday Revue is the company’s way of catering to the cocktail crowd, rolling out a grand piano so Broadway grande dame Susannah Mars can toast all the holiday standards, as well as rarer, cheekier selections like the shopper-scolding “Twelve Days ’Til Christmas” and the 60’s society housewife sendup “Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise.” Like Mars’ past holiday revues, the production is witty, sentimental, and in a word, “nice.” Here are some memorable features:

Pretty in Purple
Defying the holiday color-scheme cliché, there’s nary a wisp of red-and-green on stage or dancers. Instead, bold patterns like classic damask and houndstooth are rendered in a purple, black, white, and silver palette.

Dancers Get a Voice
Ballerinas chime in with light "la’s while dancing on “Holiday Lament,” and later—look out, Dean Martin—Brett Bauer takes the role of seducer opposite Mars in beloved winter duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” And dancers collaboratively penned the lyrics to “8 Days of Chanukah.” Usually seen and not heard, OBT’s dancers get a rare new way to shine.

Equal-opportunity Holiday Fare
Susannah Mars honors her own half-Jewish half-Christian heritage with her diverse song selection, and OBT proves similarly versatile, infusing straight-from-the-shtetl folk steps between ballet moves. “8 Days of Chanukah” retrofits “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with irreverent Jewish tropes like, “Five moyles moyling! Oy!” while a rendition of Fiddler on The Roof ballad “Far From The Home I Love” balances out the Christmas cheer with its wistful melancholy.

Three cheers for the little guy!
Javier Ubell uses his small frame to great advantage, despite being mostly relegated to solos between pairs of dancers. By closing bows, the puckish newcomer earns the loudest cheers.

Familiar Flourishes
A couple of elements echo last season’s Stravinsky Project, longtime OBT dancer Anne Mueller’s choreography debut. Tiered curtains, ambiently lit, gracefully frame the stage’s wings, extending the atmosphere while containing the action. It’s a nice contrast to starker sets from last season. A relatively rare lift that flips dancers completely upside down, also reappears here. (Have Mueller’s new moves turned OBT on its head?)

The wrap-up
Contrary to its Adults’ Table aspirations, Revue is arguably milder than Nutcracker, and might be ideal for verbally precocious or swordplay-sensitive children, or fine for a lighthearted grandparents’ date.

*FYI: In the ballet world, the right to perform George Balanchine’s choreography is actually fiercely guarded and rarely granted. Approach even this candycane romp with due reverence.

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Tags: Dance, Review

TBA 2011: Zoe | Juniper

The Seattle dance company’s A Crack In Everything Exposed made an indelible impression on multidisciplinary artist and Culturephile correspondent Kat Seale. She describes the surreal scene.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 27, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

Photo: Juniper Shuey

Adorned with white paper booties, I stepped into the alternative world of the Zoe/ Juniper installation: a world brimming beauty, juxtaposed with momentous fits of passion and pain. Upon entering, a man is seated at a white table, his hairless body covered in a paste of white, his chest gilded metallic silver. He’s playing “five-finger fillet” with a large spike, hammering it between his splayed fingers, each strike of the rhythm an implied risk. He misses, and a glimmering red bead of blood gathers on his finger, standing out as a visceral variation of the minimalist composition of the room.

The narrow walls are lined with white paper, projections, and strands of red yarn. An ornate arabesque silver platter sits to the man’s left containing a foreign substance that resembles translucent spheres of egg yolk. Accompanied by strains of minimalist cello, a row of performers forms a straight line in front of the man with the spike, patiently waiting for a turn to play. Slowly, each takes a turn with the knife game while our main character looks on blankly. As each member of the entourage moves forward in line, the tempo of movement becomes more rapid, until all patience is exhausted and the once-orderly group begins violently pushing and shoving each other in an attempt to arrogate the spike.

