Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon

DanceWatch Monthly: February is all about the love

All you need is love: Oregon's February dance calendar reflects on the many ways humans love.

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It’s February and love is in the air. Dance performances this month, appropriately enough, express love in a wonderful variety of ways. From the familiar romantic love to platonic love. From the love of connecting with community too connecting with oneself. From the love of music to the love of pure movement. From the love of sharing, to the love of technology, to the love of the wild. From the love of experimentation and research to the love of a good book and a good story, to the love of intimacy, and to the love of things big and small. For the love of god. For dance itself and for the gift of emotional expression. 


“To dance is to be out of yourself,” American choreographer Agnes de Mille famously proclaimed. “Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.” 

So, let’s dance, and do it with love.

Dances in February

Week 1: February 1-2

Holy Goats!
Performance Works N
2 pm February 2
Performance Works NW, 4625 SE 67th Ave

Holy Goats! Sunday afternoon improvisations and bagels are back!  This new iteration will be devoted to dance and music by Portland-area and visiting artists. The dancers include Allie Hankins and Caspar Sonnet, Pepper Pepper, Tracy Broyles + Adrian Hutapea + jaime lee christiana, Luke Gutgsell + Kennedy Verrett. The musicians: Catherine Lee, Caspar Sonnet, Dan Sasaki, Annie Gilbert, and Stephanie Lavon Trotter.

Founded in 1999 by Artistic Director Linda Austin and Technical Director Jeff Forbes, Performance Works NorthWest || Linda Austin Dance engages artists and audiences of the Pacific Northwest in the process of experimentation, creation and dialogue around the presentation of contemporary performance. 

Junction
AWOL Dance Collective, push/FOLD, and Tempos Contemporary Circus 
January 31-February 2
A-WOL Performance Warehouse, 513 Northeast Schuyler StreetPortland

Performing together for the first time are aerial dance company A-WOL Dance Collective, contemporary dance company push/FOLD, and contemporary circus company Tempos Contemporary Circus. For this performance, each company worked with the concept of connectivity as their choreographic theme—the state or extent of being connected or interconnected

AWOL Dance Collective, ​is a non-profit arts organization with their own performance warehouse space in NE Portland that embodies the idea of “aerial without limits,”and believes that the arts build community and enhance the quality of life and in its various forms, fosters creativity, empowers individuals and brings people together.

push/FOLD, is the vision of composer-choreographer Samuel Hobbs, whose work fuses the power of his athletics and dance career with his professional practice in Osteopathic medicine. With a minimalistic visual design and Hobbs’ original sound scores, push/FOLD features momentum-based choreography and sculpturesque partnering that craft immersive moodscapes and virtuosic dance performance.

Tempos Contemporary Circus, is an ensemble that combines dance, music, acrobatics, and physical theater to explore the connection between the vulnerability in ourselves and within our community.

Echo Theater Company presents Interplay, a mixed repetoire highlighting the work of traditionally marginalized communities and will be sex and size positive. Photo courtesy of Echo Theater Company.

Interplay
Echo Theater Company 
January 31- February 9
Echo Theatre Company, 1515 SE 37th Avenue

Featuring dance, video, music, physical theatre, aerial expression, Shibari (Japanese rope bondage), and more, this mixed repertoire show highlights the work of traditionally marginalized communities and will be sex and size positive. Each weekend will feature a different group of artists presenting 10-20 minute vignettes. To view these works is to explore what arises when several performance disciplines unite to produce an original piece of work.

Sponsor

Weekend A: Heavy Is The Head that Wears the Crown: Mental Health Memoirs of the Black Woman by Noelle Simone, Bad Grrls of Bellydance by Sasshole, self-titled Rip/Pull Effect, and We Belong Here by Echo Theater Company.

Weekend B: CITRINE by Joni Renee Whitworth, The Book of J by Sara Fay Goldman and Marc Schreiner, Textured by Flo Buddenbaum, Summer Olsson and Aurora Rupert, and We Belong Here by Echo Theater Company.

