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DanceWatch Weekly: Creating community through photography

By Jamuna Chiarini
October 6, 2016
Dance

I am a dancer, and at this stage in my career, I want people to see me as I am, not as they imagine I should be. I am 42, I have a 9 year old son, and I don’t look 22, but I’m amazing. I’m a woman, not a child. That’s life, That’s reality. I dance, and I dance well.

When I saw one of Jingzi Zhao’s beautiful Fuse-Portland Dance Portraits scroll across my FaceBook feed, I decided we had to meet. All of the dancers represented in her photos were talented and beautiful, but young. For the record I consider anyone under 40 to be young. Where were the older, seasoned dancers? There were none. We had to talk.

We met for coffee and hit it off instantly. We are close in age, we both have young children, and we are both artists trying to make it work while in the mix of it all. I wanted her to photograph me as a dancer in the environment that I spend most of my time in, my house.

A week or so later, Zhao came to my house and photographed me lackadaisically washing dishes, throwing suds in the air, and striking a very dancerly pose on my kitchen counter. It was divine ridiculousness to the n-th degree. We did a second shoot in the alley behind my house throwing compost into the recycling bin while wearing pearls, heels, and a flowered, ‘50s, chiffon cocktail dress. Because you know, that’s how I recycle.

That photograph was the winner, and you can see it, along with 24 other Portland dance portraits that are part of Zhao’s collection of 25 Fuse-Portland Dance Portraits that will be on display at the Multnomah Arts Center Gallery starting Friday night. I am proud to say that I am the oldest dancer represented in the 25 dance portraits of Portland dancers.

Zhao who has been photographer since 2005, got her start photographing dancers in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Regio and the Teatro de San Martin and in Portland with Oregon Ballet Theatre and BodyVox.

The Fuse project was initially inspired by the portrait series Dancers Among Us, which are photographed by Jordan Matter in New York City. Those photos are of ballet dancers in extreme poses against the backdrop of the city. Zhao wanted to riff off of that idea and take the Portland photo series further by photographing different kinds of dancers and actors in different locations around Portland, telling the dancer’s story as well as the city’s. Her focus wasn’t on what the dancers could do, but how they connect with the environment they are in.

In the beginning Zhao knew only one dancer, Alicia Cutaia from BodyVox. She was the first Fuse dancer. From there, Cutaia introduced her to other dancers, they introduced her to others, and so on, and so on, and before she knew it she had 25 photos of 45 dancers from 10 different Portland dance companies posing in locations all over Portland in places like Hopworks Brewery, Oblique Coffee, Salt & Straw and my alley, to name a few.

Zhao says the best part of working with dancers is in the creative process working together to create the photos. She is inspired by dancers work ethic and their dedication to perfection. Often times the dancers were the ones who insisted she take one more photo to get it just right.

Zhao’s hope is that Fuse will live on after the gallery showing to become a photo book showcasing even more photos of the Portland dance community. She would also like to create public art installations with the photos around Portland so that we can see and appreciate them in our daily lives.

You can find out more about Jingzi Zhao’s work at www.jingziphotography.com and see her photos beginning on Friday at the Multnomah Arts Center Gallery.

Performances this week

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Diavolo’s L.O.S.T (Losing One’s Self Temporarily). Photo courtesy of White Bird.

L.O.S.T (Losing One’s Self Temporarily)
Diavolo-Architecture in Motion
Presented by White Bird
October 6-8
Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway
Directed by French choreographer Jacques Heim and based in Los Angeles, this 13 member dance company will perform Passengers and Cubicle, part one and part two of L.O.S.T. (Losing One’s Self Temporarily) to music by Bruno Louchouarn.
Passengers, a world premier, becomes a metaphor, asking “are we passengers in life or are we drivers?” by utilizing a massive train/staircase set design. Cubicle, abstractly examines the insanity of corporate America and the loss of individuality through the use of arranging and rearranging boxes on stage.

obliquecoffee

Dancer Emily Running posing for Fuse-Portland Dance Portrait at Oblique Coffee Roasters.

A Photo Exhibit of Fuse-Portland Dance Portrait
Jingzi Zhao
Opening reception, 7 pm October 7
Full run October 7-25
Multnomah Arts Center Gallery, 7688 SW Capitol Hwy

See above.

Oregon Ballet Theatre,studio rehearsal,"Serenade",choreography by George Balanchine

Oregon Ballet Theatre,studio rehearsal, Serenade ,choreography by George Balanchine. Photo courtesy of Oregon Ballet Theatre.

 

Giants
Works by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, and Nicolo Fonte
October 8-15
Oregon Ballet Theatre, Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St
Giants is a triple bill featuring Serenade by George Balanchine, In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated by William Forsythe and a world premier of Giants Before Us by Oregon Ballet Theatre Resident Choreographer Nicolo Fonte.

Serenade was choreographed in 1934 and was meant to be a staged lesson in technique, incorporating unexpected, real life moments that happened during the the making of the dance like dancers arriving late to rehearsal or accidentally falling.

In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated was choreographed by William Forsythe in 1987 for the Paris Opera Ballet by the request of then director, Rudolf Nureyev. The original cast featured dancer Sylvie Guillem and became Forsythe’s most well known work and has been performed by companies worldwide.

Giants Before Us by Nicolo Fonte sits between classical and contemporary dance and features the athleticism of OBT’s male dancers to Franz Liszt played live by pianist Hunter Noack.

Next Week

October 13-15, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, White Bird
October 13-15, Bolero, NW Dance Project

Upcoming Performances

October 20-29, BloodyVox, BodyVox
October 20-22, Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak, White Bird
October 21-22, Traces, Mark Koenigsberg & Sara Naegelin
October 21-22, Lines of Pull, The Holding Project
October 24-November 5, Marginal Evidence, Katherine Longstreth
October 28-30, INCIPIO, PDX Contemporary Ballet
November 3-12, Reclaimed, Polaris Dance Theatre
November 4-6, Obstacles and Victory Songs, Stephanie Lavon Trotter and Dora Gaskill
November 5-6, All The Marys, Luciana Proaño
November 11-13, Epoch, Jamuna Chiarini and push/FOLD-Samuel Hobbs
November 12-20, the last bell rings for you, Linda Austin Dance
November 17-19, Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, White Bird
December 2-4, N.E.W. Expressive Works Residency Performance, Dana Detweiler, James Healey, Jessica Hightower, and Renee Sills
December 8-10, In Good Company, NW Dance Project
December 8-10, ARCANE COLLECTIVE, Presented by BodyVox
December 10-26, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Oregon Ballet Theatre
December 15-17, Complicated Woman, Katie Scherman/2016 Alembic Resident Artist
December 18, Gifts, a film by Clare Whistler/2015 Performance Works NW visiting artist
December 22-24, Cirque Dreams Holidaze, Presented by U.S. Bank Broadway in Portland

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