Artists Archive
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a canary torsi is a Bessie-award-winning, interdisciplinary group of artists formed by Puerto Rican artist and choreographer Yanira Castro. a canary torsi’s work examines the encounter between spectator and event, developing scenarios where the audience’s presence dramatically impacts the work. We investigate what brings us together, the nature of the space we inhabit, and how every aspect of our convergence is loaded with cultural, social, historical, and personal dynamics that influence how we form meaning and how power is structured. We develop indeterminate performative systems that catalyze—in performance—spontaneous structures, patterns, and instructions. We do this to complicate authorship, ensure multiplicity, and to form the work together in real-time. This way of working is for us a conscious de-centered politic. a canary torsi persists in the idea that live performance is uneasy communal action.
Learn moreAdrienne Truscott received a 2014 Doris Duke Impact Artist Award and is a 2017 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grantee for Theater/Performance Art. Her solo comedic work and group choreographic works have been presented at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Just For Laughs, Darwin Festival, PS122, Joe's Pub, The Kitchen, Dublin Fringe Festival, Danspace Project, Boom Arts, New York Live Arts, the Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne), and Dance Theater Workshop. Her form-busting show Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy and Little Else! won the 2013 Edinburgh Foster's Panel Prize, was a finalist for the Total Theatre Award for Playing With Form, and is considered a critical impetus to the evolving conversation about rape culture. It has been presented by or included in curriculum at CalArts, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Lewis and Clark College, among others. THIS was nominated for a 2017 New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Outstanding Production. The Wau Wau Sisters, her boundary-defying neo-vaudevillian collaboration with Tanya Gagne, have been presented by the Sydney Opera House, Joe's Pub, CBGB, Victoria Arts Centre, and The Roundhouse, and won the prestigious 2009 Herald Angel Award. Her piece Wild Bore, a “meta rebuke to critical writing,” was nominated for a Green Room Award for New Writing for the Australian Stage and won for Best Ensemble. Current touring pieces MASTERCLASS, a collaboration with Dublin-based Brokentalkers was recently presented at Dublin Fringe, in Harstad, Norway and at The Pleasance at Edinburgh Fringe and Grey Arias, a desecration of the problematic Madame Butterfly through the lenses of race and drag with UK-based opera performer Le Gateau Chocolat is premiering in Melbourne in April 2023. Truscott's essays have been published in Between Us: Women of Letters and Doing It: Women Tell the Truth about Great Sex, as well as in the Guardian. She's appeared as a storyteller at the Sydney Opera House's Festival of Dangerous Ideas and on The Moth. Truscott has guest taught for the Wesleyan University Dance Department, Sarah Lawrence College, Princeton University, Bard College, and is currently the MA Coordinator at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College/Open Society University Network.
Learn moreCalled a “hilarious, finely tuned absurdist” by Theatre Jones and “outrageous and profane" by The New York Times, Alex Tatarsky makes performances in the uncomfortable in-between zone of comedy, dance-theater, performance art, and deluded rant—sometimes with songs. Tatarsky experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and used to perform as a mound of dirt. Playing with perceptions of language and narrative structure, their live performances are highly responsive to venue and audience, often breaking the fourth wall and embracing humor to reveal vulnerability and humanity. Venues include La Mama Experimental Theater Club, The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, Playwrights Horizons, The Kitchen, Judson Memorial Church, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and many bars and basements. As curatorial fellow at The Poetry Project, they organized a series on the poetics of rot. Research interests include bootlegs, hellscapes, and compost.
Learn moreAndrew Tay is a hybrid performer, choreographer, curator and DJ. He is the cofounder of Wants&Needs Danse with Sasha Kleinplatz. Together, they produce the popular dance events Short&Sweet and Piss in the Pool which take place in non-traditional venues in Montreal. Tay received the Buddies in Bad Times Vanguard Award for Risk and Innovation at the SummerWorks Performance Festival for his work Fame Prayer / EATING (2016). He was named the first artistic curator at Le Centre de Création O Vertigo (CCOV) in Montreal and recently became the Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) one of Canada’s oldest contemporary dance companies. Tay actively thinks about community, irreverence and resistance in both his performance and curatorial practices.
Learn moreariella tai is a video artist, film scholar, and independent programmer from Queens, New York. They are interested in Black performance and cultural vernaculars in film, television and media studies. They are one half of “the first and the last,” a fellowship, workshop and screening series supporting and celebrating the work of Black women and femmes in film, video and new media art. They have shown work at Anthology Film Archives, the Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival, Portland Institute For Contemporary Art, Northwest Film Center, Boathouse Microcinema, Wa Na Wari, the Black Femme Supremacy Film Festival, MOCA and Smack Mellon. Their most recent video work "safehouse" premiered at Trinity Square Video in Toronto as part of group show "Architectures after the Asylum" curated by Sajdeep Soomal.