Wendy Hambidge and Jorge Samuel at the University of Parana, Curitiba, Brazil, 2019.
Photo by Filipe Britto.

Showing with Wendy Hambidge and Jorge Samuel Faria
7:30 pm February 4
Pacific Northwest College of Art, Mediatheque, 511 NW Broadway
FREE
2020 Upgrade / Choreo-Lab, 2-hour masterclass with Jorge Samuel Faria and Bobby Fouther 
6:30 pm February 5 
Flock Dance Center, 8371 N Interstate Ave #4

Wendy Hambidge, the Portland dance artist, somatic therapist, and Body-Mind Centering® Practitioner and Teacher, and Brazilian dance artist Jorge Samuel met during a residency in Curitiba, Brazil, where they struck up a partnership inspired by their commonalities, their differences, and how they engage with their ancestral histories. This collaborative, work-in-progress, looks back, looks forward, and embraces the now.

Faria, along with Portland dance artist Bobby Fouther, also known as Mister Bobby, will be teaching a master class called, “Ancestral Connections in Dance: Technique from the African Diaspora.” This two hour class takes place on February 5, at 6:30 pm, at Flock Dance Center. Please check the event listing for more information. 

A photo from Alla Koygan’s film, Cunningham 3D. Photo by Martin Misere.

Cunningham 3D
Directed by Alla Kovgan, Starring Merce Cunningham
3:45 pm and 6:00 pm February 7-13 (held over until February 20)
Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st 

Inspired by the perseverance, determination, and stamina of the late avant garde choreographer Merce Cunningham, film director Alla Kovgan has interwoven his iconic dances with never-before-seen archival treasures from 1942-1972 into a 3D film that she thinks Merce would be proud of. 

“When I discovered 3D cinema, my views changed,” Kovgan said in an interview for Women and Hollywood. “3D offers interesting opportunities, as it articulates the relationship between the dancers and the space, awakening a kinesthetic response among the viewers. It also favors uncut choreographed shots, moving camera, and multiple layers of action in relation to the setting––everything that allows working with Cunningham’s choreography on screen in new ways.” 

“I hope that Cunningham will demystify what dancers do every day and what it means to be a dancer. Somehow, dance is always the underdog of all art forms and yet, it is something very fundamental and basic. Everyone can relate to it. After all, we all know how to move our bodies. And when we move we feel alive.” 

Groovin’ Greenhouse at Polaris Dance Theatre. Pictured is Barbara Lima, the artistic director of ELa FaLa Collective. Photo by Brian McDonnell. 

Groovin’ Greenhouse
Hosted by Polaris Dance Theatre
January 31-February 8
Polaris Dance Theatre, 1826 NW 18th Ave

Groovin’ Greenhouse, the dance-centric arm of The Fertile Ground Festival of New Works, hosted by Polaris Dance Theatre, will present the work of eight dance companies at their home theatre in NW Portland.The companies and choreographers being presented are: Polaris Dance Company, ELa FaLa Collective, Mark Koenigsberg and Sara Naegelin, Polaris Junior Company and NEO Youth Company, ELXR Dance Company, NW Fusion, and Central Catholic Dance. Check the Groovin’ Greenhouse schedule for the exact dates and times of each performance.

The Fertile Ground Festival of New Works is an annual festival that unfolds in venues around Portland for 9-days. The performances feature new work in various stages of development, from the fully staged to workshops, in theater, comedy, dance and film, and everything else in between.

Week 2: February 3-9

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor in The Third Dance. Photo courtesy of White Bird.

The Third Dance
Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor
Presented by White Bird Uncaged
February 5-9
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, 15 NE Hancock St

In this highly emotional, sensual, forceful, dance/theatre duet, Israeli choreographers Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor, partners in life and work, explore themes of love, mortality, and the need for acknowledgement. The hour-long work will be performed in the round with a minimal set; an old-fashioned record player and a huge bouquet of flowers. Midnight East, the online magazine dedicated to adventures in the Israeli cultural scene commented, “the love in this dance reaches beyond a pair of lovers, it also reflects on the love between mentor and student, the love that can blossom, even if only for the space of an hour, between performer and audience.”  