Shaking off his distant stare, the main character grips the left hand of the girl who has managed to acquire the spike. He slowly places it on the table and she begins to play. With clandestine glances, company members quickly consume several of the yolk-like spheres. Gradually, we notice that an area to the rear of the room is partitioned by clear plastic, which is embellished with red contour drawings of a body in motion. Two men sitting on white chairs don masks of soft white and pink fur and begin violently barking at each other in a battle of dominance, yellow gel streaming rabidly down their chins. Behind this growling display, our once-main figure gracefully dances, creating a sense of peace and serenity adjacent to a violent rage—a recurring motif that will translate over to the main performance. The intensity of the cello increases, then suddenly stops. Everyone is frozen in time; thrust into the vicissitudes of the environment. Quiet comes over the audience as the once-beastly men cross paths and the original knife-player exits.

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Tags: Dance, TBA, surreal, contemporary, tba2011

TBA 2011: Rachid Ouramdane

Considering our differences

Posted by: Claudia La Rocco on Sep 17, 2011 at 08:21PM 0 Comments

Photo: Patrick Imbert

“The experience of the piece is not coming only from the stage. It needs the participation of the audience. The contract of the piece is based on the capacity I will have the day of the performance to establish this [relationship]. Not by speaking. Just by giving time.”

That was the French choreographer Rachid Ouramdane speaking on Thursday about World Fair, a solo dance (performed with the composer Jean-Baptiste Julien) which had its American premiere yesterday at the Winningstad Theatre.

I loved him for saying this—the vulnerability and the confidence of it, especially coming on the heels of his having told Cathy Edwards, who was interviewing him at one of those noontime chats, that he wasn’t so sure he had yet succeeded in this establishing, that he was “still trying to figure that out.”

I so wanted to fulfill my end of the contract. I first saw Ouramdane’s work a few years ago in New York, and it seemed that I was pretty much the only person in the free world who wasn’t in love with his work. Taste is taste, marvelously subjective and bewildering—but when so many people whose opinion I respect are raving about an artist who interests but doesn’t dazzle me, I always want a second and a third look to see what I’m missing.

Well, shoot. Whatever it is, I’m still missing it. Ouramdane’s work is accomplished and polished, and he is a gorgeous mover, creaturely and elegant and smart and spooky … but, as with my previous encounters, on Friday I found myself sliding off the slick surfaces of his craft. I got alienated—which can be a really interesting thing to have happen to you with an artist, but doesn’t seem to be what he’s after.

In World Fair Ouramdane sets his body through a process of constant negotiation: with itself, with the objects on stage, with menacing and iconic self-portraits. Again and again he straightens into rigid, martial salutes, the salutes of a dictator, only to wiggle out of and through them. All of this information and history in the body—some of it personal, some of it cultural, some received—and what to do with it? How to live in the present time, the present moment?

At the noontime chat, a woman asked Ouramdane about all of the pain and darkness in his work (World Fair comes to New York later this fall, where it will be paired with Ordinary Witnesses, a work which utilizes the testimony of torture survivors). He took a long and thoughtful time answering this question.

“This notion of pain, which is really present in the world—I’m trying to reach something beyond that…To get to the certain reality of a situation, just to describe the facts are not enough,” he said (he was referencing a Rwandan writer’s approach to capturing that country’s recent history; I didn’t catch the name). “If you are just listening to heavy testimony, usually you are just stuck—the separation between your imagination and the real experience cannot be bridged.”

I stayed unhappily stuck. But hope springs eternal, every time we walk into the theater. Maybe with Ordinary Witnesses I’ll figure out my way over the bridge.

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Tags: Dance, Review, TBA, modern, tba2011

TBA 2011: The Radio Show

Kyle Abraham’s hit parade leaves space for provocative bursts of static.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 11, 2011 at 08:00PM 2 Comments

Stick your radio on “scan,” and you unleash a gamut of personal and universal emotions. Motown makes you swagger and smile, AM soft-rock leaves you longing for a lost lover. Hiphop hits inspire you to front, or get low, or get jiggy. Then the talk shows come on. Some caller makes a fool of herself, and you laugh. Some host makes a sexist remark, and you’re offended.

