Jamuna Chiarini

 

DanceWatch Weekly: Mid-TBA

By:
Published September 13, 2017, in DANCE, TBA:17

It’s mid-TBA and there is still so much to see and do! If you’re just tuning in, TBA, or Time-Based Art, is the Portland Institute For Contemporary Art’s yearly festival of performances, workshops, artist talks, visual art exhibitions, music performances, and after-hours parties. This year’s 11-day festival, spread out to venues across the city, is inherently interdisciplinary and features local, national and international artists coming from as far away as Singapore, Morocco, and France.

Jamuna Chiarini

Earlier in the festival ArtsWatcher Nim Wunnan caught Korean performer Dohee Lee’s work MU/巫; a piece based in Korean shamanism that combines technology, ritual, and the sounds of drumming and voice that explores myth as the thread that “connects us to our lands, nature, history, belief systems, and to each other.” You can read his in-depth review here.

Closing tonight Is Dead Thoroughbred by Portland artists keyon gaskin and sidony o’neal. If you’re interested in hearing about the process and concept behind this new performance project, join them in conversation at 12:30 p.m. today (Wednesday, Sept. 13) with scholars Sampada Aranke and Kemi Adeyemi at PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art). Wunnan also reviewed Dead Thoroughbred and you can read about his experience seeing the performance here.

Continues…

DanceWatch Weekly: It’s TBA time!

Punch this week's dance ticket with a host of provocative choices from the Time-Based Art festival

By:
Published September 7, 2017, in DANCE, TBA:17

TBA: 17 is here! TBA, or Time-Based Art, is the Portland Institute For Contemporary Art’s yearly festival of performances, workshops, artist talks, visual art exhibitions, music performances, and after-hours parties. PICA’s 11-day festival, which spreads out to venues across the city, is inherently interdisciplinary and features local, national and international artists coming from as far away as Singapore, Morocco, and France.

It’s an exciting rush of nonstop activity from morning to night, and offers a mind-altering, opinion-changing, heart-opening extravaganza of the senses. Ready-set-go!

Below I have highlighted just the dance-centric TBA events, because that’s what we do here at DanceWatch. For the full festival schedule go to PICA’s website.

Performances this week

Will Rawls in I make me [sic]. Photo courtesy of the Portland Institute For Contemporary Art.

I make me [sic] (TBA:17)
Will Rawls
September 8-9
PICA at Hancock, 15 N.E. Hancock St
In this West Coast Premiere, Brooklyn-based writer, choreographer, and performer Will Rawls will perform I make me [sic], a nonlinear, live composition that uses movement, objects, sound, and text to address “issues of authorship, memory, race and subjectivity as intersecting monuments in need of constant undoing.”

Continues…

DanceWatch Weekly: Looking ahead, way ahead

A message from the future: Your dance card is full

By:
Published August 31, 2017, in DANCE

Toss the streamers, pop the cork, and roll the drums because Portland’s 2017–2018 dance season is here! Listed below are all of the dance related performances that I am aware of from now until next summer. I will of course be adding more performances to the list throughout the year as they come to my attention, so stay tuned. But as it stands right now, it’s a pretty impressive list, and I’m excited. Portland’s dance scene is on fire!

The incredible amount of Portland dance offerings this year span American modern dance history, show breadth in style and approach, represent different cultures/counter cultures and countries, offer many ways to interact with them, and will be performed by local, national, and international dance companies and artists.

When you look at the calendar in full and see the sheer volume of dance events happening this year, it’s extraordinary. We Portlanders are really lucky. Even if you don’t make it to all of the performances below, please take some time to click on the links to learn about all of these amazing artists in our midst.

Continuing this week will be performances of Where to Wear What Hat by WolfBird Dance—a commentary of society’s constraints on women from from the 1950s until now, and two evenings of curated dance films with Portland Dance Film Fest from filmmakers around the world.

Cirque Du Soleil’s Kurios: Cabinet Of Curiosities also continues with it’s crazy cast of
dancing, twirling, and flying characters through October 8 at the Portland Expo Center. You can even listen to the show’s soundtrack while you buy tickets online. Tickets are 20% off through Artslandia’s website by clicking on the Kurios advertisement on the right hand side of their page.