Sponsor

Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon

Photo courtesy of Reed College Dance Department.

Dance Thesis Performances
Presented by the Reed College Dance Department
February 6 – 8
Reed College, Massee Performance Lab, 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard

This program features works by Dance thesis candidate, Laura Kennedy, and Dance-Art thesis candidate Hannah Jensvold. Kennedy’s work, The Spaces Between, fuses tap and contemporary dance, and investigates the role of rhythm, call-and-response, and music in tap and contemporary dance. The work features choreography and improvisation by dancers Ena Hashimoto, Christina Li, Oliviana Moreno, and Emma Potter, as well as live music and vocals by Eli Knowles.

Jensvold’s work, Inhabit, seeks to investigate how we experience and express our relationships and connections/disconnections to our own and others’ bodies.  The work utilizes contemporary dance and elements of various traditions of installation and performance art, through the creation of space and the use of video projections, as well as hand-made-and-embroidered costumes designed and made by Jensvold, in order to explore physical sensation and experience. Inhabit was developed in collaboration with dancers Aliza Phillips, Annabelle Stern, and Dani Peterson.

The Undertaking, by Many Hats Collaboration and Northwest Piano Trio. Photo courtesy of Jessica Wallenfels.

The Undertaking
Bag & Baggage Productions 
Many Hats Collaboration and Northwest Piano Trio
February 7-8
The Vault Theater, 350 E. Main St., Hillsboro

Through the lens of a mother/daughter relationship, The Undertaking by Many Hats Collaboration and Northwest Piano Trio examines the treatment of the elderly at the end of their lives, through dance, storytelling, and live music. Inspired by the personal experiences of Many Hats artistic director Jessica Wallenfels while caring for her own mother, the narrative is woven together with dances to Shostakovich, played live by Northwest Piano Trio, and original text by Emily Gregory.

Many Hats, directed by  Jessica Wallenfels, creates theater performances which reimagine music and movement onstage. In 2015, Many Hats Collaboration co-produced “The Snowstorm” with Coho Productions, which won the Drammy Award for Best Production of a Play.  

The Northwest Piano Trio, based in Portland, is committed to performing  traditional classical music and collaborating with artists of other disciplines to provide unique performances that give listeners a contemporary perspective on a non-contemporary art form.

Pictured is choreography by Rita Honka. Photo by Pam Cressall.

Dance Education In Oregon: Who We Are, What We Are Doing, Where We Are Going
Hosted by Oregon Dance Education Organization
11-7 pm February 8
Lane Community College, 4000 E 30th Ave, Eugene 

The focus of the conference, staged in partnership with Lane Community College in Eugene, is to consider the direction of dance across the state, and create connections among teachers, organizations, and communities. The conference includes dance classes, workshops, panel discussions, and a town hall in the evening moderated by Bharanatayam dancer and Creative Laureate of Portland, Subashini Ganesan. Click here for the full conference schedule. 

Gowri Ganesh as Mowgli, in the NW Childrens Theater’s production of The Jungle Book. Photo courtesy of NW Children’s Theater & School.

The Jungle Book
Presented  by NW Children’s Theater & School 
February 8 – March 1
NW Children’s Theater & School , 1819 NW Everett Street

In this version of The Jungle Book, Mowglie is a girl, and her adventures in the jungles of India are told through traditional dialogue, Bharatanatyam, and a dash of Bollywood. This adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling classic was originally staged in 2015 by Anita Menon, Sarah Jane Hardy, and Pat Moran, and is now being refreshed by director Tamara Carroll, who has reimagined the play adding new characters, music, choreography, and design.

The Little Yew breaking free of the rock in Suzanne Haag’s, The Little Yew for Eugene Ballet. Photo courtesy of Eugene Ballet.

