“art is the power that causes the night to open.” — Maurice Blanchot, The Gaze of Orpheus Katherine Bradford is a prolific and imaginative contemporary painter from New York City. Meeting her at the opening reception for her show Magenta Nights at
By BRUCE BROWNE Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto may be a popular classic today. But a beleaguered, thin-skinned political leader tried to strangle it at birth for daring to depict a ruler who would abuse the women around him. And who would do that
“Stories need to be freed to do their work.” — Laura Lo Forti * Memorial Day, 1948, was a seminal moment in the evolution of contemporary Portland. On that day, the city of Vanport, hastily constructed to house workers at the Kaiser
As American society has taken steps—some halting, some confident—toward recognition and acceptance of a wider variety of gender and sexual identities, compelling true-life tales reflecting a previously stifled panorama of experiences have emerged. Each year, the Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival presents
by MARIA CHOBAN Musician: Oh my gosh, it’s been too long since we last saw each other! I’m retired!! Me: That’s fantastic! You must be filling up all your time with playing. Musician: (Sheepishly) Yeah, but it’s all free stuff now. Me:
“Why did you decide to choreograph Crane in the round?” I asked choreographer Amy Leona Havin on Monday morning over coffee, after watching a run-through of her work. “I was tired of feeling like I had to work back and forth and
Caroline, or change? Pretend. Play-acting. Make believe. The actor’s art is a curious challenge: Use your heart and mind, body and soul, to appear to be someone else. Fine actors do it often. And yet, something in that seeming contradiction at the
Mahler’s symphonies seem like a closing chapter, a culmination of big, Romantic orchestral music. So large (and expensive!) are the forces required, that orchestras often save them for the end of the season. On Thursday, Francesco Lecce-Chong concludes his debut season with
NEWPORT – Two months after his death, the generosity for which the actor and musician David Ogden Stiers was known in this central Oregon coast community continues. The 75-year-old Stiers died March 3 of bladder cancer at his home in Newport. A
When people leave Portland for jobs in another city, all good journalists understand that they have just opened a door, not just on a new future for themselves but on the past. Or at least a more candid view of the past
It started as just a chance to take the parents to a show we knew they’d like. They’re big fans of classic American musicals, and they don’t come more classic and American than Oklahoma! The folks are a bit too superannuated to
PHOTOGRAPHS AND ESSAY by JOE CANTRELL (EDITOR’S NOTE: Portland photographer Joe Cantrell will give a free art talk from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, May 16-17, in the lobby of the Ellyn Bye Studio of Portland Center Stage at The
Oregon Children’s Theatre knows something about what it takes to put on a hit show: the company has been creating magical theater experiences for kids for 30 years. So, no wonder OCT decided to revive its 2013 hit musical A Year with
The first thing to know about Ballet Hispánico? “Don’t get hung up on the name,” says artistic director Eduardo Vilaro. When you hear Ballet Hispánico, he suggests, “you think of a ballet company or a folkloric company. It’s neither. It’s as diverse
Todd Van Voris has many strengths as an actor: emotional depth and versatility, a knack for the telling gestural detail, that essential ability to appear centered in a particular character in a particular moment. All of those skills come into play in
“I make art to perpetuate culture,” Portland artist Shirod Younker told a crowd at The Old Church Concert Hall a few nights ago. Of late, he added, he’s been working on building traditional canoes. “Making canoes helps me understand my community. By
by MARIA CHOBAN I must honestly warn the reader that what he is about to study is not a series of judgements aimed at impartiality, but a siege laid to the theatre of the XIXth Century by an author who had to
This Saturday night, May 12, is the last performance at Southeast Portland’s Echo Theatre of STAND UP, SIT DOWN, ROLL OVER by Touretteshero, a.k.a. Jess Thom – a wickedly smart, scathingly funny comedian from Great Britain. Presented by Boom Arts in a series of
Painter Frank Stella said, “In great art all the relationships sparkle, radiating coherence.” In Sherrie Wolf’s still life paintings there is marvelous rendering of fruits, flowers, reflections in glass and copying of old masterworks, but the key element in her work is
This week’s column necessarily begins with a personal aside. When it became clear to me in 2016, after years of writing about movies for The Oregonian (God rest its soul), that Portland’s daily newspaper was not willing to invest in regular local
Make our arts journalism possible.