If you are in Eugene, head out to First Friday ArtWalk to be a part of the choreographic process for a ballet with Instaballet. If you are in Astoria, you can catch some of Portland’s finest Flamenco artists, Espacio Flamenco Portland, at the Performing Arts Center.

And last but definitely not least is This is a Black Spatial Imaginary, two performances and whatnot by Portland dance artist keyon gaskin and Portland-based writer and performance artist sidony o’neal that “considers the movement and fixity of Black communities, by activating past, present and future spaces for Black life.”

Performances this week!

Where To Wear What Hat by WolfBird Dance. Photo courtesy of WolfBird Dance.

Where To Wear What Hat
WolfBird Dance
Choreography by Selina DiPronio and Raven Jones
August 31-September 3
New Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont
Commenting on society’s constraints on women from the 1950s until now, choreographers Selina DiPronio and Raven Jones juxtapose iconographic ‘50s imagery with displays of force in both humorous and disconcerting ways to demonstrate the power and strength of women.

DiPronio and Jones have been working together since their student days at the University of South Florida and are interested in creating in collaborative environments and abandoning all conventions.

The deep-sea creatures of Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities. Photo by Martin Girard shootstudio.ca.

Kurios: Cabinet Of Curiosities
Cirque Du Soleil
August 31-October 8
Portland Expo Center, 2060 N Marine Dr
This fantastical big-top performance draws the viewer into the mysterious curio cabinet of an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of science, reinventing the world around him. Out of his cabinet comes a wacky cast of characters: quirky robots, underwater creatures, a human accordion, and contortionist sea creatures. What is “visible becomes invisible, perspectives are transformed, and the world is literally turned upside down.”

Photo courtesy of Instaballet. Dancers Suzanne Haag and Antonio Anacan.

#Instaballet No. 23
Directed by Suzanne Haag and Antonio Anacan of Eugene Ballet Company
5:30 pm September 1
First Friday ArtWalk, Capitello Wine, 540 Charnelton St, Eugene
This event is FREE
Live music and dancers from Eugene Ballet Company

Reimagining who creates ballets, Instaballet, directed by Suzanne Haag and Antonio Anacan of Eugene Ballet company, gives artistic control to the audience. If you have ever wanted to choreograph a ballet but aren’t a dancer or a choreographer, now is your chance. Head on over to First Friday ArtWalk in Eugene and be a part of the process and make a ballet on the spot. The creative process begins at 5:30 pm and a performance of the final product will happen at 8 pm. The performance will be accompanied by live music and four Eugene Ballet dancers will make themselves available for your creative juices. In Eugene.

If you are interested in learning more about Instaballet and how it came to be, Eugene ArtsWatch correspondent Gary Ferrington wrote about them in 2015 in Crowd-sourced Choreography.

Photo from the film Open directed by Lindsay Gauthier. Dancers Michael Montgomery and Laura O’Malley. Photo by Aleskey Bochkovsky.

Portland Dance Film Fest (PDFF)
Directed by Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, and Jess Evans
Presented by NW Dance Project, Dance Wire, Bad Hands Studio, and Design By Goats
September 1-2
SubRosa Dance Collective members Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, and Jess Evans, have curated a massive, five-day dance film festival, spanning two weekends (and several locations) that concludes this weekend with two curated evenings of dance films (each evening lasting approximately one hour). The works screened are from Finland, Vietnam, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, and the United States. Check out Portland Dance Film Fest’s website for screening times, film descriptions, interviews with select filmmakers, and more.

 

This is a Black Spatial Imaginary, two performances and whatnot
keyon gaskin and sidony o’neal
3 pm September 3
Paragon Arts Gallery, 815 N Killingsworth St

As quoted from their event page on FaceBook.

This Is A Black Spatial Imaginary considers the movement and fixity of Black communities, by activating the past, present and future spaces for Black life.

1st event for This is a Black Spatial Imaginary @ Paragon Gallery. Two performances. there will be snacks and whatnot.

cover charge for non-black people, artists split the proceeds.

about exhibition and project:

This is a Black Spatial Imaginary brings together installation, video, print media, performance, and public intervention, exploring new forms of practice at the intersection of art, collaboration, historical record, urban planning, collaboration and creative exchange.