Alice in Wonderland and The Large Rock and The Little Yew
Eugene Ballet, directed by Toni Pimble
February 8-9
Hult Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Eugene Way, Eugene

This ballet double feature, features, Toni Pimble’s Alice in Wonderland, and the world premiere of Resident Choreographer Suzanne Haag’s, The Large Rock and The Little Yew. 

Alice in Wonderland, based on the book by Lewis Carroll with music by Benjamin Britten, Malcom Arnold and Percy Grainger, is a light and playful ballet with a bevy of zany, well-known characters like the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, Dormouse, King, Queen, Knave of Hearts, and Alice, of course. 

The Large Rock and The Little Yew, a book by Gregory Ahlijian, tells the story of a little Yew tree that, against all odds, perseveres after being trapped in a large rock. Because Ahlijian wrote the book after being inspired by one of his students at Jasper Mountain Center, a support center for emotionally disturbed children and their families, Haag had the Jasper Mountain students created dance phrases based on the themes and characters of the book and then wove these movement into the choreography. “The plot of this story is an emotional journey and not a physical one—rocks and yew trees don’t move very much,” Haag said. “So in order to create a 30-minute ballet, I had to get creative with how the emotional content can be physically represented through choreography.”

Week 3: February 10-16

Sponsor

Portland Playhouse Passing Strange Portland Oregon

Fall in Love with Flamenco
Hosted by Espacio Flamenco
7 pm February 10
The Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St

Espacio Flamenco dance company members have chosen their favorite styles of flamenco from Fandangos to Farruca, Alegrias to Siguiriyas, in this showcase performance that will feature dancers Montserrat Andreys, Kelley Dodd, Lillie Last, Christina Lorentz, Nela McGuire, and Sanae Parra, alongside Singers Randa BenAziz, and Elisa Rocha and percussionist Nick Hutcheson and Brenna McDonald on guitar. 

Grupo Corpo hanging around in, Bach. Photo courtesy of White Bird.

Bach
Grupo Corpo
Presented by White Bird
7:30pm February 12
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1111 SW Broadway 

For one night only, the 18-members of the Brazilian contemporary dance company, Grupo Corpo, will storm the stage of the Schnitz with their unique blend of contemporary dance, ballet, Afro-Brazilian movement, and ritual gestures from Umbanda, a widely practiced Brazilian religion, all to the sounds of Bach. Choreographed by Marco Antônio Guimarães in 1996, the dance celebrates the genius of Bach by visualizing his sounds with movement. Tapping into the religiosity of the music, black metal tubes hang down from the ceiling creating a futuristic stalactites structure that the dancers enter and exit through, creating separate celestial and earthly worlds. 

Dancer, teacher, and director, Darvejon Jones. Photo courtesy of BodyVox.

Darvejon Jones Dance Ensemble
BodyVox Artist in Residence 
Artistic director, Darvejon Jones
February 14-15
BodyVox Dance Center located at 1201 NW 17th Avenue

Featuring an evening of 12 dancers, the Darvejon Jones Dance Ensemble, directed by BodyVox artist-in residence Darvejon Jones, will present seven world premieres  that range in topics of love and interconnectivity, to social justice issues like racism, police brutality, sexism, bigotry, and ignorance and intolerance. 

Jones holds a B.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography as well as a Minor degree in Japanese Language from San Francisco State University. While earning his degrees, he concurrently received scholarships from the SFSU dance department that allowed him to continue his studies at Alonzo King Lines Ballet (San Francisco Dance Center), ODC, and City Ballet. 

His works have been featured at the Black Choreographers Festival and PUSH Fest in San Francisco. In 2014 he traveled to Casa Chapi in Chivay, Peru as part of Grace Arts Camp’s international teaching artist team to establish an arts camp for Quechuan orphans in the Andean mountains. 