Learn moreBack to Back Theatre comprises an ensemble of six actors considered to have developmental or intellectual disabilities. The company explores how respect is withheld from outsiders—the disabled or unemployed—who society deems “unproductive.” Since 1987, the ensemble, based in the small regional center at Geelong, Australia, has transformed the theater experience by exploring prejudices associated with the notion of “other.” The group’s past performances include Mental (1999); Dog Farm (2000); and Soft (2002). small metal objects received a 2008 Bessie Award after its performance at Under the Radar Festival, and a 2007 Zurich Theatre Festival Appreciation Prize for extraordinary achievement in theater. In 2005, the ensemble received the Sydney Meyer Performing Arts Award for their long-standing contribution to the development of Australian theater.
Learn moreBig Terrific is a weekly comedy show in Brooklyn hosted by Gabe Liedman, Jenny Slate, and Max Silvestri. It started as a project between three friends: a free, low-key event where they could try out new material and perform regularly in front of an audience who’d be up for the experimentation. Before long, the show’s reputation grew, and it became the go-to stage for innovative comedians and comedy fans who’d rather see something new than the regular two-drink-minimum acts.
The big concept behind the show is: let’s just be friends. The idea that you might get made fun of if you sit too close to the stage is the antithesis of what Gabe, Jenny, and Max set out to do. On any given Wednesday in Brooklyn, you can show up at Big Terrific to hear personal stories from people who love to tell them, see short films by up-and-coming directors, and laugh along to stand-up curated carefully by Gabe, Jenny, and Max.
Big Terrific has been proud to host Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, Nick Offerman, Janeane Garofalo, Aziz Ansari, Reggie Watts, and many other comedy superstars over the years. The show was also awarded the prestigious “Best Of New York” by New York Magazine.
Because Jenny Slate Proved There's Life After SNL, Andrew Marantz, GQ, August, 2011.
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Jenny Slate, Ellen Killoran, The L Magazine, May 25, 2011.
Learn moreCatherine Ming T'ien Duffly is an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department at Reed College where she teaches courses on race and identity in American theatre, performance studies, and community-based performance, in addition to courses in acting and directing. Kate’s written work has appeared Theatre Journal and Theatre Annual. She is currently researching the use of food in socially engaged performance practices.
Learn moreChanticleer Trü is a musician, performance artist who currently resides in Portland, Oregon. His body of work encompasses music, theater, fringe, dance, visual installation, drag, film, cabaret, and good time instigation. When he's not turning heads the world over as front-man of "Post Phunk" dance outfit Magic Mouth, you can catch him pursuing one of his many other creative efforts. His unique brands of aesthetic storytelling, and expression have made him a mainstay on stages both large and small. His creative direction and performances are in demand across major city hotbeds of the underground and mainstream.
Learn moreChloe Alexandra Thompson is a Cree, Canadian interdisciplinary artist and sound designer. Thompson approaches sound as a mode of connection—embracing the kinesthetic agency of sound to compose abstract feats of spatialized audio recording and synthesis. Her work engages tactics of material minimalism to create site-specific installations that sculpt droning, maximalist experiences out of space and sound.
Learn moreAtlanta, Georgia, is a hotbed of contemporary art with an abundance of choreographers and performance artists seeking affordable and accessible venues. Recognizing this scarcity of performance space as an opportunity, curator and lighting designer Malina Rodriguez founded Dance Truck: a mobile project that uses the back of a rental truck as a stage. With its inventive technical direction, diverse artistic lineup, and stunning visual platform, Dance Truck has been an enormous success in “bringing dance to the people” at festivals, museums, parks, and streets throughout the Dirty South.
Selected Press
Dance Truck Pulls into the Contemporary, Andrew Alexander, Creative Loafing Atlanta, February 9, 2011.
Learn moreA record label and a movement, a series of club nights and a cooperative project in music, visual art, video, and apparel, Fade to Mind is changing the global dance scene. Kingdom, aka Ezra Rubin, is a DJ/Producer living in Los Angeles who is also involved in the London-based Night Slugs collective. Rubin’s work is known around the world for its inventive drums, unusual bass rhythms, and full-on R&B and hip hop samples. Rubin has official releases on Fools Gold, Night Slugs, and Acephale, and his own Fade To Mind label. Total Freedom is Ashland Mines, a DJ/Producer living in Los Angeles. Besides being known internationally for brain-broadening DJ sets, Mines curates and produces nightlife events in LA. Musician and producer Massacooramaan (Dave Quam) recently moved to Portland from Chicago, where he was active DJing in and documenting the local Juke/Footwork scene. Quam also photographs and writes for XLR8R, The Wire, DJ Magazine, and Shook.
Selected Press
Kingdom Launches Fade to Mind Label, Shawn Reynaldo, XLR8R, June 22, 2011.
The Underground Kings of Fade to Mind, Chris Kelly, Postcultural, April 10, 2012.