This Is A Black Spatial Imaginary considers the movement and fixity of Black communities, by activating past, present and future spaces for Black life. Moving from NW to NE Portland (as Black Portlanders did), the work starts near Union Station at PNCA’s Center for Contemporary Art and Culture, crosses the Broadway Bridge, activates key sites, and ends on the eastside at PCC’s Paragon Gallery, with over 40 Black artists and scholars coming together to showcase work and share ideas. In sifting through historical and contemporary Black geographies, the work provides clues to understanding how Black possibilities live and breathe. The project grounds itself in collaborative work that span local and global Black geographic imaginaries, bringing both analytics and poetics to fields of practice.

Noche Flamenca
Presented by Espacio Flamenco Portland and the Performing Arts Center, Astoria
7 pm September 3
Performing Arts Center, 588 16th Street, Astoria
All Ages
Children 12 and under free!
Celebrating the variety in flamenco music and dance, Espacio Flamenco Portland will entertain Astoria audiences with soulful sounds of Moroccan singer Randa BenAziz, guitarist Brenna McDonald, percussionist Nick Hutch and Christina Lorentz, and dancer steppings of Lillie Last, Montserrat Andreys, Kelley Dodd, and Christina Lorentz.

Upcoming Performances

September
September 7-17, TBA:17, Portland Institute For Contemporary Art
September 8-9, Will Rawls, I make me [sic] Portland, TBA:17
September 9, Critical Mascara, performances by Pepper Pepper, House of Ada, Flora, and DJ Spf 666, TBA:17
September 8-9, Dohee Lee Puri Arts, MU/巫, TBA:17
September 8-16, Direct Path To Detour, Single Focus (World Premiere),Takahiro Yamamoto, TBA:17
September 9, Rejoice! Community Ensemble Dance Workshop + Performance, hosted by Scale House, Bend
September 9-10, Corbeaux, Bouchra Ouizguen, TBA:17
September 11-13, Dead Thoroughbred, keyon gaskin and sidony o’neal, TBA:17
September 12-14, Thank You For Coming: Play (West Coast Premiere), Faye Driscoll, TBA:17
September 14-17, Bunny, Luke George and Daniel Kok, TBA:17
September 16-October 1, Billy Elliot The Musical, presented by The Hasson Company, Portland’5
September 16, ADAPt Dance Celebration 1v1 Open Styles (do it your way) dance battle, Hosted by GAAN and ADAPT
September 21, Lessons in Drag with Lawhore Vagistan, Kareem Khubchandani, presented by Reed College Performing Arts
September 22, Carlyn Hudson Presents: Solos, and Not-Solos…(But Mostly Solos)
September 29-30, Diphylleia Grayi (Skeleton Flower) + Matriarch, Degenerate Art Ensemble and Mizu Desierto, presented by Mizu Desierto and Water In The Desert
September 29-30, Episode III, jin camou, Julia Calabrese, Mary Sutton, Leah Brown, a PWNW Alembic Co-Production

October
October 5-7, Complexions, presented by White Bird
October 6-8, Mowgli – The Jungle Book Ballet, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene
October 7, Dance Of The Hummingbirds, Jayanthi Raman and dancers
October 7-14, Rhapsody In Blue (World Premiere), choreography by Nicolo Fonte, performed by Oregon Ballet Theatre
October 12-14, Paul Taylor Dance Company, presented by White Bird
October 13-14, The Northwest Screendance Exposition, directed by John Watson, presented by the University of Oregon Department of Dance, Eugene
October 19-21, Wen Wei Wang (World Premiere), Luca Signoretti (World Premiere), At Some Hour You Return by Jirí Pokorný, NW Dance Project
OCT 20-22, Abominable, Taylor A. Eggån and Daniel Addy
October 20-22, Uprise, Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater
October 22, Le Corsaire, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
October 26, Cocktail Hour: The Show, choreography by Marilyn Klaus, presented by Seacoast Entertainment Association
October 26-28, Dancenorth Australia, presented by White Bird
October 31, Opus Cactus, MOMIX, Eugene