He has been a guest artist at San Francisco State University,  taught as an Adjunct of African Diaspora Dances at Portland State University, Guest Artist at Reed College, N.E.W. Expressive Works Resident Artist, Dance Department Co Director at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, and an instructor at Buckman Elementary School, Dancescape Afterschool Dance, Dance Fusion NW, BodyVox and NW Dance Project. 

In January 2018 Portland Monthly Magazine featured his Afro contemporary class as one Portland’s “ 7 dance classes to take right now.” For more visit on Jones and his company visit, djde.org.

Rejoice: Diaspora Dance Theater. Photo courtesy of Rejoice: Diaspora Dance Theater.

BEEN READY
Rejoice: Diaspora Dance Theater
Presented by Portland Institute of Contemporary Art’s SPACE program
February 14-16
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, 15 NE Hancock St.

BEEN READY brings together the personal experiences of the company dancers—Artistic Director Oluyinka Akinjiola, Michael Galen, Jamie Minkus, Bethany Harvey, and Decimus Yarbrough—about navigating conflicts that are imbued with layers of racism and gender bias.

Recently the New York Times published an article called How Much Racism Do You Face Every Day?  by Amy Harmon. The story includes a quiz for you to see how your own daily discrimination compares to that of the 101 black teenagers that were polled as part of a study measuring the racism they face on a daily basis. If this is not something you experience, taking the quiz before you see BEEN READY might help you get a deeper understanding of what racism and discrimination feels like.

Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater is a Portland-based contemporary dance ensemble directed by Oluyinka Akinjiola. Rejoice! seeks to diversify the contemporary dance landscape with untold stories and under-told perspectives from communities of color. Grounded in values from the African Diaspora and using our art as activism. Rejoice! celebrates and cultivates community through artistic engagement, performances, and dialogue, weaving our stories of hardship and triumph.

Photo courtesy of Oregon Ballet Theatre.

The Sleeping Beauty
Oregon Ballet Theatre and the OBT Orchestra
February 15-23
Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay Street

Celebrating its 30th season, Oregon Ballet Theatre has revived The Sleeping Beauty, choreographed by former Artistic Director Christopher Stowell, danced to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and played live by the Oregon Ballet Theatre Orchestra. This classical ballet tells the tale of a King and Queen who anger an evil fairy at the celebration of the birth of their new daughter. The angry fairy curses the little girl to prick her finger on a spindle on her 16th birthday and die. But a good fairy intervenes and alters the curse to cause the princess to fall asleep for a 100 years. Of course, she can only be awakened by a true love’s kiss. The ballet features elaborate sets and costumes and the dancing of fairy book characters and magical creatures.

Sponsor

Portland Playhouse Passing Strange Portland Oregon

Week 4: February 17-23

Hielo negro
Grupo Krapp
Presented by Reed College Dance Department
7:30 pm February 21
Greenwood, Theatre, 3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard
Admission is FREE

Working together as a company since 2000, Krapp is an Argentine performance group in search of new forms of expression. It is composed of dancers, actors and musicians who develop their work through creative research. The members of Krapp are: Luciana Acuña, Gabriel Almendros, Luis Biasotto, Edgardo Castro and Fernando Tur.

Hielo Negro or Black Ice “searches for something that cannot be found, that cannot be seen or that perhaps does not exist. In a full white space it is exposed, as on a dissection table, a body that did not die. Raw, dry and indiscernible.”


PDX Contemporary Ballet dancer, Victoria Lauder. Photo by Justine Garver.

ORIGIN: Humble Beginnings
PDX Contemporary Ballet
February 21-23
BodyVox Theater, 1201 NW 17th Ave.

Harkening back to the company’ss humble beginnings five years ago, Origin, is a collection of dances choreographed by artistic director Briley Neugebauer and former David Parsons dancer Melissa Ullom Fransoza, that narrate the companies history. PDX Contemporary Ballet, came to be after the fall of Moxie Contemporary Ballet. The dancers regrouped, forged a partnership with Alberta Abbey and commissioned choreography from some untapped talent in Portland and from outside the city.

