For stories published before 2019, visit our archive site.
A new film delves into the life and continuing inspiration of the international modern dance pioneer and co-founder of the Columbia Gorge's Maryhill Museum of Art.
February 27, 2025Jamuna Chiarini
March is rich with dance you can sink your teeth into, from a dance film festival to South Korean and Palestinian performances, a dance take on "Hedda Gabler" and more.
February 26, 2025Amy Leona Havin
Danced impeccably by the Portland company, the production is less successful dramatically, falling short of the ballet's underlying clash between classes.
February 21, 2025Amy Leona Havin
Reality and comedy and the boundaries of performance are at play, distorted as three performers mix it up with bark and piles of clothes and speak to the audience.
February 18, 2025Jean Zondervan
The celebrated story of the ill-fated lovers Carmen and Don José features Toni Pimble's original choreography, inspired by Georges Bizet's opera of the same name.
February 17, 2025Jamuna Chiarini
The all-male ballet company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo camps things up comically at Portland's Schnitzer Hall. But there's room for grace and beauty, too.
February 12, 2025Martha Ullman West
How do past and present mix and meet? A veteran dance critic sorts out the classic from the contemporary and what works or doesn't in the Graham company's January 22 performance in Portland's Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
February 4, 2025Amy Leona Havin
The celebrated dance maker and co-founder of Portland’s Performance Works Northwest is celebrating 25 years of the studio and roughly 40 years of making work.
January 27, 2025Jamuna Chiarini
The month brings a range of dances from "Carmen" to Goya to Polynesian to the Trocks, flamenco, a world-premiere "Giselle," a dance on death, a spot of Jane Austen, a dance film festival and a Dragon Day parade.
January 25, 2025Beth Sorensen
Celebrating its 100th anniversary, the acclaimed company showcased classic works by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary choreographers.
January 24, 2025Dmae Lo Roberts
In her new podcast, Dmae Lo Roberts talks with the veteran dancer, teacher, and activist about her project to "map" the voices and experiences of important figures in Portland's dance and performance scene.
January 23, 2025Amy Leona Havin
At Performance Works NW, contemporary dancers and a musician honor the spirit and memory of a pioneer of Small Dance and Contact Improvisation.
January 3, 2025Jamuna Chiarini
Our columnist Jamuna Chiarini reports while on Odissi dance tour in India. Back in Oregon: Martha Graham, small dance, "A Woman's Song for Peace," Dark Side of the Moon and more.
December 30, 2024Jamuna Chiarini
From story ballets to contemporary experimental works by Oregon companies and visiting troupes, it's been a year filled with the power and excitement of choreographed movement.
December 21, 2024Martha Ullman West
Deborah Jowitt's "Errand into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham" leads a list of books about the dance world that are good for giving (and for reading yourself).
December 16, 2024Jean Zondervan
This season’s presentation offers audiences one more opportunity to experience the magic touches that retiring artistic director Pimble brings to the beloved ballet.
December 13, 2024Amy Leona Havin
The holiday classic, continuing at Keller Auditorium through Christmas Eve, is a smooth and sprightly spectacle, one of OBT's best renditions of the Balanchine ballet.
December 11, 2024Amy Leona Havin
The Portland company's holiday showcase charms with seven short-and-sweet, fresh new dances by established and emerging choreographers connected to BodyVox.
December 9, 2024Elizabeth Whelan
After six months in residence at New Expressive Works, dancemakers Sean Hoskins, Jessica Post, Jaime Belden, Katherine Longstreth, and Jordan Isadore perform the works they created.
December 5, 2024Hannah Krafcik
The brilliant Japanese American dancer and teacher, who died in October at age 100, left a deep and lasting imprint on the world of dance both nationally and in Oregon.
November 28, 2024Jamuna Chiarini
The season casts its spell on Oregon's dance scene, with companies from OBT to Ballet Fantastique to Grand Kyiv Ballet to BodyVox and many more joining in on the enchantment.
November 25, 2024Jean Zondervan
Teachers at Portland’s five ballet academies bring their distinctive styles and approaches to both technical training and artistic expression, resulting in an array of offerings for budding dancers.
November 21, 2024
The dancers of Oregon International Ballet Academy, fresh from a tour of China and Japan, return to The Reser with their version of "The Nutcracker" Nov. 23 and 24.
November 20, 2024Hannah Krafcik
Review: New Zealand's Õkāreka Dance Company, presented by White Bird, delves deeply and movingly into Māori culture and tradition within a contemporary dance context.
November 4, 2024Jamuna Chiarini
NW Dance Project kicks off its season with Sarah Slipper's dazzling evocation of Harold Pinter's time-reversing tale of love and betrayal and Ihsan Rustem's equally compelling journey into the meanings of meditation.
October 29, 2024Amy Leona Havin
At Portland's Performance Works NW, the Seattle choreography duo of Kaitlin McCarthy and Jenny Peterson uses masks, flashes of skin, a ghostly sheet, and comedy to deliver a dreamlike abstraction of society’s values.
October 28, 2024Jamuna Chiarini
A busy month also features Māori dance, traditional and hip-hop Nutcrackers, a Jefferson Dancers extravaganza, Bridge City Dance, the return of Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and a double bill of "Firebird" and "Petrushka."
October 26, 2024Martha Ullman West
Review: Portland's Keylock Company and San Francisco's FACT/SF share the stage at New Expressive Works with a divergent program of contemporary dance works.
October 24, 2024Jean Zondervan
The company’s 2024-25 season will highlight several of the groundbreaking woman ballet leader's most popular works, including the debut of her new ballet "The Lark Ascending.”
October 19, 2024Hannah Krafcik
From roller skates to fish in an aquarium to a hole in the bed, Autumn Knight's dance at PICA suggests a sweeping eventfulness in loss and “the sweetness of doing nothing.”
