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January DanceWatch: Moving into a new year

From dancerly Broadway musicals to Éowyn Emerald’s return to a Bantu circus, a mystical being from Buenos Aires, Linda Austin’s birthday bash and more, 2024 kicks off in grand style.

Dancer Elenaluisa Alvarez moved with Graham Cole’s signature light and lofty footwork and clear balletic influence in "Origami Night." Photo by Blaine Covert.

Dance Review: ‘Origami Night’

Graham Cole’s newest production, featuring dramatic lighting design and a joyful solo performance by Elenaluisa Alvarez, struck an incongruent note with the introspective, feminist poetry which was its inspiration.

2023 in Review: Jamuna Chiarini’s year in dance

From a magnificent dancerly takeover of Zidell Yards to a push/FOLD contemporary festival to her own solo Odissi show, our DanceWatch columnist steps deftly through a busy year.

2023 in Review: Around and about Oregon

From coast to desert to hills and valleys and places in between, culture thrived in towns large and small around the state. Wherever people were, so was art.

Carolyn Stuart: Making Contact

For this dance teacher and Contact Improvisation devotee, gender and movement are fluid: “We are in constant motion—that’s life. We’re constantly evolving. We are the transition.”

Stage & Studio: A look back on 2023

In her newest podcast, Dmae Lo Roberts talks with ArtsWatch’s Bob Hicks about the cultural highs and lows of 2023, and the lingering effects of the pandemic on the arts.

2023 in Review: The look of visual arts

From the Rothko Pavilion to Converge 45 to the Hallie Ford’s 25th anniversary and much more, a look at some of the highlights of Oregon’s year in the worlds of museums and visual art.

Bobby Bermea: ‘Die Hard’ – NOT a Christmas movie

Sure, it’s an entertaining action flick. But its connections to Christmas are surface stuff. Go ahead: Watch it, and have fun. But when it comes to the spirit of the holiday, it doesn’t fit the bill.

As the solstice nears, an (astrological) look ahead

Breathe in, breathe out: Yes, there’ll probably be disasters. But Portland therapist, astrologist, and Pushcart-nominated poet Dr. Mindy Netifee also says the “whole end of the year could be very sweet.”

Letter From Seattle: Ho Ho Ho? Or Woe Woe Woe?

Seattle’s theater companies are hoping a sleigh full of holiday shows will bring in audiences and help overcome a slow bounceback from the pandemic and a soaring cost of living.

Person with short dark hair and a rust red shirt in an open landscape with yellow grass fields

Bloom where you are planted

Community organizer Nik Portela embraced The Dalles as their home, tipping the rural town’s local culture toward more LGBTQIA2S+ acceptance.

Judy Margles: Farewell to a Founder

Margles, the longtime executive director of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, retires after 24 years of inspired leadership.

As a drummaker holds up her creation, the lacing cast shadows against the skin. Photo by: David Bates

Inner Oasis Drum Circle: Connecting to the heartbeat of life

The weekly McMinnville gathering, like others around the state, draws participants who say they are both energized and calmed by the practice. “The primitive nature of the drum in the story of humanity,” says one drummer.

Lester Purry and the road to Scrooge

Bobby Bermea: The talented actor Lester Purry, who’s created a bond with Portland Playhouse, is back in town and creating his own kind of skinflint in the Playhouse’s “A Christmas Carol.”

Giving and the Oregon Cultural Tax Credit

As the giving season moves into high gear, the state’s innovative tax credit system allows you to double the impact of your donations to nonprofit cultural groups.

Installation view of Africa Fashion with mannequins in diverse

African Fashion and a ‘rocket launch’ of Black Artists of Oregon

At the Portland Art Museum, a shining show of fashion from Africa, an energetic celebration of Black artists that feels like the start of a much bigger picture – and a third show, “Throughlines,” that mixes and matches from the museum collections.

