Portland is an amazing laboratory for improvised music and movement. For a number of years, in venues on the map and off, a cadre of serious experimenters have brought truckloads of experience, training, and attention to the moment on the boards when the ultimate risk is taken and they collaborate to make compelling performance with no score, no net. The musicians may move, the movers may make sound, and there is an unspoken dialogue between the sounders and movers that can make both the invisible skeleton of a piece and the sparks that flash off those bones.
There’s a benefit performance tonight, October 5, for the food + shelter festival of improvised music and dance at Moloko Plus (the space formerly known as the Mississippi Social Club at 3967 N Mississippi) at 7:30 PM. Linda Austin (fresh off her TBA appearances) and festival director Kathleen Keogh will be performing (Keogh with a first…or a first-in-a-long-time non-improvised song n’ dance). There will be music by Luke Wyland and DJ P Unity.
The festival itself, November 10-12, features musicians and dancers from Seattle to San Francisco including Gust Burns (Seattle), Phillip Greenlief (Oakland), and Linda K. Johnson (PDX) in performance and workshop. One more reason ultra loves PDX.
POSTED: October 5th, 2006 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art | No Comments »
what our First Thursday agenda looks like
There will be no art lovers chatting and drinking red wine in front of this piece of art Thursday night, but tonight does mark the first day you can see Jenene Nagy’s “Prop” at the Portland Modern Window Project (1715 Lovejoy). With mundane materials like vinyl, foam, shelf paper, and house paint Nagy riffs on architects models and stage props to build a constructed landscape that is far more Pop than “prop.” Nagy is a smart artist, gallerist (Tilt), and writer (PORT). Don’t miss it.
We’ll also be taking in MK Guth’s latest “Growing Stories” in which Guth continues to mess with myth and fairy tail (see her installation “Braid”…for the defenestration needs of all your Rapunzels) at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery (417 NW 9th).
Fresh of his multi-day “performance” at TBA, Brad Adkins shows new work (including more “Balloon” work) at PDX Contemporary (925 NW Flanders). Ever coy, Adkins allows that, “This exhibition will include new photographic and neon works or maybe something else entirely.” Free Kitten, anyone?
And, we’ll toast the debut of one-time ultra contributor Jaycob Desrosiers at the opening reception for his very first photography show (appropriately provocative) at Sugar Gallery in the Everett Station Lofts.
POSTED: October 5th, 2006 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art | No Comments »