November
November 3-5, Converge, PDX Contemporary Ballet
November 9-12, When We, Allie Hankins & Rachael Dichter, a PWNW Alembic Co-Production
November 15, The Hip Hop Nutcracker Featuring MC Kurtis Blow, Decadancetheatre
November 16-18, L-E-V, presented by White Bird
November 24-26, The Enchanted Toyshop by John Clifford, Tourbillon by Anne Mueller, performed by the PSU Orchestra and The Portland Ballet
November 26, The Taming Of The Shrew, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
November 30-December 9, Lexicon (world premiere), BodyVox

December
December 7-9, Bolero, Ihsan Rustem, NW Dance Project
December 9-24, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Oregon Ballet Theatre
December 13-17, a world, a world (work-in-progress), Linda Austin Dance, PWNW
December 17, The Nutcracker, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
December 22-24, The Nutcracker with Orchestra Next, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene

January
January 18-28, Fertile Ground Festival of New Work/Groovin’ Greenhouse
January 25-27, Rennie Harris Puremovement, presented by White Bird

February
February 1-10, The skinner|kirk DANCE ENSEMBLE, presented by BodyVox
February 4, The Lady Of The Camellias, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
February 17-18, Pink Martini, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene
February 21, Mark Morris Dance Group, presented by White Bird
February 23-25, Configure, PDX Contemporary Ballet
February 24-March 4, Alice (in wonderland), choreography by Septime Webre, performed by Oregon Ballet Theatre

March
March 1-3, Urban Bush Women, presented by White Bird
March 4, The Flames Of Paris, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
March 8-10, Jessica Lang Dance, presented by White Bird
March 14, Compañia Jesús Carmona, presented by White Bird
March 15-17, World Premiere’s by Sarah Slipper and Cayetano Soto, NW Dance Project
March 22-24, To Have It All, choreography by Katie Scherman, presented by BodyVox

April
April 5-7, Stephen Petronio Company, presented by White Bird
April 8, Giselle, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
April 12-14, Contact Dance Film Festival, presented by BodyVox and Northwest Film Center
Apr 14-25, Peer Gynt with Orchestra Next, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene
April 12-21, Man/Woman, choreography by Mikhail Fokine, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Nicolo Fonte, James Canfield, Jiří Kylián, performed by Oregon Ballet Theatre
April 24-25, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, presented by White Bird
April 24-25, The Wind and the Wild, BodyVox and Chamber Music Northwest

May
May 4-5, Current/Classic, The Portland Ballet
May 10-19, Rain & Roses (world premiere), BodyVox
May 11-13, Compose, PDX Contemporary Ballet
May 16, Ballet Hispȧnico, presented by White Bird
May 23-June 3, Closer, original works by the dancers of Oregon Ballet Theatre

June
June 8-10, Up Close, The Portland Ballet
June 10, Coppelia, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
June 14-16, World Premiere – Ihsan Rustem, MemoryHouse – Sarah Slipper, NW Dance Project

 

DanceWatch Weekly: Dance film, dance text and actual dance

We open the post-eclipse, pre-school window and find dance film, dance discussion and real dance: Tango, Flamenco, modern.

By:
Published August 23, 2017, in DANCE, LANGUAGE ARTS

We have now entered the post-eclipse and pre-school window, and I am feeling the impulse to go out there and grab the last little bit of freedom and sunshine that’s left. I have run away to the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas—and the sweltering desert heat—to celebrate my summer’s end. What will you do?

If you’re in Portland right now, might I suggest a dance film festival? Raucous dancing by WolfBird Dance? Or a romantic evening of Tango by moonlight, or a trip to Spain with Espacio Flamenco Portland at Bar Vivant? Or maybe you’re in the mood for something really really big such as Cirque Du Soleil’s performance of Kurios: Cabinet Of Curiosities. Or maybe you would prefer to wind down with something a little quieter and more intellectually focused—a reading group discussion with the dance artist of Physical Education, say. Well, it’s all there waiting for you. What will you choose?

Performances this week!

Portland Dance Film Fest August 24-September 6. Photo courtesy of Portland Dance Film Fest.