But between all that “something,” there is ever the static—the incomprehensible fuzz of nothingness that fills the crevices, and when it’s not carrying words and songs, it rasps unbound into the empty frequencies between the receivable stations.

When he’s not responding to the bursts of Top-40 and talk, Kyle Abraham wears the static with a trembling hand, a troubled brow, and a searching gaze that breaches the crowd’s comfortable detachment. And then, mercifully, the next frequency is found, and Abraham and his dancers bound back into action, shrugging the next song onto their soulful shoulders and manifesting its mood through their innovative choreography. But the naked urgency of the static isn’t easily suppressed. It resurfaces from time to time, adding challenging layers of anxiety and suspense to the Radio Show playlist.

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Tags: Dance, Radio, TBA, modern, tba2011

TBA 2011: Namasya

Shantala Shivalingappa’s dream-weaving, described.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 10, 2011 at 08:15AM 2 Comments

Photo: Nicholas Boudier

First
In flowing white blouse and trousers, she awakes to the moaning flute and whispering rain. She arises, and follows her own arms as they bend like wisps of wheat, sometimes pointing her finger as though acknowledging a new discovery from a long way off. A startle, a self-embrace. Sparkly harps and chimes. A light from heaven, a skyward gaze. Then searching, digging, uncovering. She’s found something. A blooming lotus in a pond? She lifts it up and sets it into sudden birdlike flight, her hands releasing from a petaled moudra and fluttering free. (Maybe it’s Stravinsky’s firebird. It’s familiar, it’s pastoral, but it’s not of this world.) The light progresses: dawn, noon, dusk.

Second
She lies down for a dream, and as she melts into the blackness a larger specter of self emerges on a screen: not a girl but a woman—a traditional Indian woman in violet and crimson, forehead bearing the bindi (marriage, the third eye). Though rendered in slow motion, her movements are traditional too: fluid arms, coy eyes, head almost sassy in its horizontal oscillations, back and forth, as if detached from the body. This mature character knows what she’s got and where she comes from.

Third
Bongo drums and guitar set a contemporary casual, almost Latin vacation mood as she reappears in a flowing black dress, swooping and swaying, deeply bending her knees so her legs open wide. Passionate, sudden flurries punctuate her samba sway. She cradles her face, outstretches her arms, swirls like a Turkish dervish, tastes her hand. Change, flow, dynamism, drama, all in their feminine form, ensconced in a big black swirling skirt. Room to move—yet, heavy.

Fourth
Another traditional sequence haunts the screens. The music has darkened and the forms have multiplied. Now two screens fixate on bits of slo-mo movement, zeroing in on close-ups of stomping feet, gestures of head and hand. Stops them, reverses them, doubles and repeats them. Examines the Indian woman from every angle while the music drones on, repetitive and trancelike.

Fifth
Now there are only drums. There is only a sharp slice of white light, and she’s crouched low, ninja-like, creeping across it. No naivete now. Calculated catlike maneuvers in the dark, in a black pantsuit. At any moment, this soldier of fortune might draw a weapon and strike.

Sixth
Now even the drums fall silent. She begins to dance a regular rhythm in the perfect silence, creating an anticipatable cadence, an imaginable song, with her body. The music resumes, hearkening back to the first crimson Indian dream. She gazes at her hand like a mirror, twists sharply away, looks again, then lets the mirror fall, gracefully letting go. Turning over objects in her hand, then stepping forward, parting curtains in the still air.

Seventh
She crouches with her back is to us, letting the lights lend her silhouette a silver lining. The music drones and her “snake arms” slither sensually. She curls up, covers her eyes, and retreats back into the dream darkness from which she sprang.

