September 11, 2006 Archives

I am not a patient person, and though I don't watch TV, I have a similar attention span, so take this review with a shaker of salt....

There was a point in the series of films where, after watching a piece of tablecloth for at least 5 minutes, the screen went black and then suddenly, more tablecloth. I'm thinking one of 3 things:
1) very funny.
2) the projectionist accidentally hit "back" on the DVD while making out
3) Sutapa was done filming the tablecloth when it suddenly did something really cool and she had to film it some more to try and catch it again.

Snarky-ness aside, I did like some of the films,
particularly "Untitled: (the trials and tribulations of Mike [what's-his-face])" wherein a naked fat man stands unmoving in front of a window for 15 minutes or so (and not just because it reminds me of my apartment).
His legs were normal, but his stomach was engorged, and his expression seemed full of longing and loss. (His flaccid penis spoke volumes, but then again whose doesn't? p.s. this is where the film differed from my apartment.)

Sutapa's films are often like still lifes, and they will force you to be patient and pay attention, not just to stop and smell the roses, but to stop. smell the roses.... don't stop. now smell them completely differently. a 3rd time now.

To see more TBA photography by Serena Davidson click here: Serena Davidson Photography

In Fletcher's body of work exploring the Vietnamese reaction to the Vietnam Conflict, which they call "the American war", Harrrell rephotograph's images of Vietnam soldier's and citizens, and the horrors visited upon them by American forces. It is an old post-modern trick, but the effect of the images is nonetheless harrowing. I left the exhibit feeling shaken, but also a bit used. The heavy handedness of the imagery created the desired effect of instilling disgust with war in general, specifically the callousness of the powers that be, and there disregard for the effect of conflict on the non-military population.

Was it the promise of free coffee?
No... it was just Portlanders showing how proud we are of our artistic culture here in Portland, Oregon.

Today’s lunch chat was about Creative Cities, specifically our hometown of Portland, Oregon; and room 110 of PNCA was packed beyond capacity! [Honestly, I was hoping for more reference to other cities around the world, such as Brugge, Groningen, Barcelona,…] Commissioner Adams spoke about the creative paradox that we are currently experiencing here; namely that even though there has been a steady 5.5% annual growth in our economy for the last four years through the recession, mostly due to jobs in the design realm; we are ranking in the 24th/30th per capita in private arts support.

Why is this?
The few ‘high-end’ galleries that made it through the recession often speak about major patronage coming from Seattle and San Francisco, not Portland.
Are these creative just not spending their dollars here in Portland?
Are the dollars being spent going towards materialistic artifacts, instead of patroning the very art that we claim to love and support?

Whatever the specific reasoning, we have to start investing in our local artistic economy.
There is a rather notorious book by Richard Florida, which I might recommend reading “The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life”. This is not just something we have been tossing around here in Portland. It has become a competitive global issue, much like which country / city can produce the cheapest silicon wafters. Everyone want to be “the place”, and cities around the world are doing whatever then can to attract creatives. Mayor Katz had started the “DNA PDX: Design Genome” and Creative Economy Initiative [http://www.wweek.com/editorial/2945/4309], and Commissioner Adams looks to revive it with new vigor in the coming months.
http://www.commissionersam.com/node/1029
http://www.commissionersam.com/node/1025

Sam asked the packed room if applied arts designers [like those that design artificial knee joints, etc] are part of the creative class. An important question, as many ‘starving artists’ snub their noses at would-be patrons, calling them yuppie scum! I would propose that it does not matter what form of creativity one spawns, rather it is their intent to be creative and to help inspire creativity in the community around them that is important. Face it, you might hate my sculpture and I might vomit at your choice of pigment on canvas; but we are both helping to create an artistic culture. By bringing together your choice of color, and mine of form, we can create a daibatsu of artists [much like Everett Station Lofts http://www.artspaceusa.org/neighborhood/everettstation] that together create a critical mass that will bring patrons and eventually allow both of us to buy groceries and pay our rent. It is the “hey, I just made this… want it” mentality that is important. This might not mean that a patron drops hundreds of thousands on your lap to play as you will, but it might mean that the knee designer has the twenty bucks for an impromptu dance performance ticket, which will inturn allow you to buy another artist a cup of coffee…

Jan Kriekels and Arne Quinze of Belgium [http://www.uchronians.org] recently spoke about investing in artistic culture, explaining that the Medici system is coming back to life, and it needs to spread across the global economy at a variety of scales.