Portland Dance Film Fest (PDFF)
Directed by Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, and Jess Evans
Presented by NW Dance Project, Dance Wire, Bad Hands Studio, and Design By Goats
August 24-September 2
SubRosa Dance Collective members Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, and Jess Evans, have curated a massive, five-day dance film festival, spanning two weekends (and several locations), that will screen dance films from around the globe.

The festival begins Thursday with an opening night celebration that includes a mini-screening, an interactive dance for film creation in real time, food, drinks and “danceable jams.” It continues with three separate, curated evenings of dance films (each evening lasting approximately one hour), and concludes with a panel discussion featuring several Portland filmmakers. Check out Portland Dance Film Fest’s website for screening times, film descriptions, interviews with select filmmakers, and more.

The deep-sea creatures of Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities. Photo by Martin Girard shootstudio.ca.

Kurios: Cabinet Of Curiosities
Cirque Du Soleil
August 24-October 8
This fantastical big top performance draws the viewer into the mysterious curio cabinet of an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of science, reinventing the world around him. Out of his cabinet comes a wacky cast of characters: quirky robots, underwater creatures, a human accordion and contortionist sea creatures. What is “visible becomes invisible, perspectives are transformed, and the world is literally turned upside down.”

Where To Wear What Hat by WolfBird Dance. Photo courtesy of WoldBird Dance.

Where To Wear What Hat
WolfBird Dance
Choreography by Selina DiPronio and Raven Jones
August 25-September 3
New Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont
Commenting on society’s constraints on women from the 1950s until now, choreographers Selina DiPronio and Raven Jones juxtapose iconographic ‘50s imagery with displays of force in both humorous and disconcerting ways to demonstrate the power and strength of women.

DiPronio and Jones have been working together since their student days at the University of South Florida and are interested in creating in collaborative environments and abandoning all conventions.

Flamenco Friday #4
Hosted by Espacio Flamenco Portland and Bar Vivant
7 pm August 25
Bar Vivant, 2225 E Burnside St
FREE. All ages.
Espacio Flamenco Portland and Bar Vivant close out the summer’s Flamenco Friday nights with performances by Flamenco dancer Lillie Last, accompanied by singers Randa BenAziz, Montserrat Andreys, and Kelley Dodd, guitarist Brenna McDonald and percussionist Nick Hutcheson. Let the sights, sounds, and tastes of Spain transport you.

Photo from Director Park Tango 2011. Photo by Claude Lavaiano.

Director Park Tango 2017
Produced by the Portland Tango Community
6 pm August 25
Director Park, 815 SW Park Ave
Free and open to the public, Tango dancers and musicians from California and Oregon will converge on Director Park in downtown Portland for one magical evening of dance classes, Tango dancing, and live music. Check out the Facebook event page for updated performer info and class times.

Physical Education Reading Group: De-Canon UNA Closing Event
Hosted by UNA Gallery and De-Canon: A Visibility Project
3 pm August 26
328 NW Broadway Ave. #117
In contemplation of the question “What lies {beyond/under/within} language for you?” De-Canon: A Visibility Project and Physical Education, a Portland collective made up of dance artist keyon gaskin, Taka Yamamoto, Allie Hankins, and Lu Yim, have chosen reading materials to help ponder this question. This open forum discussion will be the closing event for De-Canon’s pop-up library installation at UNA. All are welcome.

De-Canon is a “pop-up library” and web resource project that will showcase literary art by writers/artists of color. “Our goal is to put forth an alternative literary “canon” — or multiple canons — that are inclusive, diverse, and multi-storied in their approach to representation. De-Canon wishes to challenge existing ideas of what constitutes the North American literary canon, especially in our current culture.”

Reading materials are available on De-Canon’s website.

DanceWatch Weekly: Classical Indian dance on eclipse weekend

Sweta Ravisankar and Subashini Ganesan bring classical Indian dance to the city

By:
Published August 18, 2017, in DANCE

This weekend, Portland is graced with two classical Indian dance performances, the closing performances of the musical Gypsy, and a three-day event with dance company I Moving Lab.

Between the barrage of news, the major cultural shifts happening, and the constant political upheaval, I am comforted and inspired by the artists in our midst. Despite any bumps in the road they may encounter, they persist.