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Tags: Dance, contemporary, tba2011, India

TBA 2011: Vockah Redu

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 09, 2011 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Isabel Theriot

“They say, ‘Donte, he’s sissybounce, he preach, he’s Andre 3000, he’s Jimi Hendrix….’ But you can’t put a label on art!” exclaims Donte Brown from front-and-center stage, flanked on both sides by dancers in silver boots. “You put Versace on me, and it’s not Versace anymore—it’s me. Can’t nobody rock a party like I do!”

Vockah Redu’s frontman is not modest, nor should he be, judging by his crew’s ability to overtake a room. Representing for the burgeoning “bounce” genre, the group booty-shook and swaggered through their opening-night set with a haughty ghetto flair that Portland rarely gets to see—and we imagine the crowd’s wild delight was due as much to the novelty of it all, as to the actual bumpin’ beats. At the set’s zenith, some audience members erupted into ecstatic fits of krumping, seeming to surprise even themselves.

Last year, few musical moments were made the most of. Extreme Animals seemed like B-grade versions of the white-guy ironic snark that Portland already does best, and the half-hearted machinations of Wonderlust failed to deliver their promised Eastern-Bloc exoticism. (Meanwhile, great acts like Tender Forever and the Art Party lineup played half-empty rooms.) But with Redu’s packed crowd and inimitable energy, and novel new sound kicking off 2011, it looks like we might get more satisfaction.

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: Dance, music, TBA, tba2011, concert

Barak Marshall

The award-winning Israeli choreographer of MONGER talks about storytelling, overcoming ethnic tensions, and helping audiences “get” dance.

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 14, 2011 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

On Tuesday, White Bird Dance will present Barak Marshall’s MONGER, a dynamic physical-theater piece that depicts a group of servants scrapping and scuttling to please their abusive mistress. Culturephile caught up with MONGER’s creator, Barak Marshall, for a little interview about this intriguing piece, and the philosophies that inform his larger vision.

The detailed gestures in MONGER really mimic the movement of people who are “on the clock.” Jumpy and perfunctory. Where did you pick up this repertoire of gestures?

I see movement as words so I search for the gesture or phrase that expresses the emotion, word or subtext that I am trying to get the dancer to “speak” with his or her body. Much of the gestural work is drawn from the daily pedestrian as well as folkloric gestures of my own Yemenite-Jewish heritage.

The choreography in MONGER doesn’t seem to have an obvious principal dancer, and yet the woman in the reddish dress seems to be the de-facto principal, demanding just SLIGHTLY more attention than the rest. Is this an expression of a natural hierarchy or “pecking order” that emerges even among supposed equals in a work force? (Is the woman in the red dress a sort of “alpha-maid?”)

There is no principal. I just created various stories on the different dancers. But as the work evolved, her character’s story became one of the more prominent through-lines

You’ve spoken in past interviews about the Isreali/Arab rift, and how your company’s performances have been accepted by audiences on both sides. What aspects of your work communicate with both audiences?

Unfortunately, we don’t have many opportunities to perform for Arab audiences. However, on my first tour abroad we performed for a predominantly Arab/pro-Arab audience. This was in 1995 following the Oslo Accords. When it was announced that we were about to come on stage, an audience of 1200 people started chanting, “intifadah! Intifadah! Intifadah!” Needless to say, we were quite frightened but we decided go on with the show. The piece that we performed was my first work, Aunt Leah, which was a piece I built in memory of my aunt. The piece contains a lot of songs and texts in Arabic since my mother’s family are Jews from Southern Yemen. I open the work with a song in Arabic and the audience started quieting down. In the second part of the work, my mother accompanies the dance on darbuka (Arabic drum) and ends it with an ululation—several members of the audience ululated back. The third section of the work contains a lot of sayings, curses and words of wisdom in Arabic and many of the audience members understood the Arabic and began laughing at the humorous parts. The final section of the work is danced to a piece my the famous Pakisani singer, Nusrat Fatah Ali Kahn. The audience began dancing in the aisles and at the end of the show they gave us a standing ovation. This is one example of how art can speak beyond political lines.