So, whether you are going to apply for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative [http://www.rolexmentorprotege.com], a RACC artist grant [http://www.racc.org/grants], or one of hundreds of other funding opportunities, start at home, and start today!

Oh, and buy a T:BA t-shirt!

Fredrick Zal
Architect | Sculptor | Advocate
http://www.fhzal.com

This may not be any help to anyone. When I was practicing speed reading (a tedious struggle which I quickly abandoned to my more sluggish ways) there was a practice in which the reader was asked to widen his/her field of vision in order to take in and understand more of the text presented- a larger visual chunk, so to speak.

There was a moment in Vivarium’s performance when I softened my gaze and attempted to take in the entire stage without having my focus directed to one single event: the guy floating his shadow, the bird model dentist, the punk band, the wanderer, the disembodied head. The result was pleasurable, and far more engaging than choosing one distinct entry point into the piece.

Hooray for me, right? So what? What good is it now that Itching of the Wings is left to our collective memories? I don’t know... I think that I will try to see a bit more widely for the rest of the week. To open my eyes and take in the spectacle the way a kid drinks water after running around the neighborhood like a lunatic for hours on end- big gasping gulps.

It’s worth a shot.

Then I’ll go back outside and throw dirt clods at my friends or jump off my roof holding all for ends of the blanket... You know, just to see if it works this time.

Posted by P.A. Coleman

It’s not surprising that Deborah Hay’s Room feels as if it instilled with ritual. Especially when considering that dancers Tahni Holt and Linda Austin committed to a daily practice of the dance for a year.
Although, the performance is two adaptations of the same dance, they work well as a continuous piece, tied together with a red chord.

The red chord (or ribbon) is one of several checkpoints within the choreography- others being light changes, snippets of songs sung, a low bow. These moments offer a certain amount of continuity between the two distinct representations of each dancers flavor and approach to Deborah Hay’s battered choreography. The ribbon, the song, the choking on ones own words are also semi-lucid points where the audience is able to enter the sharpness of Room.

There is a sense when entering Room, or Rooms as the case may be, that what we are viewing is a kind of possession. The dancers' bodies appear to be struggling with a force that seeks to burst out from inside of them. They seem overcome by language and a certain violence. The bizarre and awkward babble that bubbles from the dancers' lips may have caused the audience to giggle, but I suspect it was from nervousness more than pleasure.

What immediately came to me, as my mind attempted to place the dance within a narrative structure, were images of voodoo practitioners becoming possessed by spirits and losing themselves to another persona. Here the spirit of possession is Deborah Hay’s choreography: It is jagged and teetering and broken and not content to be quiet. I wonder if the possessed is ever troubled by the possibility that the true self won’t come back?

Because it is not necessarily graceful and because it certainly challenges the known dance vocabulary, Room is difficult to unlock. However, the energy and depth of practice in this ritualized dance makes it an intriguing space to enter. At least for a while.

posted by P.A. Coleman

Laptop parked outside of The Works

Marc Acito reading the TBA guide description of the laptop project while we all try to figure out what we are inside of. Is the wallpaper the art? The Painting? The Space?

Evidently the space we are in is called THE UNIT and is the same mobile space I saw at last years Affair @ The Jupiter serving very ugly ice cream cones. According to the TBA:06 guide it is slated to facilitate a new roaming art project involving two German artists. The book says they will start in Portland and go around Oregon using THE UNIT "as a base for staging live performance and sculptural social interactions".

Discussing "What is 'micro-nostalgia' anyway?"