Neugebauer danced with the now defunct Moxie Contemporary Ballet Company as well as Polaris Dance Theatre, and ART-IF-ACT Dance Project, and was an apprentice with Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle. PDX Contemporary Ballet has produced five shows since 2016.

Rebecca Chad and Rebecca Davis rehearse “Safe Here”one of then dances featured in 2018. Photo courtesy of Ten Tiny Dances/Corvallis.

Ten Tiny Dances/Corvallis
February 21-22
The Majestic Theatre, 115 SW 2nd St, Corvallis

Ten Tiny Dances® is in Corvallis! Ten Tiny Dances is a performance concept, created in 2002 by Portland dance artist Mike Barber, where 10 tiny dances take place on a 4-by-4 foot stage. Figuring out how to dance on the tiny stage and dealing with its limitations makes dancing on it challenging, but that is exactly what makes it interesting. The performance will include ballet, modern dance, movement theatre, folk dance, Hawaiian Hula, and aerial arts all in the theme of “home.” Accompanying the performance will be a “Tiny ART Show” that will display tiny paintings in the lobby, on Opening Night. 

Pictured is Nataraja, the “Lord of the Dance.” Nataraja is the Hindu god Shiva in his form as the cosmic dancer.

Nrityotsava 2020 
A Benefit Program for Kalakendra
5 pm February 22
Lake Oswego High School, 2501 Country Club Rd, Lake Oswego

Kalakendra’s mega Indian classical and folk dance fundraising event will feature 11 area professional and student groups performing dance styles including Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Gaudiya Nritya, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Assamese, Punjabi, and more. The Portland-based Kalakendra promotes performing arts from across the Indian subcontinent through classical dance and music performances.

Eugene Ballet and the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance play well together in Interplay. Photo by Aran Denison.

Interplay
Eugene Ballet and The University of Oregon School of Music and Dance
4 and 7:30 pm February 22
Hult Center For the Performing Arts, Soreng Theater, 1 Eugene Way, Eugene

Interplay—the way two or more things have an effect on each other—is both the title and the subject of a collaboration between Eugene Ballet and the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance. Six choreographers will create dances on dancers from both organizations. The two performances will feature live music by American pianist Lara Downes.

Sponsor

Portland Playhouse Passing Strange Portland Oregon

Swan Lake by The Bolshoi Ballet. Photo courtesy of The Bolshoi Ballet.

Swan Lake
The Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema, Fathom Events
12:55 pm February 23

Captured live, direct from Moscow, Russia, Prince Siegfried, on the moonlit banks of a mysterious lake, meets Odette, the bewitched swan-woman. Spellbound by her beauty, he swears his faithfulness to her. Sadly, the Prince gets tricked by the Evil Genius or Von Rothbart and promises his love to the wrong swan, the black swan, Odile. In the end the Evil Genius summons up a storm which plays havoc with the Prince making it impossible for him to unite with Odette and he is left sitting alone on the edge of the lake. 

Week 5: February 24-March 1

Tabarnak
Cirque Alfonse
Presented by White Bird
February 27-29
Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway

Cirque Alfonse, which you might remember from their earlier visit to Portland when they performed as axe juggling lumberjacks in Timber!, return with Tabarnak, a fiesta of circus, music and movement performed by a team of circus artists, dancers and musicians. This acrobatic rock musical is inspired by the village church which was a gathering place in the Quebec village where the company grew up.

BARDO | Delicate Fish
Lyra Butler-Denman and Jess Evans
February 27 – March 7
Shaking The Tree Theater, 823 SE Grant St, Portland

In this shared evening, Lyra Butler-Denman and Jess Evans present two dance works in communication with one another. BARDO, a dance theater piece by Butler-Denman, embodies the transition states of dying, of grieving, of a relationship moving from the physical plane to somewhere else. It reckons with the lack of guideposts, the emptiness and loneliness after a death, and with the active process of filling that space, of making a map where there is none. Delicate Fish, by Evans, is a dance offering in call to an ocean of tenderness and includes an original score by D.L. Fraze.