In some sectors of the modern dance community, there seems to be a disregard or even a disdain for narrative—and yet your work has a strong narrative thread. What do you gain by framing a dance work in a “storytelling” context, and what do you risk? How do you answer those who want to distance dance from theater?

When I tell people I am a choreographer many respond with a pained expression and say, “Oh…I don’t really get dance.” I agree. For me, dance must tell a story just like a play, film or novel does. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to communicate clear ideas to an audience. When you decide to tell a story you risk becoming too literal or not being true to the narrative arc that you aspire to present. While I do have an appreciation for post modern dance, sometimes choreographers rely on the abstract to cover up unfinished thoughts and one is left with a case of the emperor’s new clothing.

MONGER will be presented by White Bird Dance at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Tuesday, May 17. 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: Theater, Dance, Interview, Modern Dance,

Best Mother’s Day Dates

Entertaining Mom this weekend?
Check this handy guide to find the best fit.

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 05, 2011 at 06:00AM 0 Comments

Mom’s mind will be blown by your entertainment planning prowess.

What do you get the mother who has everything? “Perishables and trinkets,” say experts. “Soap. Candles. Candy. Perfume. Or brunch.” But let’s assume your mother already smells fine, and isn’t hungry? What then?

That’s when you resort to another can’t-miss classic: Tickets, plus your time. Culturephile has culled the weekend calendar for your best bets for mom-friendly memory-making. We’re also going to clue you in as to which ones are bolder, which are safer, and which have limited seating—because if you’ve ever tried to show Mother a good time, you already know how much these details matter.

Gallery Gazing
Standing/walking required.
(ALL WEEKEND) Portland Art Museum’s Riches of a City . Let mom marvel at a piece of 15th-century Ming dynasty pottery, and puzzle out the lines of a Picasso. It’s a harmless way to while away the day and keep out of this punishing Oregon sun. (Mild)
(FRI) YU Contemporary Gallery Opening . Open-minded beat-generation mamas might be keen on Portland’s newest force in contemporary art, which opens its doors Friday with a nod to the city’s avant-garde arts past. Turns out this town has hosted some of the weirdest, wildest—and most world-renowned—visual artists. (Medium-spicy)

Gritty Gal Theater
Seated. *
(SAT-SUN) BUST at Portland Center Stage If your mom has a bleeding-heart humanitarian side, a self-deprecating wit, or both (and can cope with a few curses), then she’ll appreciate this amazingly agile and touching one-woman comedy, written and performed by former Daily Show contributor Lauren Weedman, which relives experiences volunteering in a tough women’s prison. (Hot)
(ALL WEEKEND) Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Portland Playhouse. Mom might get inspired by this bold, brilliant Black diva from the Detroit Jazz Renaissance, back-sassing the studio that’s trying to record her. (Hot)
*Note: Portland Playhouse’s lobby is a little tight to maneuver in. If that’s a dealbreaker, consider the deal broke.

Modern Dance
Seated.
(ALL WEEKEND) BodyVox’s A Thousand Little Cities A whirlwind of costume changes and different emotional tones means there’s something for everybody, and probably plenty for Mom. Take it all in and then ask, “What was your favorite part?” (Mild)
(ALL WEEKEND)Jefferson Dancers Spring Program at the Newmark These young (14-18) yet professional dancers have a reputation for disciplined perfection, and for presenting edgy, challenging material that’s arguably beyond their years. Uber-modern moms will say “hooray”; but milder ones might go, “Gosh.” (Medium spicy)

All-Ages Plays
Seated.
(ALL WEEKEND) Young moms, or multi-generation gatherings, might consider catching Northwest Children’s Theater’s Snow White, or Oregon Children’s Theatre’s How I Became A Pirate . I wouldn’t be surprised if the ultimate pull toward princess or pirate falls along the boy-girl divide—but be flexible. After all, this is PDX. (Mild)

Paul McCartney Fan Jam
Standing/walking required.
(SAT) Get your mom a bag to breathe into—Paul McCartney is NOT in town. However, local musician and McCartney enthusiast Dave Depper will do his best to channel “the cute one,” playing the entire Ram album at Doug Fir, backed by many of Portland’s chamber-folk elite. (Medium-spicy)