When I first dragged Marc Acito and Floyd Sklaver over to get some photos of people in the art space we were a little confused. The piece seemed too oblique perhaps. But, then there we were stepping into a small confined space with four strangers and discussing micro-nostalgia.

During the experience I did come to appreciate the project. I've been to TBA Central where the stationary display of Laptop is decorating the large wall as you enter the Weiden and Kennedy building. I never stopped to discuss it with anyone and I barely interacted with the other people in the space. THE UNIT has a great architectural advantage - it's so small you pretty much have to acknowledge the other people in it. Very conveniently you are inside of a roving conversation piece. Naturally the interaction of strangers inside becomes a dialogue trying to answer the question "So, what is this?" THE UNIT had provided us with a space and pre-set topic for a spontaneous mini-salon in a space small enough to almost force the conversation.

Thanks Katherine Bovee and Philippe Blanc!

P.S. Hey Marc - remember that time your dad was visiting and we all talked about micro-nostalgia in THE UNIT?

To see more TBA photography by Serena Davidson click here: Serena Davidson Photography

"You are the only one..."
"You are the only ... one..."
Softly swaying and repeating these words, Tahni Holt captured the complete trust of the audience that can only occur with the establisment of true intimacy between the performer and her crowd. She and Linda Austin both lulled the audience on Saturday afternoon into that important state of intimacy and, by turns, disrupted it to important effect in choreographer Deborah Hay's Room . So much of the piece seemed to hinge on concepts of closeness and privacy, which, when you get right down to it, matter greatly in dance, but are often overlooked in favor of spectacle and flash.
From the very beginning of Hay's piece, however, the dancers moved and spoke in ways that heightened the intimacy of the event to the point where every audience member seemed to forget that they were in a sold-out, standing-room-only venue. Tahni Holt began by entering the space and kindly asking the audience to lift a ribbon lying at their feet up to their laps.

With this simple gesture, the performers implicated the audience members in the creation of a small and very personal space, where only one dancer at a time would remain for the duration of the show.
Inside this space, Holt and Austin each ran through a series of small movements that at times recalled watching a young child dance and sing along to music in the privacy of their room, while at other times felt like witnessing someone's psychotic episode or seizure. While both moments were very intimate to witness, they were, contrastingly, quite endearing and rather discomforting.
To the credit of the dancers and the choreographers, Room balanced the intimacy of sharing a moment with another individual with the very different sort of intimacy that comes from having a minute solely to yourself in order to process your memories and experiences. One of these moments, for me, came as Austin covered her head, pulling her hat down.

It was a movement that was coy at first, but one that gradually invited the audience to reflect on the very striking image it created. For me, that called up the raw collective, cultural memories of recent abuse scandals of Abu Ghraib - the now iconic images of hooded prisoners.

Some of these personally intimate moments, though, required the absence of the visuals of the performance. As the lights faded at the end of each sequence each audience member was left in the dark silence with nothing to refer to but themselves as they awaited the return of the lights and the start of the next segment.

In my mind though, what best revealed how successful the dancers had been in entrancing the audience was whenever Holt or Austin made a move that disrupted that former intimacy. At one point in the performance, Holt slowly drew her arms out into space and clapped, startling the man in front of her (and this was a guy easily three times my size, who didn't look like the easily surprised type). He had so fully bought into the intensely personal, intimate moment of the performance that her clap broke his trance as he seemed to suddenly realize the staging of his present circumstance. Again, at the end of the performance, a small remote-controlled truck raced into the space created by the ribbon on the laps of the front row. Although this ended the piece by abruptly rupturing the sanctity of that rope barrier, even after Holt and Austin had taken their bows and left, the audience seemed hesitant to let go of that intimate space they had created and to set down the ribbon.

