After a six-month incubation period, the resident artists of New Expressive Works’ 16th cohort have emerged, performed and dropped the (metaphorical) curtain on their show.

On Saturday night of the three-night run, program founder Subashini Ganesan-Forbes joked in the pre-show speech about the lack of a curtain at the humble but vibrant Southeast arts space. Giving notice to the audience, Ganesan-Forbes warned we’d need to be patient for turnover time between the four pieces on the program, inviting us to enjoy a peek “behind the curtain” as sets were changed out, screens were hung and dismantled, and props were shuffled in and out of the space. 

The basis of the coveted residency program is simple: four artists are accepted from a pool of applicants, given free rehearsal space for six months, and required to participate in show-and-tell feedback sessions with their fellow residents throughout the development process. It all culminates with a live performance at the close of month six.

In addition, each artist is offered individualized co-learning sessions with Ganesan-Forbes. As the former Creative Laureate of Portland, current chair of the Oregon Arts Commission, and a general Portland-arts-scene-key-player, Ganesan-Forbes has a personal web that’s exactly the type of network that eager choreographers can use to make a road map for success in terms of identifying the resources and connections that will best support their dance-making goals and vision for the future as independent artists. 

But let’s backtrack to the visions that carried each resident for the past six months. Part of what stands out to the NEW panel while selecting residents is seeing “a sense of urgency, a need to create something now,” within the applicants, Ganesan-Forbes explained. We chatted over a video call about the fine line the program requires the choreographers to walk: having a clear impetus and plan, but a necessary openness to the fact that the six-month process will morph, refine, and challenge their vision. 

With three solos and one duet on the bill, the program was primarily geared towards deeply personal introspection and reflection on the self in relation to others. 

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The duet What Imagination Could Contrive, by Portland choreographer Jessica Post and her Detroit-based collaborator Sean Hoskins, opened the evening on a more obscure note, leaving more questions than answers. Inspired by the epistolary novel-trilogy Griffin and Sabine, in which two main characters correspond via postcards and letters from their respective locations across the globe, the creation of  What Imagination Could Contrive followed a reminiscent format, with the two collaborators rehearsing via video calls to one another with over 2,000 miles stretching between them.

The duet was marked by the use of abstract video footage depicting architectural structures, clouds passing through a dull sky, mist settling over a lake, and a fence laden with bottles tied to its rungs. Mirroring that, the pair had adorned the space above the dance floor with a few glass bottles, hanging simply from fishing lines. It was a near-and-far, both here-and-there type of poetry that spun the imagery together, and the same sentiment carried through in the choreography.

Moving in metered arcs and flows, the two rarely danced in unison, but found similar gestures and postures that tied their movement loosely together. Occasionally, one of them would utter a coded phrase, something like “why can’t I see?,” before returning to movement without really offering any closure on the concepts that floated to the surface via script. This feels like a recurring exercise in the contemporary dance realm, to offer just enough that the audience can try to piece the clues together, but not enough to create a deeper understanding of the work. 

Next up was recent Reed College grad and choreographer Jaime Belden. As noted in the program, Belden’s work aims to prioritize the kinesthetic experience of moving while decentering the assumption of physical ability in dance. Belden describes themself as a trans and chronically ill artist, and the themes in their newest solo, Tiresias, explores both identities. The character for which Belden’s solo is named, Teiresais, is referenced throughout Greek mythology, notably for their unique life experience as a blind prophet who lived as both male and female.

Seeking to uplift the themes of the prophet’s story, Belden brings their own experience to the table, using Queer Argentine tango, contemporary improvisation and choreographed moments of rest during live performance. While Belden performs alone, their residency time was spent in collaboration with Leo James, a Portland poet and fellow dancer who you may have seen perform alongside Belden in this years’ Ten Tiny Dances in July. 

At times the choreography of Tiresais lacked some creativity, with a repetitive tip-toe of the index and middle finger across the body feeling like a stock gestural motif. Nonetheless, the underlying breadth of research and thought that went into the concept for the piece was not missed. Belden’s solo was paired with a poem written by James, printed and handed out inside the program for audience members to mull over at their leisure. Written as a contrapuntal, the poem’s structure fell in step with the themes of Tiresais: two things at once, distinct in their own right but taking on deeper meaning when placed aside one another.

