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DanceWatch Weekly: A very large nutshell

By Jamuna Chiarini
September 20, 2017
Dance

Two drag performances, a musical based on a graphic novel, a book release party, some solos and not solos, and a fundraiser performance featuring Ten Tiny Dances: your dance weekend in a nutshell.

Jamuna Chiarini

On Thursday night at Performance Works NW in Southeast Portland, dance writer Emmaly Wiederholt and photographer Gregory Bartning will unveil their new book, Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond. A gorgeous, 9×12, hardcover book, Beauty is Experience contains 210 pages of interviews and photos of 54 West Coast dance artists over the age of 50. Out of the 54 artists, 19 are from Portland. The book is for sale on Amazon.com and on Wiederholt’s website, Stance on Dance. I highly recommend checking it out.

Within its pages you will find intimate portraits of Portland dance artists Linda Austin, Susan Banyas, Mike Barber, Gregg Bielemeier, Nancy Davis and Jim Lane, Tracey Durbin, Patrick Gracewood, Jamey Hampton, Laurel and Gene Leverton, Carla Mann, Tere Mathern, Jim McGinn, Josie Moseley, Jayanthi Raman, Eric Skinner, Melissa St. Clair and Carolyn Stuart, plus 35 more dancers from up and down the coast.

Why is this book important? By simply acknowledging dancers over the age of 50, the book subverts the patriarchal dance orthodoxy that says, “younger is better.” Showing everyone, everywhere, how beautiful and amazing dancers are at any age (and that you can’t actually age out of dancing) can change the dance world as we know it and how audiences see dancers. So buy the book, support the cause, subvert patriarchy, and keep dancing.

Performances this week

Portland dancer Mike Barber photographed by Gregory Bartning for his new collaborative book project with Emmaly Wiederholt called Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.

Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond-Book Launch Party
Emmaly Wiederholt and Gregory Bartning
7 pm September 21
Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th Avenue
See above.

Drag artist Lahore Vagistan in Lessons in Drag with Lawhore Vagistan. Photo courtesy of Reed College Performing Arts.

Lessons in Drag with Lawhore Vagistan
A Lecture Demonstration by Kareem Khubchandani
Presented by Reed College Performing Arts
6:30 pm September 21
Reed College Performing Arts Building, Performance Lab 128, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
FREE
Combining his research in dance studies, queer nightlife, South Asian diaspora, global queer politics, performance ethnography, critical race studies, masculinity, femininity, and drag, Khubchandani brings to life his drag persona LaWhore Vagistan, “your favorite desi drag aunty,” to enable “conversations about dance cultures, Third World feminisms, globalization, and queer pleasures.”

Kareem holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and is working on a book titled Ishtyle: Improvising Gay South Asian Nightlife, a performance ethnography of gay nightlife spaces in Bangalore and Chicago.

Check out Khubchandani’s interview with by Rajit Singh in 2016 and his music video Sari. You won’t be sorry.

The musical Fun Home featuring actors Aida Valentine as Small Alison, Karsten George as Christian Bechdel, and Theo Curl as John Bechdel at The Armory. Photo by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv.

Fun Home
Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, directed by Chris Coleman
September 16-October 22
Portland Center Stage at The Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave.
The winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Musical in 2015, Fun Home, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, allows the audience into the intimate world of the author at three different stages of her life as she tries to make sense of her closeted and distant father, his death, her family, growing up in a funeral home, and coming out as an adult.

Photo of dancer/choreographer Carlyn Hudson. Photo courtesy of Carlny Hudson.

Solos, and Not-Solos…(But Mostly Solos)
Carlyn Hudson
September 22-24
Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th Avenue
SubRosa Dance Collective co-founder Carlyn Hudson presents her first independent evening of choreographic works, Solos, and Not Solos…(But Mostly Solos). The program includes six solos, a duet, and a quartet that effortlessly slip between contemporary dance styles, ballet and vaudeville, and weave together stories of love, loss, and beauty in whimsical and sometimes not so whimsical ways.

