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Dance Weekly: Linda Austin and lots more

November 11, 2015
Culture, Dance

Last week I traveled through Rome, Milan and Venice surrounded by jaw-dropping, centuries old architecture and art. To be rich during the Renaissance meant to be a great supporter of the arts and because of that, art flourished and did it ever. Without support, artists cannot make art. This week in Portland dance, support abounds and creative ideas are flourishing.

Courtesy of 11: Dance Co.

Courtesy of 11: Dance Co. Photo by Jake Kaempf.

Preview: Library At The End Of The World
11: Dance Co
7 pm November 11
Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St.
11: Dance Co, Portland’s newest dance company and school, will open a rehearsal of “Library At The End Of The World,” a reflection on humanity, to the public for a sneak peek tonight. The show in its entirety will run from December 5-20th at CoHo Productions theater.

Judy Dunaway

Judy Dunaway

Judy Dunaway and Linda Austin
7:30 pm November 12
Performance Works NorthWest, 4625 SE 67th Ave.
Judy Dunaway and Linda Austin, friends from NYC’s experimental music scene of the late 1980s/90s will reunite for a special double bill. Dunaway amplifies and plays latex balloons as musical instruments, using a variety of shapes and sizes of balloon instruments. She pushes the extremes of both pitch range and artistic limits. Austin’s new solo version of her 2012 ensemble work “A head of time,” accompanied by sound artist Seth Nehil, will form her piece using movement, text, video and objects, examining loss, mortality, and time.

it’s really hard: Alembic Artists Showcase
The 2015 Alembic Artists are Nancy Ellis, Dora Gaskill, Stephanie Trotter
November 13-14
Performance Works NorthWest, 4625 SE 67th Ave.
The Alembic Artists showcase produced by Performance Works NorthWest will share the results of the 2015 Alembic Artist residencies of Nancy Ellis, Dora Gaskill and Stephanie Lavon Trotter.

“Ellis performs Mid Me, an investigation of her present, inspired by poetry and pink camouflage lingerie. Mid Me follows Nancy’s NANCY in her series of performer self-portraits. Gaskill will share Sooner Than Already There, an attempt to cancel out the most stubborn of her conditioned roles by dancing, writing, and lighting herself out of existence. Trotter is reclaiming the word Opera. She will present a short Opera in three acts that strives to understand Gender, Voice, and the presentations of oneself.”

Marginal Evidence. Courtesy of Katherine Longstreth.

Marginal Evidence. Courtesy of Katherine Longstreth.

Marginal Evidence (an interactive experience of dance-making)
Closing Conversation with Linda Austin, Linda K. Johnson and Anne Mueller on dance making
5 pm November 14
Katherine Longstreth
White Box, 24 NW 1st Ave.
Marginal Evidence is a visual art installation about the intimate act of choreography. Dance is ephemeral and when it is gone, what is left? How do we know it existed? What is the evidence left behind? Using the approach of a forensic investigator, Longstreth reveals the private process of dance making and exposes the inner life of archival materials. You can read Martha Ullman West’s review here.

Dance Wire: Refinery
4:30 pm November 14
Echo Theater Company, 1515 37th Ave.
Dance Wire is a service organization dedicated to promoting and supporting all genres of dance and dancers in the greater Portland area. Refinery is a Dance Wire program created to give opportunities to Dance Wire members to show works in progress and receive feedback from peers in an informal setting. In it’s second year, the Refinery will show the work of Connie Moore, Top Shake Dance, Petra Delarocha of Echo Theater and more.

Pure Surface
Intisar Abioto, Rachael Jensen, and Anita Spaeth
6 pm November 15
Valentine’s, 232 SW Ankeny St.
Curated by Stacey Tran and Danielle Ross, Pure Surface is a performance series interested in encouraging cross-disciplinary practice and performance by bringing together movement, text and film in the spirit of improvised collaboration. Each month a new group of artists is brought together in the intimate, open-air setting of Valentine’s and performance is made. This month’s artists are movement artist Intisar Abioto, writer Rachael Jensen and filmmaker Anita Spaeth.

Ballet BC dancer Scott Fowler. Photo by Michael Slobodian.

Ballet BC dancer Scott Fowler. Photo by Michael Slobodian.

Ballet BC

White Bird
7:30 pm November 18
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway
Under the artistic direction of Emily Molnar, this Canadian contemporary dance company is known for its broad thinking and collaborative nature. This concert will present works by choreographers Stijn Celis, Crystal Pite, and Cayetano Soto. Awe by Belgian-born Celis in collaboration with Vancouver’s male vocal ensemble Chor Leoni, was inspired by Leonard Cohen’s poem “Wandering Heart.” Solo Echo by Pite, a Vancouver BC-based choreographer, will explore themes of acceptance and loss inspired by “Lines for Winter” by Mark Strand set to music by Johannes Brahms. And Twenty Eight Thousand Waves by Soto is a piece inspired by the resiliency of human life.

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