Selected Audio
Fade to Mind on SoundCloud
Kingdom on SoundCloud
Massacooramaan on SoundCloud
Total Freedom on SoundCloud Learn moreHand2Mouth Theater (H2M) is a theatre ensemble that creates original work that is bold, accessible and inclusive. We support all forms of artistic expression and experimentation and seek to enrich the social fabric of society through our work.
Committed to fostering community through performance, engagement events and educational programs, H2M seeks genuine connections with audiences by speaking authentically from the voices and lives of our creative artists and our community.
H2M pushes for a kinder, more inclusive society where the public experiences the value and uniqueness of every life story, amplifying the voices of those historically silenced.
Learn moreHitoshi Toyoda was born in New York City and grew up in Tokyo. He returned to the United States in 1990 on a grant from Neo Vision Co. For several years, Toyoda traveled throughout the U.S. taking photographs, before settling in New York in 1993. He has presented his work in public spaces, galleries, museums and film festivals such as Ann Arbor Film Festival (MI), Images Festival (Toronto), Museum Of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Setagaya Art Museum (Tokyo), Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo), Anthology Film Archives (NY), and graf media gm (Osaka).
Learn moreThis Actor/Dancer/Stripperformance Artist (primarily known for live work) has performed in New York & abroad since 1988. A Pioneer in the 1990s burlesque revival, Tigger! has been "acting like a stripper" since 1992 & remains a leading influence in the world burlesque scene. He won the first ever "King of Boylesque" title at Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas as well as several Golden Pastie Awards, including "Most Likely to Get Shut Down by the Law" & "Most Unpredictable Performer." He was ranked the #4 Burlesque Performer of 2010 (the only solo male) in an international online poll. Called "the Boylesque King...a heart-pounding climax" by LA Weekly, "hysterical and acrobatic" and "wickedly arch" by The New York Times, "disturbing, funny and oddly riveting all at once" by Vancouver Sun, "delightful...simultaneously hilarious and titillating" by TheaterMania, "the taboo-defying dynamo" by NEXT Magazine. He has acted in Shakespeare, Apollinaire, Wedekind, Horváth, Tennessee Williams and numerous original works with Taylor Mac, Julie Atlas Muz and other genius friends. He has recently performed in: Italy, Denmark, Cyprus, England, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, France, Mexico, Canada, and all around the U.S.
Learn moreJason Traeger has released music on Kill Rock Stars and K Records, performed with the art collective Oregon Painting Society at Portland 2010: Biennial of Contemporary Art, TBA:09, Tate Modern and he has shared the stage with some of the biggest names in stand-up comedy. He resides in Portland, OR.
Learn moreJoel B. Tan is an award-winning writer/performer and an internationally recognized trailblazer in connecting arts with social justice, public health, and community development. Tan has published three volumes of poetry, edited three fiction anthologies, and his various poems, plays, essays, and short fiction on race, power and identity have appeared in numerous academic and commercial venues. Since 2004, Tan has served as the Director of Community Engagement at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where his work in the field of arts leadership has been recognized globally. Prior, he worked in Public Health for 16+ years, co-founding LA’s Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team Health Center. Tan is also Sister Baba Ganesh of the San Francisco Mother House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. As Baba, he is the creator of the widely walked “Sistoric” Castro Procession, an historical audio walking tour produced with Queer DJ collective and Honey SoundSystem. He is also the producer of Project Nunway, a fashion fundraiser that pairs Sisters with designers to create a look from recycled materials based on a theme. Nunway is currently in its 6th year in San Francisco and is now replicated in 6 other Sister cities and growing strong.
Learn moreFounded by Luisa Pardo and Gabino Rodríguez in 2003, Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol is a young Mexican theater company reflecting the new dynamics of contemporary Mexican culture. They develop their multimedia stage productions as mechanisms to link work and life and give voice to overlooked moments in social and political historical. Lagartijas has toured widely throughout Mexico and Europe and has received awards from the Impatience Festival and the Zürcher Theater Spektakel.
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Learn moreLumi Tan is curator at The Kitchen in New York, where she organizes exhibitions and produces performances with artists across disciplines and generations. Most recently, Tan has worked with Half Straddle, Sara Magenheimer, and Sondra Perry. Previously she co-curated From Minimalism into Algorithm (2016), a year-long performance and exhibition series, as well as projects with artists including Ed Atkins, Gretchen Bender, Glasser, George Lewis, Anicka Yi, and Danh Vo and Xiu Xiu. Prior to The Kitchen, Tan was Guest Curator at the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Nord Pas-de-Calais in France, director at Zach Feuer Gallery, and curatorial assistant at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Frieze, The Exhibitionist, and numerous exhibition catalogues.
Learn moreMere Tokorahi Boynton is a multitalented performance artist, singer, actor, and MC. She has had formal training in voice and developed her own unique style of performing that draws upon classical training and her Māori heritage.