This week I am particularly inspired by Sweta Ravisankar, a Bharatanatyam and Nattuvangam performer, teacher, and choreographer, from Mumbai, India. I first saw her perform in Jayanti Raman’s Anubhava at Lincoln Hall in 2015. Ravisankar is a striking performer and a pleasure to watch.

Bharatanatyam and Nattuvangam performer Sweta Ravisankar. Photo courtesy of Sweta Ravisankar.

Not only is Ravisankar a dancer/teacher/choreographer/musician, she is also pursuing her Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology at OHSU, holds a Master’s Degree in Bharatanatyam and Biology, maintains dance schools (Sarada Kala Nilayam) in San Jose, California, and Hillsboro, Oregon, and travels the world performing. If ever you needed inspiration to follow your various passions in life, Ravisankar is it!

For those who don’t know, Bharatanatyam is the name of a style of South Indian classical dance. Nattuvangam is the rhythmic instrument played in the background of Bharatanatyam performances and is made of two metal cymbals—one of iron and the other of brass.

Ravisankar will be presenting Laya Bhavam: An Amalgamation of Rhythm in Dance and Percussion at Portland Community College’s Rock Creek Auditorium, this Saturday evening at 6 pm. The performance is in collaboration with her musician father, Sri. S Ravisankar, who will accompany the performance on mridangam (a barrel-shaped, two-headed drum) alongside a full Indian orchestra. Additionally, her father heads a bhajan group, Sukrutha Brahmam Bhajan Mandali, based in Mumbai, India, that toured throughout the U.S. last spring.

In discussing the performance concept, through an email exchange, Ravisankar said, “Layam, as we all know, is the rhythm. Bhavam represents the emotions created. Both of these together, let us experience and appreciate how the rhythm is so seamlessly integrated in all the things around us. Both Layam and Bhavam complement each other as brain and heart.”

Ravisankar attributes her success in both careers to the support of her family and teachers who all work together to make her “dance journey” happen. Her father accompanies her musically, her mother manages all of her programs, and her sister hosts and introduces her at each performance. It was at her mother’s insistence that her father begin playing for her Bharatanatyam concerts, having previously only accompanied singers.

This father-daughter relationship inspires Ravisankar’s work. She likens their creative back-and-forth process together like that of “making a pot in the ancient times. You keep adding water and shaping the pot better and better ‘til it is complete.”

Performances this week

Photo of dancer Deanna Olsen White with Kelly Sina observing, in Broadway Rose Theatre Company’s production of Gypsy. Photo by Sam Ortega.

Gypsy
Broadway Rose Theatre Company
August 3-20
Deb Fennell Auditorium, 9000 SW Durham Road, Tigard
Closing this weekend is Broadway Rose Theatre Company’s production of Gypsy, directed and choreographed by late great American choreographer Jerome Robbins, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical is loosely based on the memoirs of the American queen of striptease, Gypsy Rose Lee, and the aspirations of her stage mamma from hell.

Although Gypsy is not a dance-centric show, Robbins carefully re-created accurate depictions of the era’s vaudeville and burlesque dance styles for famous scenes such as “You Gotta Get a Gimmick,” when three strippers tell Louise (Gypsy Rose Lee) that she doesn’t actually need talent, just an idea.

Laya-Bhavam: An Amalgamation of Rhythm in Dance and Percussion
Presented by Sarada Kala Nilayam/Sweta Ravisankar
6 pm August 19
Portland Community College Rock Creek Auditorium, 17705 NW Springville Road
See above

Photo courtesy of I Moving Lab.

NA’LÅ’LA (Give Life)
Dåkot-ta and I Moving Lab
6:00 pm August 19
New Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont St., in the WYSE Building. Use the doors located on the South side of the building.

Celebrating the coming eclipse through music and dance, contemporary Māori choreographer and scholar Jack Gray, in collaboration with hip hop dancer, sound artist, and scholar Dåkot-ta Alcantara-Camacho will present I LAND (in) Multnomah, an interdisciplinary performance that weaves their ancestral lineages from Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Guåhan, Guam, with rap, dance, and video.

