Ten Tiny Dances at South Waterfront

Mike Barber – Ten Tiny Dances at South Waterfront. photo Daniel Addy

Ten Tiny Dances goes al fresco this Saturday, August 2 beginning at 4 PM, with ten dances performed ten times each on ten 4′ x 4′ stages scattered throughout the South Waterfront neighborhood.

The Ten Tiny series, programmed by Mike Barber, began because the performances were held in little bars or restaurants where there was only room for the tiniest stage. Here, the juxtaposition of scale, of tram tower, skyrise, freeway, river, and wide openness of the unfinished ‘hood to human dancing in circumscribed space opens up interesting possibilities. And the stroll from one performance location to another gives time between dances to breath, react, reflect, and bounce the experience off the surroundings. Each one of the dances, by an all-star roster of innovative Portland choreographers and artists, will be performed ten times so that audience members can see one dance, find the next location, and see the next.

You’ll see work by Linda Austin, Mike Barber Hand2Mouth Theater, Hot Little Hands, KO & Co., Tere Mathern, POV Dance, Rhiza A + D,  Sojourn Theater, and Cydney Wilkes.

Maps of the performances will be available at SW Moody Avenue & Curry Street. The performances last about 7 minutes each and begin every 15 minutes, so the whole show ends at 7 PM. There will be food vendors, but you might want to bring something to sit on and some sunscreen!

The Runner

Deborah Hay

Travel to Findhorn, Scotland to commission a solo dance from legendary choreographer, performer, and dance thinker, Deborah Hay. For 11 days, Hay guides and coaches, but does not show, letting you find your own way. At the end of the residency sign a contract. It says that you will practice this solo every single day for at least three months before you perform it. Every day whether you feel like it or not, whether you’re sick or busy or….

Oh, and you can’t pay for the commission out of your own pocket, you have to raise the money from members of your community so that your whole dance community participates in the creation of your piece.

Portland’s most interesting dance duo, the riveting Cydney Wilkes and Ten Tiny Dances impresario Mike Barber have done just that. Together again, only not really, or we should say, not yet, Wilkes and Barber tonight present their solo adaptions of Deborah Hay’s “The Runner.” at Lent School Gymnasium (5105 SE 97th) at 8 PM.

It doesn’t end here. In July Wilkes and Barber go to Marfa, Texas where Hay makes a new duet for them based on their solo adaptations. They bring that duet home to Portland for performance in October 2008.

“Fence” Cydney Wilkes and Mike Barber.

Wilkes and Barber have performed at PICA’s TBA Festival, Seattle-based On The Board’s Northwest New Works, and Ten Tiny Dances, as well as doing Wilke’s “Penta,” a year-long performance on the banks of the Willamette River in the shadow of the Marquam Bridge, and most recently, the duo’s evening length “A Certain Facilitation of Impasse” at Disjecta.

Lucky 13: Ten Tiny Dances at Bluehour

By the numbers: 4 feet squared, ten dances, thirteenth iteration.

It’s the thirteenth time that Mike Barber has produced Ten Tiny Dances, a cabaret-like showcase of Portland dance and choreographic talent in 15 minute increments on a 4 foot by 4 foot stage. Ten Tiny Dances has been to Seattle, has been featured in PICA’s TBA festival, and has carved out space for dance in restaurants and clubs like Crush, Bernie’s Southern Bistro, the Doug Fir, and Bluehour.

Ten Tiny Dances 13 is this Sunday May 27  at 7:30 at Bluehour (250 NW 13th Ave) in Portland. The doors will open at 6:30 at which point, if past experience is any indication, every available seat and non-seat will soon be filled with an audience member. Tickets are available at the door only for $15.

This program features both Ten Tiny vets and new blood: Michael “Shoehorn” Conley, Robyn Conroy, Anne Furfey, Jenn Gierada + Laura Robbins, Margretta Hansen, Agnieszka Laska, Tere Mathern, Summer Morgan, Katrina O’Brien, Cydney Wilkes + Mike Barber.

Highly recommended.

For more on Ten Tiny Dances (and why we love it) read this review on ultra and this from the TBA blog.

Ten Tiny Dances

Don’t miss the 11th iteration of the Ten Tiny Dances series at the Doug Fir Lounge

Mike Barber and Cydney Wilkes

Ten choreographers from Portland and Seattle–two nickles to the dime–make short work of/on a 4′ x 4′ stage at the Doug Fir Lounge (830 E Burnside) this Sunday, June 25. Beginning at 7:30 PM, a new dance takes the minute stage every quarter of an hour. This is a brief intro, a handshake introducing you to some of the Northwest’s finest dancemakers (trust dancer/choreographer/producer Mike Barber to send the A-team onto the field). At the same time, the circumscribed canvas provokes the artists, elbowing them out of standard operating procedures into new territories of choreography and use of space.

The work is alternately obliquely narrative, conceptual, pedestrian, prop-based, (and other words that begin with “p”), dangerous, and funny. This time out, the Seattle crew includes: Kristina Dillard Big Red Dance, Zoe Scofield, Crispin Spaeth Dance Group (Spaeth co-curates this evening with Barber), Amelia Reeber, and Drew Elliott. Batting for the home team: Katrina O’Brien, Mike Barber, Daniel Addy, Whitney Tucker, and in a first for the four-by-four, flamenco artist Laurena Marrone.

Angelle Hebert

Ten Tiny Dances/10

Four feet by four feet. Pace off the box. Mark it with your body. Now dance.

At 8 PM this Friday, March 17th, at the Wonder Ballroom (128 NE Russell) some of Portland’s more interesting dancemakers will do just that for the tenth (official) edition of Ten Tiny Dances. For Ten Tiny, ten choreographers are given fifteen minutes each to inscribe a dance on and in the vertical space above a 4′ x 4′ stage. Which is not to say that the dancers haven’t hidden under the stage, flown off the stage, upended the stage, stacked the stage high, and crowded the stage en masse.

Series producer Mike Barber began Ten Tiny Dances as a single evening at Crush, a fundraiser. But both audiences and dancers loved the tiny dance, and the evening became a series that has been going strong for several years now.

If the stage and the time allotted function as the blank page, here the page is the size of a pocket notepad. The challenge is what you can do in that space and time. Like the black hole that by turning in on itself pulls other matter in toward itself, the dances on the tiny stage have often been compelling, gravitational.

Featured choreographers this go-’round include: Tracy Broyles, Margretta Hansen, Gabriel Masson, Anne Furfey, Josie Moseley, Mary Oslund, Cydney Wilkes, Linda Austin, Mike Barber and Minh Tran.

Even if you don’t go to dance regularly, here’s your quick intro to the talents of some of our more interesting contemporary choreographers and dancers. Get tiny-er. $15

[Ten Tiny Dances]

updated Monday March 13 2006 22:20