Some of her most memorable singing engagements to date have been performing in Gareth Farr’s Te Papa, which was composed for the opening of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; singing and touring nationwide in the dance opera Jerusalem by Michael Parmenter; singing in the film Te Tangata Whairawa o Weneti (The Māori Merchant of Venice); and singing the lead role Taranga in ‘Maui One Man Against the Gods’ (2006). Boynton also performed with the avant-garde theater company MAU at the Vienna Mozart Festival in Requiem (2006) which was commissioned by Artistic Director Peter Sellars for the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart. Requiem was also presented in Brussels, Auckland, London and New York. In 2008 she performed in the NZIAF opera production ‘The Trial of the Cannibal Dogs’ by composer Matthew Suttor, and also performed in Ex Stasis by Gareth Farr and The Three Cornered Hat by Manuella de Falla with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
In 2013 Boynton sang in Jack Body’s Songs and Dances of Desire with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra for the Auckland Arts Festival and Tokyo, Japan. Also that year, she performed again with MAU in the acclaimed all Māori women production Stones in Her Mouth and I Am a commemoration of the First World War Centenary WW100 in Europe, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In 2021 she collaborated with composer Gareth Farr and taonga puoro (Māori musical instruments) artist Ariana Tikao to compose and perform Ngā Hihi o Matariki with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
In 2005 Boynton released her album Waikohu, which is a collaboration with composer/percussionist Gareth Farr; this recording features an eclectic range of compositions which have been given different vocal and musical treatments, from kapahaka (cultural performance) to classical string quartet with karanga (call of welcome). Her next album release was Aroha/Ahava at the Auckland Arts Festival 2015, a collaboration with composer Jonathan Besser which explores the expression of aroha (love).As an actor she is well known for her portrayal of the character Mavis in Once Were Warriors and has also performed in several other films for cinema and television including The Piano and more recently the full feature Deadlands, Hinekura, a short film in te reo Māori, (Māori language), Colonial Combat a television series in te reo Māori and The Untold Tales of Tūteremoana also in te reo Māori. Most recently, she acted in the acclaimed Witi’s Wāhine, a theater work written and directed by Nancy Brunning for the Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival.
Learn moreGutierrez is a New York-based dance and music artist who makes solo and group pieces with a variety of artists under the moniker Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. His work has toured internationally to festivals and venues including American Realness Festival in New York; Festival d’automne à Paris; Antipodes Festival in Brest, France; Out There Festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; UNAM in Mexico City; and ImPulsTanz in Vienna. He is the winner of three New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” awards.
Learn moreMona Vatamanu (Romania) and Florin Tudor (Switzerland) live in Bucharest, Romania, where they have been working together since 2000. Their practice spans film, photography, painting, performance, and installation, and reflects the social upheavals of post-communist Eastern Europe. The duo has had solo exhibitions throughout Europe and North America, and has been featured in the 2008 Berlin Biennial and in the Romanian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Vatamanu and Tudor have had residencies at Basis Voor Actuele Kunst in Utrecht, AIR Vienna, and Project Room at Ludwig Museum in Budapest, among others. They received first prize in the 2006 Fair:Play Video Festival in Berlin. Vatamanu and Tudor are represented by Lombard Fried Projects, New York.
Peripheries
Moscow's Poplar Curse, New York Magazine, April 17, 2011.
Learn moreMorgan Thorson (Minneapolis, MN) is a dance-maker. Morgan’s recent work addresses how the body shapes time; and how time influences our perception and expression of the body in spaces where labor, coordination, identity, movement and image can flourish and decay as well as redefine our notion of dance, sexuality, belonging and life. Morgan has received support from The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (2009, 2011 and 2015), and The National Dance Project (2008, 2012, and 2015). She is a United States Artist (2012), Guggenheim (2010), and McKnight (2002, 2009) Fellow and has received multiple Sage Awards for Outstanding Choreography. Currently, she is a Creative Campus Fellow at Wesleyan University.
Learn moreNature Theater of Oklahoma is an OBIE Award-winning New York-based performance group under the direction of Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper. Since Poetics: a ballet brut, their first ensemble piece, Nature Theater of Oklahoma has been devoted to making the work they don’t know how to make, putting themselves in impossible situations, and working from out of their own ignorance and unease. Using readymade materials, found space, overheard speech, and observed gesture, and through extreme formal manipulation, and superhuman effort, they shift our perceptions of everyday reality. Selected Press Just the Gist of a Star-Cross’d Tale, Charles Isherwood, New York Times, December 21, 2009. 'Romeo And Juliet': Just As You Misremembered It, Robert Smith, NPR, December 29, 2009. Deconstructing Romeo and Juliet, Hilton Als, The New Yorker, January 11, 2010. Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Young Jean Lee, BOMB Magazine, Summer 2009. Stage Notes: Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Romeo and Juliet, Tom Murrin, papermag, December 16, 2009.
Learn moreFounded in 1991 by Aedin Cosgrove and Gavin Quinn, Pan Pan Theatre has since produced 22 productions, published a major photographic book, and produced a film, One. The ensemble has worked with a host of Irish and international performers and artists, and both worked and toured extensively throughout Ireland as well as Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Korea, and the United States.
