2021: Remembering those who died
Bob Hicks
December 31, 2021
From children’s writer Beverly Cleary to jazz star Carlton Jackson to actor Philip Cuomo and more, we say farewell to artists who died in 2021.
From children’s writer Beverly Cleary to jazz star Carlton Jackson to actor Philip Cuomo and more, we say farewell to artists who died in 2021.
In a year of sharp contrasts, visual art in Oregon bounced between the stark and the hopeful, with plenty of surprises along the way.
From dance on film at the start of the year to a flurry of Nutcrackers at the end, the ups and downs of Oregon’s Covid-tinged dance year.
Amid a year of cultural clashes over who belongs, artists in Oregon thought big, told untold stories, and spread the creative net wide.
Looking back at the authors we lost and the bookish events that cheered us this year.
Dmae Lo Roberts talks in her newest podcast with ArtsWatch’s Bob Hicks, Steph Littlebird, Brett Campbell, and Amy Leona Havin about the highs, lows, and landmarks of the cultural year.
The Portland poet sees his classroom role as more coach than teacher: “I am very good at pumping people up, listening, and helping them execute their vision…. I’m not hitting people with maxims to live by.”
Celebrating artists in Oregon whose visions stood out and helped define and rethink a precarious year.
From “The Lost Daughter” to “Memoria,” Marc Mohan picks his top movies – “some legitimately great” – of the year.
Joan Didion, acclaimed writer revered for her captivating prose and era-specific essays, both outlined and shaped a nation. Amy Leona Havin says goodbye to a personal hero.
From Imogen Cunningham to the Brontë sisters to the new NEA chief and more, women take the holiday-season cultural spotlight.
Portlanders reading around town recommend gift books ranging from Clive Barker to classics by James Baldwin and Toni Morrison.
Looking back with Katherine FitzGibbon on Resonance Ensemble’s year of provocative choral music
Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, from Arizona State University, is confirmed as the new leader of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Cygnet Productions’ radio satire of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” streaming through January, pokes feminist fun at the literary classic.
Call it meditation, performance, soundscape, transcendence, dance: Driscoll’s ‘Come On In’ solo exhibit pushes boundaries and challenges traditional definitions of dance performance.
“One also sees the beauty in the organic, in the actual,
the particular”: At the Seattle Art Museum, an eloquent look at the great West Coast photographer.
At the airport, a cultural banner flies high. At the art museum, the Nabis put on a show. At the movies, remakes happen. In Ashland and Newport, art starts over.
Spielberg, Del Toro, and the perils & possibilities of remakes. Plus questions of mortality in a sci-fi flick that sends in the clones.
Artist cooperative Physical Education’s DIY exhibition weaves the history of their collaboration into personal gift shop memorabilia.
Emotions run high at return to live classical concerts in Ashland, featuring the Ying Quartet and Castalian String Quartet
The year’s final round of holiday concerts, with Bach Cantata Choir, Trinity Episcopal, Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, Emerald Chamber Orchestra, and In Mulieribus
Saloli and June Magnolia find inspiration in fresh instruments
“Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris 1889-1900” highlights the early careers of four artists.
Are you ready? A trio of productions each brings its own take (and a little music) to the classic Dickens holiday tale.
Rock star clarinetist and PCO celebrate Hanukkah with klezmer improvisations and a Wlad Marhulets concerto
The holiday tradition returns Dec. 17 and 18 after the theater company went dark for nearly two years due to COVID.
More music than you can jingle a bell at. Sex farce at the movies, ghosts onstage, democracy in the galleries, dancing cupcakes & nutcrackers.
Sure, there’s plenty of Dickens in December. But on Oregon stages, it’s Conor McPherson season, too.
While the big prestige pictures don’t live up to their billing, a satiric Romanian sex farce slides in to save the day.
Christmas concerts, drag shows, música latina, doom metal, and everything in between
Pride of Portland, Bravo Chorus, Portland Choir and Orchestra, Festival Chorale Oregon, Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, Eugene Gay Men’s Chorus, Northwest Community Gospel Chorus, and the eternal mystery of The Grotto
Portland duo Mojo Holler returns to the stage; punk legends X return to the road
CMNW artists-in-residence perform the composer’s chamber works with complementary music by Cage, Machaut, Gesualdo, Verdi, and Beethoven
Any member of the Maude Kerns Art Center can exhibit at the annual “Art for All Seasons” event. Ester Barkai explores this democratic approach to showing art.
“Serious Cupcakes” is one of the contemporary dance company’s most physically adventurous shows.
Soria Ruiz brings architect Eileen Gray’s “animal ballet” sketches to life in a performative exhibition at Oregon Contemporary through Dec. 5.
Inside an “immersive art” extravaganza. Plus: Philip Cuomo and other deaths in the family, Indigenous culture and the future, talking with Willy Vlautin, what’s up in December.
Remembering Philip Cuomo, Stephen Sondheim, and Dave Frishberg. Plus: A “Curious” reopening, Christmas Carols everywhere.
Working class jazz, mountainous ambient, heavy electronica, psychedelic New Age, lo-fi Puntera, Sonic Meditations, molasses-slow hip-hop, delectable weird-angled pop
Jane Campion’s corrosive revelations on the Montana range and Paul Verhoeven’s tale of convent carryings-on dig deeper than their surfaces.
Seasoned choreographer Faye Driscoll’s new exhibition at PICA invites audiences to reimagine relationships.
After a long year of mostly virtual performances, the dance world celebrates the season by throwing the doors open to live shows again.
The collective radiance of Portland Symphonic Choir, Eugene Concert Choir, Central Oregon Mastersingers, and Choral Arts Ensemble
December’s festive calendar includes author conversations, poet lectures, Passages Bookshop’s moving sale, and a pair of book fairs.
Machado Mijiga levels up and gets in the grooves; Squid builds a confusing subgenre hedge maze
The veteran dancer and choreographer’s first in a series of three live performances at Performance Works Northwest challenges traditional perspectives on identity and time.
Immersive Van Gogh exhibits are all the rage in 2021. What do they offer viewers?
The director will be at a Clinton Street screening to talk about his star-crossed (and star-studded) 1979 movie, whose perilous making is a tale unto itself.
Art exhibitions, gallery shows, and other not-to-miss art events in December.
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