The Cultural Landscape 12: Special Edition

K.B. Dixon’s cultural-portrait series continues with a “special edition” featuring trailblazing women artists Lucinda Parker, Judy Cooke, Phyllis Yes, Sherrie Wolf, and Laura Ross-Paul.

Reviving the ‘lost’ art of Eugene Landry

Thirty years after his death, a resilient Shoalwater Bay tribal artist has an exhibit in Astoria side by side with young tribal artists inspired by his example.

Collaged paper elements by Joe Feddersen. Family Album #74. 2023. Ink, paper. Image courtesy of the artist and Adams and Ollman. Photo: Area Array.

Joe Feddersen’s ‘Extended Family’

The artist’s glass installation and collages on view at Adams and Ollman explore the ties that bind, both humans to one another and to the environment. Feddersen’s heightened visibility in the art world fits with a larger trend of renaissance for Indigenous art.

Are we a jazz town? The 1905 closes.

Financial difficulties for the 1905, which has just gone out of business, raise larger questions about the history and future of jazz in Portland.

Alex Deets, Jamondria Harris, and Bridgette/Bird Hickey at Overlook Park. Photo by Hannah Krafcik.

Despite expectations, age is only a number

Hannah Krafcik speaks with three gender-nonconforming folks about how it is possible to feel thousands upon thousands of years old and very young all at once.

Tyler Crook (right), chair of the Willamina Public Library board, leads a Saturday drawing workshop. Crook, a professional comics artist, says, “We live in some pretty challenging times and libraries are uniquely suited to provide the things that our community needs." Photo by: David Bates

Willamina Public Library: The little library that could

The library has weathered budget and staff cuts, an unwieldy inventory, and the pandemic to deliver everything from books to workshops, games, and homeless outreach to the Yamhill County community of 2,200.

Two conversations with Takahiro Iwasaki

The Hiroshima-based artist-in-residence at the Portland Japanese Garden’s Japan Institute discusses his parallel explorations of time, place, and what lies beneath.

RACC board ousts executive director

The embattled regional arts funding agency cuts its ties with leader Carol Tatch amid a continuing dispute with the City of Portland, The Oregonian reports.

Seattle Opera The Barber of Seville McCaw Hall Seattle Washington
Stumptown Stages Legally Blonde The Musical Winningstad Theatre Portland Oregon
Corrib Theatre From a Hole in the Ground Contemporary Irish Theatre Alberta House Portland Oregon
Kalakendra Indian Classical Instrumental Music First Congregational Church Portland Oregon
Portland Opera Puccini in Concert Keller Auditorium Portland Oregon
Portland Center Stage at the Armory Coriolanus Portland Oregon
Cascadia Composers May the Fourth be with you Bold new music for winds and piano Lincoln Recital Hall PSU Portland Oregon
Chamber Music Northwest Imani Winds and BodyVox Beautiful Everything The Reser Beaverton Oregon
Portland Columbia Symphony Adelante Voices of Tomorrow Beaverton and Gresham Oregon
Newport Visual and Performing Arts Newport Oregon Coast
Kalakendra Indian Classical Instrumental Music First Congregational Church Portland Oregon
Triangle Productions Perfect Arrangement Portland Oregon
NW Dance Project Moving Stories Newmark Theatre Portland Oregon
Oregon Repertory Singers Finding Light 50th Season Portland Oregon
Portland Playhouse Passing Strange Portland Oregon
Imago Theatre Carol Triffle Mission Gibbons Portland Oregon
Maryhill Museum of Art Goldendale Washington
Portland State University College of the Arts
Bonnie Bronson 2024 Fellow Wendy Red Star Reed College Reception Kaul Auditorium Foyer Portland Oregon
PassinArt Theatre and Portland Playhouse present Yohen Brunish Theatre Portland Oregon
Pacific Maritime Heritage Center Prosperity of the Sea Lincoln County Historical Society Newport Oregon Coast
Portland Art Museum Virtual Sneakers to Cutting Edge Kicks Portland Oregon
High Desert Museum Sasquatch Central Oregon
Oregon Cultural Trust donate
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