Learn moreRadoslaw Rychcik is a young director living and working in Poland. He began his career as an assistant to renowned director Krystian Lupa on Factory 2 and later worked on Stanislaw Wyspianski's drama Protesilas and Laodamia. In 2008, Rychcik directed Dictator, a performance based on Charlie Chaplin’s film, for the Wybrzeze Sztuki Festival in Gdansk. Most recently, Rychcik has presented A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes at the Drama Theatre in Warsaw and an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Versus: In the Jungle of Cities at the New Theatre in Krakow and the Under the Radar Festival in New York.
Selected Press
Rychcik burns actors (Solitude of Cotton Fields), Beata Frysztacka, e-splot.pl, December 20, 2009 (Translated from Polish).
Loneliness is Discovered, Agata Piecuch, e-teatr.pl, January 6, 2010 (Translated from Polish).
Learn moreAs an artist, Sharita Towne’s interests lie in unpacking the inherited struggles of past burdens and in affording collective catharsis. Through collaboration, stereo-photography, printmaking, video, and community art projects, she’s worked at memorials in Germany; in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria; Brazil; in gentrifying cities like Portland and New Orleans; in schools, museums, and neighborhoods, and within her own family. She received a BFA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from Portland State University. She currently teaches at Pacific Northwest College of Art, works in the DIY printmaking and audiovisual collective URe:AD Press (United Re:Public of the African Diaspora), the post-colonial conceptual karaoke band Weird Allan Kaprow, and is a 2016 Art Matters grant recipient.
Learn moreStacey Tran is a writer from Portland, OR currently based in Providence, RI. She is the creator of Tender Table, a storytelling series about food, family, identity. Her writing can be found in BOMB Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and diaCRITICS. She is the author of Soap for the Dogs (Gramma, 2018).
Learn moreStephen Thompson, originally from Calgary, Alberta is an inter-disciplinary artist working between Canada, USA and Europe. Stephen’s introduction to movement and performing was through competitive figure skating. He received a Bachelor of Kinesiology (art and science of movement) and Dance from the University of Calgary. In 2015 at the World “Figure” Championships in Lake Placid, Stephen received the bronze medal. In 2016 he received a Victor Martin-Lynch award from the Canada Council for the Arts. Past choreographic work and collaborations: 2012 Bessie award winning Antigone Sr. (Large), The Ghost of Montpellier and the Samurai (2014) with Trajal Harell, Culture Administration & Trembling (2014), Les Etudes (2017), Chaud (2020); Jennifer Lacey, Antonija Livingstone, Dominique Pétrin, whatwearesaying (2014); Public Recordings (2 Dora Mavor awards Toronto), numerous projects with Benoit Lachambre, Relative Collider (2015); Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard, Service #5: Try to keep kids off naturalism and Kein Paradiso with Adam Linder recipient of the Mohn Prize at the L.A. Bienniale, Stitchomythia with Nadia Lauro and Zeena Parkins, Dramaturge for Such Sweet Thunder (2019) recipient of 8tensions Impulstanz, Compulsory Figures (2019) co-signed with French visual artist Xavier Veilhan.
Learn moreTharp was raised in Ontario, Oregon, and presently resides in Portland. He received his BFA from Cornell University. His work was featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial and has been acquired by The Whitney Museum of American Art, Albright Knox Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Portland Art Museum, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Reed College. He is represented by PDX Contemporary Art (Portland), Nicole Klagsbrun (New York) and Galerie Bertrand & Gruner (Geneva). Selected Press Critic's Pick: Storm Tharp, Stephanie Snyder, Artforum.com, August 3, 2010. Perfect in the Middle, Matt Stangel, Portland Mercury, June 24, 2010. Storm Tharp's eighth show at PDX Contemporary Art features latest work, 'Hercules', John Motley, The Oregonian, July 30, 2010. Storm Tharp, Richard Speer, art ltd., May 2010. Interview with Storm Tharp, Bean Gilsdorf, Daily Serving, January 4, 2010. Virtuoso Vindicated: Storm Tharp at PDX Contemporary, Jeff Jahn, PORT, January 10, 2007. Storm Tharp: Arrangement in Flesh Color and Black, Stephanie Snyder, PLAZM, September, 2008. Selected Video Storm Tharp Artist Talk at the Portland Art Museum. Storm Tharp on OPB Art Beat
Learn moreTahni Holt is a dance artist and somatic practitioner whose work is rooted in collaboration and community. Born and raised in what is now known as Portland, Oregon, she has spent most of her life in the shadow and glow of Mt. Hood. Shaped by wild landscapes and a punk adolescence, dance making for Tahni is a way to imagine, question and reside in the liminal space, where unraveling is not a marker of failure but one of great power and intrigue. Her work has been presented nationally at On the Boards, Seattle, WA; Velocity Dance, Seattle, WA; Fusebox Festival, Austin, TX; DiverseWorks, Houston, TX; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; and White Bird, Portland, OR. She is a recipient of an NDP Touring Award, an Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship, and was a 2021 USA Artist Fellowship nominee. Internationally, her work has been performed in Bulgaria and supported through residencies in France, Greece, Romania, and Portugal. Holt is the founder and one of four current stewards of FLOCK Dance Center, a hub for embodied practice and critical engagement in the Pacific Northwest.