Sensitive Ponytailed Piano Man
Seated.
(SUN) Markus Groh at the Newmark If your mom’s anything like mine, his pigtail will not pass muster—but she’ll be instantly won over by the silvery tones and agile arpeggios of Markus Groh’s marvelous piano playing. (Mild)

World Music, Asian Culture
Seated.
(SAT/SUN) Portland Taiko’s Ponta & The Big Drum “Tiger Moms,” as well as those with a yen for travel and world music, should love the thrumming rhythms and sense of adventure that come standard with a Portland Taiko performance. And rest assured, these percussion pro’s will keep their levels low enough to please Mama’s sensitive ears. (Mild)

Classy French Cinema
Seated.
(ALL WEEKEND) A Deneuve Dozen at NWFilm Center French film icon Catherine Deneuve is an exceedingly rare breed of actress: a beautiful woman, that other women unbegrudgingly love. Moms will likely swoon for selections that feature the now-68-year-old actress in her prolonged prime, and “glamor moms” will find an excuse to preen over their own timeless loveliness. (Medium spicy)

Girlish Folk Singers
Limited seating.
(SUN) Mirah + Thao at Wonder Ballroom Mirah, who hails from a Pennsylvania maple syrup farm, has a knack for soft, wounded musings and coy innuendo, while Thao’s style is a little tougher. Together, they should strike a nice emotional balance that au courant moms can appreciate. Go really early to snag upstairs seating; otherwise, Mom may get stuck swaying amid a throng of slightly smelly bicycle-borne hipsters. (Medium spicy)

Elvis-Era Rock-n-Roll
Limited seating.
(SAT) Wanda Jackson at Roseland Wowza—Wanda was a dish back in her day. She dated Elvis, belted out powerful soul and blues hits, and was informally crowned “Queen of Rockabilly” by the pompadour crowd. Well, long live the Queen, who has recently proven her lasting relevance by working with the White Stripes’ Jack White. Moms with a severe case of 50s nostalgia—or just a lot of moxie—will be wildly inspired. (Medium spicy)

Nature’s Majesty
Standing/walking, or seated.
(ALL WEEKEND) Unable (for whatever reason) to squire your outdoorsy mother around the Japanese Gardens, Chinese Gardens, or one of the three famous local Rose Gardens ? Don’t fret, the big giant screen at The OMSI Film Festival projects crystalline visions of nature at a scale that could swallow Mom whole. Expect her to grab your arm and gasp during eye-popping flicks like Sea Rex and Journey into Amazing Caves. (Mild)

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: Theater, Dance, music,

Anne Mueller’s Ballet Memories

Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Principal Dancer reminisces about some of her favorite experiences as she prepares to retire this weekend.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 28, 2011 at 06:00AM 2 Comments

Anne Mueller and OBT’s Artistic Director Christopher Stowell share a hug. This weekend she retires as a dancer and takes a new role with the company.

This weekend, Anne Mueller will dance three pieces in Song And Dance: a noir-ish ensemble number with chairs (Left Unsaid ), an agressive hiphop throwdown pas de deux (Speak ) and a lighthearted full-ensemble romp to classic showtunes and jazz standards (Eyes On You ). Then she’ll hang up her toe shoes and retire from a 15-year dance career, ducking behind the scenes to serve as a teacher and repetiteur. Before she goes, Mueller takes the time to reminisce in this interview with Culturephile:

Tell us about some of your favorite memories from your time dancing with OBT.