And then there were the moments of choreographed rest, which were a potent and bold choice for an emerging choreographer. Throughout the piece, Belden would come to a pinnacle of movement, exhausting themselves only to find a comfortable resting posture and relax. For a long time. The amount of time that makes the audience shift in their seats and start to wonder, how much longer might this go on? I found these moments striking, and felt they hit Belden’s goal to shift expectations that live dance must be paired with physical ability. This embrace of honoring the body’s needs, even in live performance, felt well beyond what I’d expect of a dancer freshly graduated and eager to show off their chops, and nodded at an abundance of promise for their choreographic journey. 

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Bringing the audience back together after intermission, dancemaker Katherine Longstreth presented her newest work, Recursive dance (a prequel). Hailing from New York City, Longstreth danced at the iconic 92nd Street Y, where artists such as Pearl Primus, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and a slew of other heavy hitters trained and performed.

In Oregon, Longstreth’s pursuit of her craft has reached audiences at universities and festivals, and now makes a visit to the intimate space at New Expressive Works. Recursive dance brings Artificial Intelligence to the conversation, specifically in relation to movement research and the potential vulnerabilities artists now face as generative technology catapults our culture forward. For Longstreth, this isn’t the first time she’s looking closely at the consequences of the technology for the field. In her critical 2023 article, Longstreth warns against the lack of parameters that protect creative work, and advocates that “artists must be included in the conversations about AI, as we are uniquely able to help imagine how this new technology impacts us all.” 

Embodying her alter ego, Dr. Kate Long, throughout the solo, Longstreth navigates her artistic practice under careful watch of tech company Evolve, which seeks to capture data on her process to further its generative AI products. Recursive dance is a multi-layered, carefully curated work, at times delightfully human and at others ominous, with the sensation that you’re watching a specimen in a petri dish. Longstreth performs with a sense of ease in movement, pairing her calm confidence with props, compilations of video footage spanning everything from rehearsal tapes of the dance greats, an episode of the Simpsons, and footage of her daughter performing in the kitchen caught on a home video.

It’s this type of artistic curation that sets humans apart from robots. The audience chuckled along at the nuance of her cultural references and nodded in approval of her savvy use of an oversized tote bag that accompanied her around the space as she set up the story for Recursive dance. I don’t want to give away too much of the piece, in hopes that 1) Longstreth will perform this again, and 2) more folks will have the chance to witness it and stretch their brains to the frontier where dance and AI converge … before it’s too late! 

Speaking of art I’d like to see again, the final piece on the bill belonged to Jordan Isadore. A Northern California native and accomplished performer in Los Angeles, New York and  beyond, Isador’s NEW performance marks his first jump into the Portland performing arts scene as a recent transplant.

Titled you look good, bud, the solo was a jam-packed memory box turned dance piece. The program notes offer a vulnerable list of the memories and images Isadore pulled from to create you look good, bud, including “horses, 1996 women’s gymnastics, shame, heartbreak, headgear and denim on denim,” to name a few. Isadore is an incredible performer, but perhaps first and foremost a colorful storyteller. With props, projections, and music choices that embellished each chapter of his youth and adulthood, you look good, bud flew through a slew of nostalgic anecdotes that traversed humor to pain with the switch of props, songs, or lighting cues. 

I found myself glad I stole a look at the program list before the piece started. With some of the references being deeply personal and somewhat encrypted, the solo leaves a lot up for interpretation. Perhaps you look good, bud was intended to be more of a personal exploration, meant for looping memories of the past into the present moment to be rehashed, honored, or reconciled by the creator himself in real time.

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Something about the restrained vulnerability of Isadore’s piece leaves you wanting more, which was perhaps one of the more refreshing parts of the entire evening. I’d be curious and eager to see an expanded version of you look good, bud, where the audience has a chance to go deeper with Isadore, to better understand the more personal facets of the work that make it so deeply human. The piece closed with Isadore triumphantly perched atop the mess of props he’d used to tell his story, filling the space with a sense of accomplishment and resolve.  

Before the crowd had a chance to start shuffling out, Ganesan-Forbes popped her head around the corner of the exit doorway, calling out, “that’s all folks!” in her casual way. I thought about our conversation earlier that week, where she reminisced on the simplicity of what is offered at New Expressive Works, and how it’s the residents who transform the program to be what it is.

“NEW isn’t a highly resourced space,” she reflected, going on to finish out our interview with words I’ll choose to leave you with as well, reader. “We are a small building with a simple lighting system and a projector that could be better. We don’t even have curtains. It’s a white box where things can happen. It’s the little train that can, New Expressive Works. Our goal is to just allow artists to be completely themselves, making on their own terms. I’m incredibly moved by the hard work that comes out of each resident. I’m just here providing space. A safe space. I’m just here cheering them on.”