DanceWatch: Back on stage!
Jamuna Chiarini
September 30, 2021
After a long layoff, dance is getting back in performance halls. Celebrate its return – if you’ve been vaccinated.
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DanceWatch
After a long layoff, dance is getting back in performance halls. Celebrate its return – if you’ve been vaccinated.
The project combines condos and a home for Eugene Ballet, plus office space for seven other arts groups.
PICA’s Time-Based Art Fest highlights a month that also shows many dancers emerging from isolation.
In the wake of the ballet’s reshuffle, the philanthropist talks about perceptions, funding, and the duties of boards.
In the wake of the ballet company’s abrupt split with artistic leader Kevin Irving, much remains unexplained.
push/FOLD gets back to performing with a rethinking of a recent dance, “Early,” for a Mexico City festival.
Resident Choreographer Nicolo Fonte also declares he’s leaving the ballet company.
Oregon Ballet Theatre unveils two world premieres in its first concert since the pandemic. And there’s lots more live performance to cheer on, too.
On an April evening in 1944, a young dancer from Portland made history in Jerome Robbins’ first ballet.
Oregon dance leaders talk about the long- and short-term future of dance. A little exasperation is involved.
The great American ballet star, who has died at age 86, was also a great teacher and a great human being.
Stage & Studio: Dmae Roberts and Portland’s arts advocate talk about Covid relief, EDI initiatives, what’s next.
Former Oregon Ballet Theatre star Gavin Larsen’s “Being a Ballerina”: a memoir to sweep you off your feet.
Dance on screen: It’s not the same as watching a live performance, but when theaters are shut down, it’s a balm.
How have dancers and choreographers negotiated the pandemic? Jamuna Chiarini tells her particular story.
Joe Kye’s new single “The Way Out” brings dance, Zoom, and social justice together to address the border crisis.
Dance workshops aid houseless women, children and nonbinary people at the Rose Haven shelter.
Though we long for the Olden Times, when dancers occupied the same rooms we did, we’re still counting our blessings: 1) Spring awaits; 2) Dance online.
Poetry, podcasts, theater, dance, and music are all available virtually from the McMinnville school.
Dance critic Martha Ullman West looks back on a year of isolation and remembers moments of beauty that broke the spell.
Jennifer Rabin was moved to tears by Sophia Wright Emigh and Jaleesa Johnston’s project “Bodies Apart, Moving Together.” A conversation about the pandemic, art, and finding connection.
We are still dancing, but mostly we are watching dance on screens. And we are getting better at it, too.
A dance troupe navigates Covid-19 shutdowns in a new studio and looks to Portland’s modern dance elders for direction.
A look back at a year of closures, crises, streamings and reimaginings, and ahead to a more cheerful 2021.
Martha Ullman West remembers Oslund, the Oregon dance legend, who has died at 72.
December dance bustles with a stocking full of Nutcrackers, Christmas Carols, and the odd Happy Hour.
Dance is cooking: solo concerts from NW Dance Project, Franco Nieto’s new studio, comic dance film from BodyVox.
The veteran artists are exemplars of independent dance artists making successful careers in Portland.
The pandemic has accelerated the movement of dance toward film, where more people can see it.
The Portland actor-writer moves briskly into his tale of Black Americans and the violence they face.
Dance starts to heat up after a slow pandemic summer. Jamuna Chiarini collects the fall colors for you.
DanceWatch discovers that dancers are dancing. Still. They’re not likely to stop. We have the calendar to prove it!
August is a busy dance month, with festivals galore. It just happens to be online – which has its advantages.
Local dance companies and choreographers are adapting to the new normal with determination and creativity, though everyone’s anxious about the future.
With studio dance classes on hold for the pandemic, dance teachers and their students have begun to adapt to the new reality: Zoom dance classes. It’s working.
After some online tension from the dance community, Portland’s Big Four dance companies agreed to change in response to Black Lives Matter.
Voices from the front: Philanthropist Ronni Lacroute says COVID-19 is forcing arts groups to think in new ways.
COVID-19 and Portland dance: spaces close, shows are delayed, classes shift online, financial crises loom.
The rest of its season canceled by the health crisis, the venerable dance presenter faces acute money woes.
The disability-arts champion’s death shocks the community. But the organization she built vows to keep on.
Jess Evans and Lyra Butler-Denman’s “Delicate Fish/BARDO” takes a tender look at grief, pain, and death.
Oregon’s dance month marches in like a lion, a tango, ballet, butoh, funk, fish, bootleggers and more.
Within the joy of Darvejon Jones’ dances at BodyVox is also the shadow of his social commentary.
Laura Onizuka will teach the Spanish dance and art form at an upcoming Lincoln City retreat.
Eugene Ballet creates the new dance “The Large Rock and The Little Yew” and revives “Alice in Wonderland.”
All you need is love: Oregon’s February dance calendar reflects on the many ways humans love.
It’s Sunday night and I’m at New Expressive Works, watching a few minutes of tech rehearsal for the upcoming Listening to Silence, a dance performance co-created by NEW founder and executive director Subashini Ganesan and Yashaswini Raghuram, the assistant director of Odissi
A showcase of student dancers highlights the talent and promise of a new generation.
Dancemaker Linda Austin concludes her four-year experiment with the way we remember, forget, re-imagine and recreate art.
Wobbly duo see a dangerous world: “Hate based crime directed against people with disabilities has gone up.”
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