Learn moreTakahiro Yamamoto is a multidisciplinary artist and choreographer based in Cowlitz, Clackamas, and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (Portland, Oregon). His current conceptual investigations revolve around the phenomenological effects of time, embodied approach to the presence of nothingness, and the social/emotional implications of visibility. He has received support from New England Foundation for the Arts, Bogliasco Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation, MacDowell, National Performance Network, Japan Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium, and others. His performance and visual art works have been presented at Portland Art Museum, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Diverseworks, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, The Henry Art Gallery, and GoDown Arts Centre Nairobi, among other venues. Yamamoto holds an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art. He is part of the Portland-based support group Physical Education with Allie Hankins, keyon gaskin, and Lu Yim.
Learn moreBorn in Tokyo, 1978. Lives and works in Yokohama.
Takashi Makino graduated from Cinematography / Sound Recording course at Department of Cinema at Nihon University College of Art, Japan in 2001 and he studied about film, lighting, and music under Quay Brothers at Atelier Koninck QBFZ in London in 2001. Makino gained his skills relating to film and videos while he was undertaking coloration as a Colorist on various filmography, CF, and music videos from 2001 to 2011. He has been started screening his works since 2004. He captures video of ready-made objects including natural phenomena, human, and cities with various formats. And he layers and configures them while in an editing process, his quite organic yet imaginative films, which seem like bursting unlimitedly are highly regarded internationally. Makino is currently based in Japan and presents movies, music, installation, audiovisual performances around the world. Makino awarded the Tiger Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2011 and he also received various awards at several international film festivals including Hamburg International Short Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival, and he also awarded the Grand Prize at 25FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival. His cinema works were screened in over 125 cities in the world. Recently screened in documenta 14, Athens, Greece (2017); Austrian Film Festival, Vienna, Austria (2017); New York Film Festival, New York, USA (2014, 2017); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2016); The Korean Film Archive, Seoul, Korea (2016); BFI IMAX Theatre, London, UK (2016); MoMAPS1, New York, USA (2013); San Francisco MoMA, USA (2009); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA (2008).
Learn moreUtilizing the language and history of sculpture, installation, and conceptual art practices, Tannaz Farsi’s work highlights and re-presents objects and images that contextually start from a collective experience found in the current news or within the milieu of our cultural archive. Her work has been exhibited at venues including Disjecta (Portland, OR), Pitzer Art Galleries (Claremont, CA), Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids, MI), Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, and Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH.) She has been granted residencies at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Ucross Foundation and the MacDowell Colony. She received a Hallie Ford Fellowship in 2014. Born in Iran, Tannaz Farsi lives and works in Eugene, Oregon where she is faculty at the University of Oregon.
Learn moreCalling Tanya Tagaq an Inuit throat singer is like calling Yo-Yo Ma a cello player. Sure, it’s accurate, but it’s not the whole of what he does. Like Ma, Tagaq is the best of what she does – innovative, inspired. —The National Post, Canada
Born in Canada’s high arctic, Tanya Tagaq is a contemporary performance artist who utilizes the ancient traditional Inuit art of throat singing to mesmerize audiences around the world. She is considered a Canadian national treasure whose music defies description. Alternately called primal, orchestral, and free form, her performances are improvised and dialed to a one-of-a-kind frequency. The end result is a staggering array of performances that portray, in full-colour sound, the scope of her life experiences. Tagaq’s commitment to stretching her musical boundaries has led to visionary projects across all mediums and with groundbreaking artists such as the Kronos Quartet. As a solo artist, Tagaq has released two critically acclaimed albums with her band, Sinaa and Auk/Blood, both of which were nominated for Juno Awards (Best Aboriginal Recording) and (Best Instrumental Recording). The albums additionally took first place in several categories at the 2005 and 2008 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, including Best Female Artist (2005).
For greater context and a more in-depth exploration of Tanya Tagaq and her work, click here to view a PDF of collected reviews, interviews, articles and links. A great resource for those who really want to dive into the Festival!
Learn moreHoping to get the unruly Tarek Halaby (performer) out of her hair, his mother signed 12 year old Tarek up for a jazz dance class. He hasn't stopped dancing since. His formal training continued at The University of Iowa, where he received his BFA in Dance Performance. During his three year stint in New York, Tarek worked closely with The Powerful People and the company ChameckiLerner. Other credits include working with Alexandra Beller, Gerald Casel, Doug Elkins, Chris DC Ramos, and behind the scenes with Susan Marshall. In September of 2004, Tarek moved to Brussels, Belgium to live, dance and study at the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S.), under the direction of choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
Learn moreTashi Wada is a composer and performer based in San Francisco. His recent work focuses on various aspects of sound perception as a basis for direct processes of listening. Wada’s work has been performed throughout the United States and Europe in a variety of venues, and for several years now he has performed alongside his father, Yoshi Wada.