Attention Everyone!
Presented by A-WOL Dance Collective
February 28-March 7
A-WOL Dance Collective, 513 NE Schuyler St

Through fierce, edgy, raw athleticism in the air and on the ground, A-Wol Dance Collective, an aerial/dance company, will knit together human commonalities, revealing our passion and energy and drive to serve the greater good.

Dance and performance artist Julia Brandenberger appearing as the google eyed apparition of her expectations in her new work, Funeral for Expectations. Photo courtesy of Julia Brandenberger.

Funeral for Expectations
Julia Brandenberger
February 28-March 7
Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th Ave, Portland

Your presence is requested at a funeral: a Funeral of Expectations. 

Sponsor

Portland Playhouse Passing Strange Portland Oregon

Join dance artist Julia Brandenberger for a participatory journey through a landscape lit only by candlelight that examines the life of expectations and considers who achieves success. Once you’ve achieved this goal, once you’ve accomplished this thing, once you’ve attained this position, will you be fulfilled? The adventure promises to be fun and goofy, woeful and deep, and you, the audience, will be invited to share your own eulogy for expectations. 

Originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania (just outside of Philadelphia), Brandenberger creates performance experiences that delve into the questions and uncertainties of the human condition through comedy and ritual that she calls Rogue Theology. Her work combines a deep knowledge of classical ballet; performance training from Philadelphia’s Headlong Performance Institute; PETE’s Institute for Contemporary Performance, which involves a variety of modes such as clowning and The Suzuki Method; and her Quaker values.

Her works have been produced by the Philly Fringe Festival, SoLow Fest, Philadelphia Folk Festival, and CoHo’s Summerfest. Brandenberger is also the founder of SoLow PDX, a Portland version of the long-running Philadelphia DIY festival. 

In addition to “Funeral for Expectations,” Brandenberger is in the early stages of crafting a new piece, “‘Ballet’ is a Ballet about Ballet.” 

TriptheDark dance company examines the ten deadly sins in their 10th anniversary show, Ten. Photo courtesy of TriptheDark.

Ten
TriptheDark
February 28-March 14
Chapel Theatre, 4107 SE Harrison Street Milwaukie, Oregon
March 14 will include a special reception, finale, and video project celebrating our tenth season and all the people who helped make it possible.

TriptheDark’s tenth season show is all about the ten deadly sins. Through the medium of contemporary dance, the sins like greed and wrath are explored as well as a few new ones like manipulation and cowardice which seem relevant today. What is highlighted in the performance is what is wrong with humanity and a warning that not one of us is safe from sins.

Dancers of Nartana Kuchipudi. Photo courtesy of Ravi Vemuri – Cute Clicks

BAL UTSAV 2020
Hosted by Nartana Kuchipudi
2:30 pm February 29
PCC Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville

Nartana Kuchipudi, the Portland based Kuchipudi dance school in Portland, Oregon, directed by Anuradha Ganesh, will present seven dances based on Ganesha, Shiva, Krishna, and Devi, performed to a live orchestra. 

Kuchipudi is one of the eight major Indian classical dance forms originating from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The style is a blend of dance and drama, has similar costumes to Bharatanatyam, and is known for its plate and pot dances where the dancer performs while standing on a brass plate while balancing a pot on her head.

Upcoming Performances

Sponsor

March
March 5-7, Rennie Harris Funkedified, White Bird
March 7, Bootleggers Ball, BodyVox
March 6-8, Dragon and The Night Queen, Ballet Fantastique
March 6-7, Funeral for Expectations, Julia Brandenberger
March 13-15, Alembic Resident Artists Performance: Sarah Brahim, Maggie Heath, and Cat Ross, Performance Works NW
March 14, Joan Laage // Alan Sutherland // Sheri Brow, presented by WITD
March 20-22, Since the First Sunrise/COMING HOME, Tracy Broyles
March 26-April 5, NINETEEN * TWENTY (world premiere), BodyVox and Chamber Music Northwest
March 29, Romeo and Juliet, The Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema, Fathom Events

