Summer is finally here and with it the inevitable slowing down of the performance season.
Actually that isn’t true at all.
The summer part is, but not the slowing down part. I am happy to report that the dance offerings just keep pouring in. The creative juices in Portland aren’t slowing down anytime soon, even if it is hot outside. And of course the best place to be if you do need cooling off, is inside a theater. So really this is a weekly public service announcement to help you stay cool, because tickets to a performance are much cheaper than buying AC.
This weekend SubRosa Dance Collective will be collecting at the Headwaters Theater in North Portland showcasing an eclectic mix of ideas to movement. And fantasy will play out in Sea of Dreams with Night Flight Aerial & Circus Arts.
Save the date: Diaspora Dance Theatre’s ICONS, featuring choreography by Oluyinka Akinjiola, Uriah Boyd and Jamie Minkus, a PWNW Alembic Co-Production, and NW Dance Project’s Summer Splendors with Chamber Music Northwest will both be happening next weekend starting on the 26th.
Sea of Dreams, An Underwater Circus
Night Flight Aerial & Circus Arts
June 19-20
Alberta Rose Theater, 300 NE Alberta St
In this nautical adventure, Night Flight, an aerial and circus arts company, creates a magical, underwater fantasy adventure, with mystical mermaids, electrifying eels, creepy creatures of the deep, shimmering dancing lobsters and drowned sailors seeking lost treasure. The perfect watery illusion to keep you cool.
SubRosa Dance Collective
June 19-28
Headwaters Theater, 55 NE Farragut St., Suite 9
SubRosa Dance Collective is a contemporary dance company comprising seven eclectic, multi-talented women dancer/choreographers (0ne collaborates long distance from Japan). Formed in 2011, they work in dance, film, photography and live performing and have self-produced and performed in dance festivals throughout Portland. SubRosa strives to showcase how a “village” of artists can do so much more together, in tandem, in communication, and in support of and with each other.
SubRosa Dance Collective will be in action this weekend./Courtesy SubRosa
The Collective, Carlyn Hudson, Cerrin Lathrop, Jessica Evans, Kailee McMurran, Lena Traenkenschuh & Zahra Banzi with guest artist Kate Rafter, Artistic Director of Automal, will delve into the world of self-criticism, “peering in at our shortcomings, our perceived gritty-bits of self that often lay like dim pools, untouched, mirroring a rendering of ourselves that is often fearsome and cold.”
Themes within the concert range from “the sometimes sadness of twerking” in Kate Rafter’s piece, “What is the Sound of One Ass-Cheek Clapping,” to an examination of the experience of women in the military by Cerrin Lathrop called “Good Citizen.”
If you’re lucky, you might be able to get a taste of baked goods in the air wafting over the train tracks to the Headwaters Theater from the Nabisco factory next door while you wait in line.