Room performs again at 6 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at Brunish Hall in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts at 1111 SW Broadway.
posted by patrick leonard

I remember everyone raving about Neal Medlyn last year. I thought he was amusing, but nothing to rave about, and this year I still don’t get it. Yes, he’s funny, yes, he’s ironic and charming, yes, I laughed. But I also laugh when I’m out for karaoke and my cousin prances around to a Britney Spears song with full-tilt girlish petulance while sticking his beer belly out. I think we can all agree that things like this are funny. Call me old-fashioned, I think there is a difference between being a funny dude and being a performance artist, and I expect a little more from someone as talented as Mr. Medlyn obviously is. He’s most interesting when interacting with the audience, when he stops dancing around and lip-syncing and plays with our expectations. Great art can be made using this tossed off aesthetic—I invoke Meow Meow from last year’s TBA, who kept the audience guessing as to whether her performance was going seriously wrong, or if it was all choreographed to appear that way— but if this is what Neal Medlyn is going for, he’s not pushing his act nearly far enough. Watching him sing Phantom of the Opera in a naked suit with “I AIN’T GOT NO PRIVATES,” scrawled on it is undeniably funny, but it’s too easy, a one-punch joke. Come on, man, is that all you got?

- Faith Helma

Serena Davidson Photography

To view more TBA images click here: Serena Davidson Photography

by Jonathan Walters

Earlier this year, I talked to a few people who saw Vivarium Studio’s ‘Itching in the Wings’ in New York at the Act French festival. The overwhelming feeling was that the company was doing something new, a fresh take on performance that didn’t have the actors ‘drooling, and straining’ to impress with their skills as performers, but had them relaxed, honest and blurring the line between acting and being.

I can’t prove it, but I think that this low impact approach isn’t so uncommon in Old Europe, and that Vivarium is actually spoofing some trends of self-important performance. When asked at T:BA chat if the show was ironic, Vivarium’s director Philippe Quesne said something like ‘Ironic, and genuine. At the same time’, but in French, and artistic talk backs always sound better in French.

Philippe comes from a design background, a rare idea, a contemporary designer transformed into a director. It’s an exciting proposal, and undoubtedly the sweetest aspects of the performance were the design. Sweet’s the right word, theirs was such delicate use of sound, with a beautifully lit (flourescent lights that you passed through on your way through the stage to your seat) recording studio behind thick glass and a strangly hyper white apartment, filled with video projectors.

At times actors would speak into the microphone, removed at a distance by the glass, and their voices would tickle the inside of your ear. One speech about a strange neighbor convinced he could catapult himself to the other dimension, was elegant and moving. Other times, a video projection of a wild-haired man working/being worked by a flight simulator would splash on the wall and the video was so cleanly fit into the wall space that it was impossible to tell where a square image was being sent.

Less successful were a number of ‘everyday’ interviews with quasi actors who talked on and on about the themes of the ‘itching’; the desire for life, for love, for an opening of the soul. These filmed people remind you of your friends at their most passionate, going on about a secret hobby or favorite band. That is usually mesmorizing (aided by beer most times) when its someone you love, but sadly, these talking heads aren’t your friends, and they are clearly in on the ‘joke’ of the performance. Sure, they prattled on in poetic /philosphic French, but it wore a little thin. As Philippe writes in the program, he is interested in the collision with these filmed pieces and the live actors. He might be, but are we? Clearly they were integrated so smoothly, but in most cases live actors win the contest, they are more interesting. Let’s see what they can do.

In T:BA 05 Ivana Muller brought a performance from the continent (she’s Croatian, does that count?) that had a similar ‘ironic’ use of filmed and live explorations of a theme. Similar to my feelings at Vivarium, I also found myself wanting the film projector to malfunction, and the casualness of the live performance to be shooken up a bit. After an hour of the cool, almost reality-TV-show (minus the editing) everydayness of ‘The Itching’ even a late arriving, hard jamming punk band seemed a bit too casual for my taste. There were beautiful things to here, funny things to see, great ideas to think about…but, any real risks out there on the stage that night?

HOTS ON FOR NOWHERE

Okay so I admit, it was my first time.
In case you haven't yet gone all the way and seen FLESHTONE,this is what you are in store for:
flashing lights, full body gyration, glow in the dark neon bikinis and elaborate
pulsating choregraphy and wacky props.