Gosh, I have so many of these types of memories….I think I could talk for hours about all of them! To try and capture a few:

Moments
Many years ago we did a tour to Colorado. It was a pretty tough tour as we performed in 2 or 3 cities in just 3 or 4 days. We had to deal with dancing a really physical repertoire at high altitude with no time to adjust to the thin air. The morning we left, we had just spent a very short night at a less-than-glamorous Rodeway Inn (which came to be known in company stories as the Roachway Inn). I’m sure there are many lovely Rodeway Inns in the country, but this was not one of them. Our bus call was at 4:00 am on a Sunday morning, which happened to be my Birthday. We were on the plane flying home and I was deep into a really good book. A flight attendant came up to me and started bugging me. I had a short fuse and really just wanted to enjoy my book. Just as I was about to let this guy know how I was feeling about him, he handed me a glass of white wine (an actual glass,not a plastic cup) and a card. I opened the card and was so very touched to see that my fellow company members had not only remembered my birthday, but had taken up a collection to get me a very generous gift certificate at a fantastic Portland boutique. I felt truly loved by a lot of wonderful people.

Years later, I got engaged to my incredibly awesome husband. We had decided that we were going to line up all the marriage paper work and such but not plan a wedding of any kind. First we thought we’d get married on vacation in Puerto Rico, but the extensive bureaucratic mess that would have been discouraged it. We decided to just wait until the mood hit us, then tie the knot spur of the moment. With this plan, I think my co-workers were a bit confused about how to celebrate the event. That was the same year that OBT launched the “Who’s Your Dancer” campaign. Designer Adam Arnold outfitted all of us for those first posters. He then asked Brennan Boyer and I to be in his Spring fashion show. He made a polka dotted dress for me for the show. It’s wonderful, cream and strapless with a poofy skirt and the polka dots are like spumoni ice cream. Lars and I discussed buying the dress from him after the show since I was feeling like “if there was ever a wedding dress that suited me, this would be it”. The price was too high, so we let it go. About a month later I walked into the dance studio for morning class and had that feeling when I walked in the room like everyone had just been talking about me (that awkward silence). I looked over at my barre spot and hanging there, tied with a matching bow, was the dress, a wedding gift to me from my co-workers. I love that dress!!!!!!!

I’m not sure why both of these stories are about fashion. They aren’t really about dancing, but they are about the bond that develops among a group of people that work so closely together under very high pressure; it’s very special and I suspect one of the things I’ll miss the most.

Pieces
In no particular order…
Serenade (Everyone who’s danced it says that; it’s like participating in an ancient ritual or rite of passage)
Duo Concertant (with my dear friend Karl Vakili, also later with Lucas Threefoot)
Earthbound (We only did it once, but it was very special to everyone who danced it)
Just (There is a short, lyrical duet that I danced with Alison Roper. It’s a small section, but so quiet, lyrical, powerful, and feminine. We are very close friends and this was made on us by another friend, Trey McIntyre)
Concerto 622 (a really joyful, group experience)
Rite of Spring (my favorite role ever, so challenging, so primal)
Eyes on You (which we’re doing right now; I love to see all the cast members dancing beautifully while also being wonderfully funny)
Bolero (truly life-affirming)
I’m sure I’m missing a ton.

Music
Would probably be the same list. There is some music that I love that I never danced to, some selections by Satie, Ravel, and Arvo Part.

Audience
Definitely the first time I danced “Go Ask Alice”. I had just joined the company and I had come here from a more conservative community (in terms of audience reactions). The curtain went up and many of the ladies (including myself) in the company were pre-set onstage for the “Breathe” number. The audience went absolutely nuts at the start of that piece, like a rock concert. They were screaming and waving lighters in the air.

You must have imagined being a principal dancer in a professional company, your whole life. Once you got there, what aspects of the real thing were most different from your dream?

Actually, during my training I was exposed to several professional companies, but none were ranked so I didn’t really develop with the ranking system as part of my consciousness. I did, certainly, dream of dancing lead roles. I’d say the experience of dancing lead roles certainly matched my expectation in many ways, but when you’re dreaming you don’t think about the stress related to such things. It can be quite high pressure sometimes. Of course, that’s part of what makes it thrilling.

What was your takeaway from your recent collaborative choreographic effort, Stravinsky Project?