Interested in decolonizing theater practices and drawing on indigenous relationships with the natural world, I LAND (in) Multnomah is a three-day series that begins Thursday, August 17, with a potluck, dance/movement workshops indoors and outdoors on the 18, and a final performance on the evening of the 19. Check out the I LAND (in) Multnomah website for the full schedule of events and please RSVP.

Classical Indian Dance & Music at the Portland Art Museum. Photo courtesy of Subashini Ganesan.

Classical Indian Dance & Music at the Portland Art Museum
Program curated by Subashini Ganesan, artistic director of New Expressive Works and Natya Leela Academy
2 pm August 20
Portland Art Museum, Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Avenue
FREE as part of the Miller Family Free Day

In celebration of the classical Indian Arts—dance, music, painting, and poetry—and in honor of Northwest architect and conservationist John Yeon’s collection of Indian Paintings at the Portland Art Museum, vocalist Mini Jairaj, mridangam player Hari, and dancers from Natya Leela Academy, Anjali School of Dance, Nartana Kuchipudi, and Kalabharathi School of Dance will contextualize Indian art through performance, as part of the Miller Family Free Day events.

Coming up next week

August
August 24-September 6, Portland Dance Film Fest, Directed by Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, and Jess Evans
August 24-October 8, Kurios: Cabinet Of Curiosities, Cirque Du Soleil
August 25-September 3, Where To Wear What Hat, WolfBird Dance

DanceWatch Weekly: The moment the bough breaks

"Suspended Moment" remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki with sculpture, music, poetry and dance

By:
Published August 9, 2017, in DANCE

Seventy-two years ago this week, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan killing more than 220,000 people, some dying instantly, their bodies evaporating on the spot, and others dying later from burns, radiation sickness, and cancer. It was a horrific and hellish scene that merged the lands of the living and the dead.

The first bomb, called Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:16 am on August 6, early enough in the morning to catch people just waking up and going about their morning routines. The second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped at 11:02 am on August 9. The bombs obliterated the cities and everyone’s lives within them, then and for future generations.

In announcing the bombing of Hiroshima to the U.S. people on August 6, President Harry S. Truman warned Japan to “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” A statement that sounds eerily similar to President Trump’s response to North Korea’s threats on Tuesday that “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen…”

Bringing the past into the present, updating the narrative around the atomic bombings, and creating a conversation around the legacy, responsibility, and dangers of nuclear power is as important and relevant today as it was 72 years ago.

Tonight visual artist Yukiyo Kawano, who is a third-generation hibakusha, or nuclear bomb survivor, who grew up in Hiroshima decades after the bombing, and Butoh dancer Meshi Chavez will be asking these questions in their performance Suspended Moment, along with collaborators Allison Cobb, Lisa DeGrace, and Stephen Miller. (Butoh is a contemporary dance form born from Japan as a reaction to the bombings.) The performance will follow an event to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Japanese American Historical Plaza from 6 to 7 pm. Their performance will take place at University of Oregon’s Light Court Commons at 70 NW Couch Street at 7pm.

The work revolves around Kawano’s sculpture—two hanging replicas of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which she fabricated from her grandmother’s kimonos and stitched together with strands of her own hair.

Continues…

DanceWatch Weekly: Catch a breeze

Suddenly, the Portland dance calendar heats up

By:
Published August 3, 2017, in DANCE

The pendulum swings from one extreme to another in Portland’s dance scene this weekend (hopefully causing a breeze)—from a lively community dance festival to a somber Butoh remembrance of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with musical theatre and actual swinging in the trees in between.

The Polaris Dance Company performing at Galaxy Dance Festival— with Jessica Zoller, Gerard Regot, Blair D’Amico, Jana Tripp, Melanie Ann, Brynn Hofer and Preeya Kannan. Photo courtesy of Polaris Dance Theatre.

Beginning today, Galaxy Dance Festival, hosted and curated by Polaris Dance Theatre, will take place indoors instead of at its usual outdoor location at Director Park, due to this week’s extreme heat. The three-day festival, now in its seventh year, includes FREE classes and performances by renowned Portland teachers and performers in all genres of dance, from ballet to Mexican folks dance and more. It’s a great opportunity for all ages of dancers and dance audiences alike to get a taste of what Portland has to offer in a casual way. Plus they have icy beverages, and you get an opportunity to see Polaris Dance Theatre’s beautiful new studios up close as well. Check out the Galaxy Dance festival schedule online for the full lineup of classes and performances.