Learn moreA playwright, actor, and singer-songwriter hailed by Time Out New York as “one of the most exciting theater artists of our time,” Mac has performed his work around the world. Mac’s plays include The Walk Across America For Mother Earth, The Young Ladies Of, Red Tide Blooming, The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac, and The Lily’s Revenge, a five-hour, 36-cast-member show that was named the best play in 2009 by Time Out New York and Paper Magazine and made the top ten lists of The New Yorker and The New York Post. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, such as a Sundance Theater Lab Residency, a Rockefeller MAP Fund Grant, a Creative Capital Grant, The James Hammerstein Award for playwriting, The Edinburgh Festival’s Herald Angel Award, and three GLAAD Media Award Nominations. Mac’s upcoming projects include touring The Lily’s Revenge across the US and UK, the creation of a two-man theatrical concert with Mandy Patinkin, and a festival of full-length plays inspired by Greek classics.
Selected PressTaylor Mac at the Soho Theatre London W1, Donald Hutera, June 3, 2010.
Comparison is Violence, Arched, Glasgow, Mary Brennan, Herald Scotland, June 14, 2010.
Gig Review: Taylor Mac, Jay Richardson, The Scotsman, June 13, 2010.Glamming it Up with Taylor Mac, Caridad Svich, American Theater Magazine, November 2008.
Red Tide Blooming: The Discomforting Spring of Taylor Mac,, Brian Boyles, The Brooklyn Rail, April 2006.
Reminding us of Our Humanity: An Inclusive Interview with Taylor Mac, JT Ross, Minor Progression, March 11, 2011.
Learn moreChoreographer Angelle Hebert and composer Phillip Kraft founded Portland-based dance company tEEth in 2006. Their work is generated through deeply collaborative processes, blending original music and movement through melodic and conceptual mirroring. tEEth approaches the body with a singular eye for life’s beauty and dark absurdity, and combines technical virtuosity with raw impact. tEEth has toured to On the Boards (Seattle), Joyce SoHo (NYC), Fuse Box Festival (Austin), and St. Ferdinand Church and Sidearm (New Orleans), and most recently won the Joyce Theater Foundation’s prestigious A.W.A.R.D. Show! at On the Boards. Their new work, currently in creation and co-commissioned by White Bird (Portland) and On the Boards (Seattle), will premiere in January 2012 at Lincoln Hall at Portland State University, and will tour nationally to pending locations. Selected Press A cracked smile and a silent shout: tEEth's Home Made, Robert Tyree, ultrapdx, November 7, 2010. LIVE REVIEW: tEEth's Home Made, Matthew Korfhage, Willamette Week, November 5, 2010. Dance review: Innovative choreography, intimate performance carry Home Made, Catherine Thomas, The Oregonian, November 6, 2010. Selected Video
Learn moreMelanie Valera (Tender Forever) was born in Southwestern France in 1977. 3 albums (on K Records) and 800 shows later, she’s now pursuing multimedia projects for venues including La Cité Internationale (Paris) and the Whitney Museum (New York). Though she lives today in Portland, OR, her pop project leaps towards a world where we can close the gaps between countries, ideologies and, ultimately, hearts.
Learn moreAn experiment in confined space, Ten Tiny Dances is dedicated to fostering inventive dance and theater on a tiny stage, providing an accessible and exciting performance experience for a diverse audience. Produced by Portland choreographer Mike Barber, the series challenges artists to collapse known vocabulary as well as to make new material that responds to the constraints of the space. It interrupts the usual expectations for dance vocabulary, performance, and viewing, and affects the way people move and are perceived in space. What began with a simple idea has grown into one of the Northwest’s most popular performance series. Since 2002, the platform has inspired an ever-expanding roster of creations and performances: close to 200 emerging and established artists, dozens of engaging venues, and five cities have taken part in Ten Tiny Dances.
Learn moreTesar Freeman is an artist and amateur historian whose work is concerned with the revision of history and the physical vessels of ideologies. He currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Peripheries
Learn moreFrom capturing environments, architectural structures, sound, light and human behavior, the source of Umeda’s work ranges widely. Working actively both in and outside of Japan, the artist remodels installations out of daily products, engages viewers with his interactive performance pieces, and collaborates with musicians using his own originally-produced implements. He has held a number of significant solo exhibitions including “Criterium 73: Tetsuya Umeda”, Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito (2008), “Hotel New Osorezan”, Ota Fine Arts Singapore, Singapore (2013), “Age0”, Breaker Project, Osaka (2014), and “Science of Superstition”, SonicProtest Festival, Montreuil (2015). Umeda has also participated in the “1st Aichi Triennale 2010: Arts and Cities”, Nagoya (2010); “Double Vision: Contemporary Art From Japan”, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow / Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa (2012); “Simple Interactions. Sound Art from Japan”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Roskilde (2011); and is recently featured at “RhythmScape”, Gyoenggi Museum of Modern Art, Gyoenggi (2015) and “Sounds of Us”, Trafó Gallery, Budapest (2015-2016).