Hudson is originally from New York, attained her BFA from SUNY Purchase, performed with Connecticut Ballet and co-founded SubRosa Dance Collective in 2011 with Cerrin Lathrop, Jessica Evans, Kailee McMurran, Lena Traenkenschuh, Tia Palomino and Zahra Banzi.

Photo of Wayne Bund by Wayne Bund.

Critical Engagement Series: Wayne Bund / Feyonce
8:30pm September 22
Flock Dance Center in the Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, 8371 N Interstate Ave., Studio 4
In this month’s Critical Engagement Series at Flock Dance Center, multidisciplinary artist Wayne Bund presents Feyonce, an evolving performance piece that uses comedy, theater, music, dance and drag to discusses the power of femininity and sass – more succinctly put as “genderfuck,” as Feyonce says in her performance.

The Critical Engagement Series is curated by dance artist Tahni Holt, and “brings together audiences and choreographers in hopes to reveal some of the mystery surrounding the languages around dance and the unique practices of individual choreographers. We start with the question: What does the choreographer need at this particular moment in their process and how might this also serve the wider community.”

The Ten Tiny stage used for Ten Tiny Dances establish by Mike Barber in 2002. Photo courtesy of Ten Tiny Dances.

Inspiring Amity: A Ten Tiny Dances Fundraiser for New Expressive Works
5:30 pm September 23
810 SE Belmont (corner of SE 8th & Belmont)
Join Ten Tiny Dances in a performance fundraiser for New Expressive Works (N.E.W.). N.E.W., established in 2013 and directed by Subashini Ganesan, is home to a diverse dance community and provides space and support to contemporary dance and arts of all kinds. DanceWatch featured New Expressive Works in several previous stories which you can read here and here. The evening will be catered by Art Fortuna & Vibrant Table Catering and Division Wines, and will feature performances by Unit Souzou, Natya Leela, members of Obo Addy Legacy Project’s Okropong, Raul Gómez-Rojas (artistic director of Metropolitan Youth Symphony), Oluyinka Akinjiola (artistic director of Rejoice: Diaspora Dance Theater), Jessica Hightower, Shaun Keylock, Stephanie Lanckton, Ruth Nelson and Luke Matter.

Upcoming Performances

September
September 29-30, Diphylleia Grayi (Skeleton Flower) + Matriarch, Degenerate Art Ensemble and Mizu Desierto, presented by Mizu Desierto and Water In The Desert
September 29-30, Episode III, jin camou, Julia Calabrese, Mary Sutton, Leah Brown, a PWNW Alembic Co-Production
September 30, Katha – A Thematic Classical Dance Presentation w/ Live Music, presented by Kalakendra

October
October 5-7, Complexions, presented by White Bird
October 6-8, Mowgli – The Jungle Book Ballet, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene
October 7, Dance Of The Hummingbirds, Jayanthi Raman and dancers
October 7-14, Rhapsody In Blue (World Premiere), choreography by Nicolo Fonte, performed by Oregon Ballet Theatre
October 11, Diálogos: An evening of flamenco conversation and performance, presented by Espacio Flamenco Portland
October 12-14, Paul Taylor Dance Company, presented by White Bird
October 13-14, The Northwest Screendance Exposition, directed by John Watson, presented by the University of Oregon Department of Dance, Eugene
October 19-21, Wen Wei Wang (World Premiere), Luca Signoretti (World Premiere), At Some Hour You Return by Jirí Pokorný, NW Dance Project
OCT 20-22, Abominable, Taylor A. Eggån and Daniel Addy
October 20-22, Uprise, Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater
October 22, Le Corsaire, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
October 26, Cocktail Hour: The Show, choreography by Marilyn Klaus, presented by Seacoast Entertainment Association
October 26-November 5, Diva Practice (Solo), Kaj-anne Pepper
October 26-28, Dancenorth Australia, presented by White Bird
October 27-29, Nous, on va danser, Nancy Ellis
October 31, Opus Cactus, MOMIX, Eugene