Also opening tonight is Broadway Rose Theatre Company’s production of Gypsy, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical is loosely based on the memoirs of the American queen of striptease, Gypsy Rose Lee, and the aspirations of her stage mamma from hell.

Originally debuting in 1959 and starring Ethel Merman as Mama Rose, Gypsy was directed and choreographed by the late great American choreographer Jerome Robbins. Robbins, a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre, was known for his fantastic choreography in such musicals as On The Town, The King and I, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof, to name just a few.

Robbins was a five-time Tony Award winner, a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and received two Academy Awards. A documentary about his life and work, Something to Dance About premiered in 2009. Excerpts from it can be seen on PBS and Youtube.

Although Gypsy is not a dance centric show, Robbins carefully re-created accurate depictions of the era’s vaudeville and burlesque dance styles for famous scenes like You Gotta Get a Gimmick, when three strippers tell Louise (Gypsy Rose Lee) that she doesn’t actually need talent, just an idea.

Coincidentally, the Oregon Burlesque Festival is opening at Dante’s this week, where you can catch a whole array of burlesque styles from classical to contemporary, comedy, boy/man-lesque, circus, and much much more.

A-WOL dancers flying in trees. Photo courtesy of A-WOL Dance Collective.

A-WOL Dance Collective will be suspended in trees this weekend in their annual Art in the Dark production called One Shy of Ten: The Intangible Dimension. The dance takes place at night, amongst the stars along the Willamette River in West Linn, at Mary S. Young park. A-WOL, an aerial dance company, will lead audiences on an eerie, mysterious, sci-fi fantasy that will leave everyone guessing about what’s real and what’s not.

Suspended Moment featuring Butoh dancer Meshi Chavez and the hanging sculpture of visual artist Yukiyo Kawano, Photo by Stephen A. Miller.

Next Wednesday in conjunction with the remembrance of the bombing of Nagasaki by the United States on August 9th, 1945 (Hiroshima took place three days earlier on August 6), Butoh dancer Meshi Chavez and visual artist Yukiyo Kawano, will present Suspended Moment. Kawano’s sculpture—two hanging replicas of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which are fabricated from her grandmother’s kimonos and stitched together with strands of her own hair—is at the center of the event. The works collaborators include poet Allison Cobb, composer Lisa DeGrace and photographer Stephen Miller. The group just returned from performing in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where both bombs were developed. The performance will follow an event to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Japanese American Historical Plaza from 6 to 7 pm.

Chavez is also offering a three-day workshop in Butoh dance leading up to the performance. “Butoh asks dancers to meet each moment with curiosity” Chavez says, “thus creating the ‘suspended moment.’” Butoh is accessible to people of all physical abilities.

Performances this week

Galaxy Dance Festival
Hosted by Polaris Dance Theatre
August 3-5
Polaris Dance Theatre, 1826 NW 18th Ave

Gypsy
Broadway Rose Theatre Company
August 3-20
Deb Fennell Auditorium, 9000 SW Durham Road, Tigard

One Shy of Ten: The Intangible Dimension
A-WOL Dance Collective/Art in the Dark
August 4-13
Mary S. Young State Park, 19900 Willamette Drive, West Linn

Suspended Moment
Meshi Chavez, Yukiyo Kawano, Allison Cobb, Lisa DeGrace, and Stephen Miller
7 pm August 9
University of Oregon Portland’s Light Court Commons, 70 NW Couch Street

August

August 11-13, JamBallah Northwest ’17, Hosted by JamBallah NW
August 13, India Festival 2017, India Cultural Association of Portland
August 19, Laya-Bhavam: An amalgamation and importance of Rhythm in Dance, presented by Sarada Kala Nilayam
August 24-September 6, Portland Dance Film Fest, Directed by Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, and Jess Evans
August 24-October 8, Kurios: Cabinet Of Curiosities, Cirque Du Soleil
August 25-September 3, Where To Wear What Hat, WolfBird Dance

September
September 7-17, TBA, Portland Institute For Contemporary Art

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