April 
April 2-4, Camille A. Brown and Dancers, White Bird
April 3-7, Body of Sound, Delgani Quartet and DanceAbility
April 4-5, Heaven and Earth, Eugene Ballet
April 9-12, Beautiful Decay, Oregon Ballet Theatre
April 15, ChangMu Dance Company, White Bird
April (dates TBA): Linda Austin & Allie Hankins ║ The Traveler & the Thief
April 19, A Taste of Dance, Chapel Theatre
April 19, Jewels, The Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema, Fathom Events
April 23, Drum Tao 2020
April 23-25, The Rite Of Spring, NW Dance Project
April 25-28, X-Posed, Polaris Dance Theatre
April 30-May 2, Contact Dance Film Festival, BodyVox

May
May 1-2, Contact Dance Film Festival, BodyVox
May 3: Holy Goats!Plus, Performance Works NW
May 8-9, Current/Classic, The Portland Ballet
May 8-10, Luna Mistica, Ballet Fantastique
May 12-13, Dance Theatre of Harlem, White Bird
May 15 – 17, Junior Artist Generator, BodyVox
May 22-24, ARISE: What Dance Could Be, PDX Contemporary Ballet
May 29-31, Portland Tap Dance Festival, Portland Tap Alliance

June
June 5-13, The Americans 2.0, Oregon Ballet Theatre
June 11-13, Summer Splendors, NW Dance Project
June 12-14, Up Close, The Portland Ballet

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Photo Joe Cantrell

Jamuna Chiarini is a dance artist, producer, curator, and writer, who produces DanceWatch Weekly for Oregon ArtsWatch. Originally from Berkeley, Calif., she studied dance at The School of The Hartford Ballet and Florida State University. She has also trained in Bharatanatyam and is currently studying Odissi. She has performed professionally throughout the United States as a dancer, singer, and actor for dance companies, operas, and in musical theatre productions. Choreography credits include ballets for operas and Kalamandir Dance Company. She received a Regional Arts & Culture Council project grant to create a 30-minute trio called “The Kitchen Sink,” which was performed in November 2017, and was invited to be part of Shawl-Anderson’s Dance Up Close/East Bay in Berkeley, Calif. Jamuna was a scholarship recipient to the Urban Bush Women’s Summer Leadership Institute, “Undoing Racism,” and was a two-year member of CORPUS, a mentoring program directed by Linda K. Johnson. As a producer, she is the co-founder of Co/Mission in Portland, Ore., with Suzanne Chi, a performance project that shifts the paradigm of who initiates the creation process of new choreography by bringing the artistic vision into the hands of the dance performer. She is also the founder of The Outlet Dance Project in Hamilton, N.J.

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Oregon Repertory Singers Finding Light 50th Season Portland Oregon
Portland Playhouse Passing Strange Portland Oregon
Literary Arts Oregon Book Awards Portland Center Stage at the Armory Portland Oregon
Imago Theatre Carol Triffle Mission Gibbons Portland Oregon
Bonnie Bronson 2024 Fellow Wendy Red Star Reed College Reception Kaul Auditorium Foyer Portland Oregon
City of Hillsboro Walters Cultural Arts Center Tony Furtado Hillsboro Oregon
Kalakendra Indian Classical Instrumental Music First Congregational Church Portland Oregon
Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon
Maryhill Museum of Art Goldendale Washington
Portland State University College of the Arts
Golden Road Arts Grey Raven Gallery Near the Reser Beaverton Oregon
Pacific Maritime Heritage Center Prosperity of the Sea Lincoln County Historical Society Newport Oregon Coast
PassinArt Theatre and Portland Playhouse present Yohen Brunish Theatre Portland Oregon
Northwest Dance Project Sarah Slipper Newmark Theatre Portland Oregon
Newport Performance and Visual Arts Centers 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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