I was inspired most by working with the dancers and watching them work with the other choreographers. Dancers are the fuel that feeds choreographers most, I think.

There’s an emerging audience awareness (and appreciation) of ballet as a physically demanding sport. What was your worst “sports injury,” and your recovery process?

While I’m delighted by this new appreciation of the physical demands of ballet, I don’t like talking about the injury thing too much because, unlike sports, the point of going to the ballet is escaping to a visceral, transcendent place. It’s hard to do that if you’re imagining the dancers hurting or struggling with injuries. I have, though, had a ankle surgery and did spend about a year sleeping in a cast every night.

What’s next for you after OBT—in the immediate future as well as further along? Vacation? Teaching? More dance performances?

I’m delighted to continue my work for OBT as Artistic Coordinator. I’ve been doing this part time for the past few years and will transition to full time as I phase out the dancing part of my work. I love the work this entails (setting and rehearsing ballets, assisting Christopher, working with the administrative staff on tours and various projects). I am going to go on a Southern/Eastern Oregon hot springs trip that I’m very excited about.

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Tags: Dance, Interview, ballet

Review: tEEth’s Home Made

tEEth’s award-winning piece explores the glories and ravages of a long-term relationship. It returns from an acclaimed touring run for a one-night-only performance on Saturday, April 16.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Apr 14, 2011 at 02:00AM 0 Comments

tEEth’s Keely McIntyre and Noel Plemmons reinvent the reacharound.

Since Home Made premiered in Portland last November, the piece has toured several cities, scored a big win from Seattle’s On The Boards, and been added to summer 2011 festival bills in Prague, Texas, and Salt Lake City. But in case you missed it before it was “big,” White Bird will sponsor a one-night-only encore performance in Portland this Saturday night.

An image emerges from a blur: two giant symmetrical ultra-close-ups, a man and a woman. Two elbows, two chins. Four nostrils, and we’re almost looking up them. The pair starts to slowly caress each other’s faces, and the camera pans around under the giant stretchy white sheet on the stage, projecting a massive magnification of whatever it sees onto a screen. Hair. Knees. Random expanses of bare flesh moving in dynamic formations. Gosh. Is it hot in here?

This is Home Made —homemade intimacy, that later morphs into torpor, anger, alienation, passion…and back. The two dancers, variously clothed and nude, literally go through the motions of long-term monogamy. Sometimes they’re in sync. Sometimes they’re on autopilot. Sometimes one or both act out in a way that defies interpretation altogether—the kind of inarticulate “WTF” moment that only people who see each other often, and know each other well, ever expose. Because the dancers are virtually the same size, they easily maintain eye contact and show not only chemistry, but symmetry. Whether this is intentional, or a happy accident, it gives a sense of equality and power-balance that is rare in hetero pairings.

Though its topic is classic, this piece feels novel, strange, and sexy. Meanwhile, the music is nothing short of transcendent. Two singers, Luke Matter and Cali Ricks, provide ambient live vocals over a somber, watery piano. The audience could easily get its money’s worth from the music alone—but its marriage to movement promotes an even deeper hypnosis. Repetition, variation and symmetry ever-so-slightly disorient one’s perception of space and time, in the same way that a real makeout session would.

Fair warning, tEEth has one hell of an oral fixation. During the course of this piece, almost everything that can be stuck in the mouth, is—not just obvious parts like fingers, but more awkward fits, like chins, elbows, and whole microphones. Tongues are waggled, mouths are widely gaped, Foley-style sound effects are issued from the orifice. These tricks threaten to snap the viewer out of a moment. Maybe they say something profound, but a few just seem to scream, “Mouth!”

But tEEth’s creative masticating did not seem to fase local avant-art maven Paloma Soledad, who called the work “A must-see; beautiful, crazy, wonderful,” adding, “Thank God for people who do performance art dance! You make the world a better place.” Culturephile agrees. If not the whole world, at the very least, the week.

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Tags: Dance, Live, modern, nudity, Modern Dance