November
November 2-10, Avalanche, Polaris Dance Theatre, Robert Guitron
November 3-5, Converge, PDX Contemporary Ballet
November 9-12, When We, Allie Hankins & Rachael Dichter, a PWNW Alembic Co-Production
November 15, The Hip Hop Nutcracker Featuring MC Kurtis Blow, Decadancetheatre
November 16-18, L-E-V, presented by White Bird
November 24-26, The Enchanted Toyshop by John Clifford, Tourbillon by Anne Mueller, performed by the PSU Orchestra and The Portland Ballet
November 26, The Taming Of The Shrew, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
November 30-December 9, Lexicon (world premiere), BodyVox

December
December 7-9, Bolero, Ihsan Rustem, NW Dance Project
December 8-9, The Nutcracker with Chamber Ballet of Corvallis, Rainbow Dance Theatre, Corvallis
December 9-24, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Oregon Ballet Theatre
December 13-17, a world, a world (work-in-progress), Linda Austin Dance, PWNW
December 17, The Nutcracker, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
December 22-24, The Nutcracker with Orchestra Next, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene

January
January 18-28, Fertile Ground Festival of New Work/Groovin’ Greenhouse
January 25-27, Rennie Harris Puremovement, presented by White Bird
January 28, Garden of Earthly Delights with Salem Concert Band (World premiere), Rainbow Dance Theatre, Independence

February
February 1-10, The skinner|kirk DANCE ENSEMBLE, presented by BodyVox
February 4, The Lady Of The Camellias, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
February 17-18, Pink Martini, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene
February 21, Mark Morris Dance Group, presented by White Bird
February 23-25, Configure, PDX Contemporary Ballet
February 24-March 4, Alice (in wonderland), choreography by Septime Webre, performed by Oregon Ballet Theatre

March
March 1-3, Urban Bush Women, presented by White Bird
March 4, The Flames Of Paris, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
March 8-10, Jessica Lang Dance, presented by White Bird
March 14, Compañia Jesús Carmona, presented by White Bird
March 15-17, World Premiere’s by Sarah Slipper and Cayetano Soto, NW Dance Project
March 22-24, To Have It All, choreography by Katie Scherman, presented by BodyVox

April
April 4, iLumiDance, Rainbow Dance Theatre, Corvallis
April 5, Earth Angel and other repertory works, Rainbow Dance Theatre, Corvallis
April 5-7, Stephen Petronio Company, presented by White Bird
April 8, Giselle, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
April 12-14, Contact Dance Film Festival, presented by BodyVox and Northwest Film Center
Apr 14-25, Peer Gynt with Orchestra Next, Eugene Ballet Company, Eugene
April 12-21, Man/Woman, choreography by Mikhail Fokine, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Nicolo Fonte, James Canfield, Jiří Kylián, performed by Oregon Ballet Theatre
April 20-29, X-Posed, Polaris Dance Theatre, Robert Guitron
April 24-25, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, presented by White Bird
April 24-25, The Wind and the Wild, BodyVox and Chamber Music Northwest

May
May 4-5, Current/Classic, The Portland Ballet
May 10-12, New work premiere, Rainbow Dance Theatre, Western Oregon University, Monmouth
May 10-19, Rain & Roses (world premiere), BodyVox
May 11-13, Compose, PDX Contemporary Ballet
May 16, Ballet Hispȧnico, presented by White Bird
May 23-June 3, Closer, original works by the dancers of Oregon Ballet Theatre

June
June 8-10, Up Close, The Portland Ballet
June 10, Coppelia, Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema Live from Moscow
June 14-16, World Premiere – Ihsan Rustem, MemoryHouse – Sarah Slipper, NW Dance Project
June 24, Salem World Beat, Rainbow Dance Theatre, Salem

 

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