Learn moreMELISSA DYNE is a conceptual, installation and performance artist, with a focus on the physics of sound and light. Her large scale installations have shown at The Museum of The City, in Mexico City, and Para/Site, in Hong Kong. Her installation, Glass, in which a window from a skyscraper balanced for three months on a gallery wall, was exhibited at The Museum of Contemporary Craft in 2008. She studied optics at UNAM in Mexico City, art at College of Santa Fe, NM and completed a degree in accoustics at SAE Institute in New York. Dyne has been peforming and collaborating with The Blow since 2009, and recently officially joined the band, expanding her investigations of sound waves into the field of popular music. melissadyne.com
KHAELA MARICICH is a performance artist, writer and pop musician. Under the name, The Blow, she has made albums and narrative performance works, interweaving the elements of one within the framework of the other. At TBA 2004 she performed the pop opera Blue Sky vs. Night Sky, as well as a fictional corporate presentation about a mental health maintenance system called Remosch. She has presented her work nationally and internationally in a broad range of venues, from art centers to house parties to concert halls, including such venues as The Kitchen, On The Boards, Henry Fonda Theater, and Great American Music Hall. She lives and works in New York City. khaelamaricich.com
Since coming together in collaboration on The Blow in 2009, Dyne and Maricich have performed at The Wexner Center, Joe's Pub, and The Warhol Museum. They have lectured on their collaboration at PICA, The Henry Gallery, Seattle, and Residency Unlimited, in Brooklyn, NY. Their new album, The Blow, is being released on Kanine Records in October 2013.They first met at the TBA festival in 2004. theblow.org
The Delicate Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Khaela Maricich, The Stranger, June 26, 2013.
Learn moreTHEESatisfaction are Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White. Stas was born and raised in Tacoma, Cat in Seattle and Hawaii. The pair live/laugh/love/dance and create in Seattle, WA. They write, produce and perform their own material, funk-psychedelic feminista sci-fi epics with the warmth and depth of Black Jazz and Sunday morning soul, frosted with icy raps that evoke equal parts Elaine Brown, Ursula Rucker and Q-Tip. THEESatisfaction came upon the scene with lovingly handmade self-released albums, the first of which was 2008’s That’s Weird. All has been in preparation for what they’ve envisioned for years, their debut full-length on Sub Pop Records, awE NaturalE.
Selected Press:
"Startin' Something," Adam Rathe, Out Magazine, March 9, 2012.
"Grind And Shine: Shabazz Palaces And THEESatisfaction," Ann Powers and Andrew Matson, NPR, June 29, 2011.
"THEESatisfaction: Preflight Checklist," Trent Moorman, The Stranger, November 23, 2011.
"Friends with Benefits," Alex Littlefield, PAPER, November 10, 2010.
Learn moreJacob Ciocci is an artist; a current Eyebeam Fellow; one third of the American art collective Paper Rad; and a prolific producer of music, installations, websites, and animations. David Wightman is completing a PhD in Music Composition at UC San Diego where he is a Lecturer of Pop Music Studies. Some of his many musical projects include Fortress of Amplitude, Powdered Wigs, and Chariots of Fire. Together, Jacob and David connect like Voltron in the high-NRG electronic music band Extreme Animals. They have toured the country every summer for the past 8 years presenting their music, videos, and art.
Selected Press
Eleven Evocations (For Paper Rad), Ed Halter, Rhizome, September 2, 2009.
Learn moreThe Javaad Alipoor Company (TJAC) is a contemporary theater company that makes work for a changing world and a global audience. Rooted in experimental and multiplatform practice, their work asks the most pressing questions we all face. With a commitment to internationalism, complexity, diversity, and fun, they make work for the twenty-first century, transforming what people think theater can be and what it can do.
Learn more
The Julians are four of Portland's finest classically trained female vocalists working together to explore, challenge, embrace, and sing the living daylights out of music that they love. The Julians formed in 2010 with the intention of creating genre-defying programs that seamlessly meld classical, pop, jazz, and indie music. They have performed their original arrangements in a variety of Portland venues including Alberta Rose Theatre, Someday Lounge, Splendorporium, Jade Lounge, as well as on many concert series. They collaborate frequently with local artists and are featured on Bryan Free's 2011 album, Red Queen. The Julians are comprised of: Kristen Buhler, Liz Bacon, Maria Karlin and Vakarė Petroliūnaitė."...the group sounded completely natural in a startling range of repertoire.They're one of the most refreshing breezes to blow through Portland's alt classical scene." - Oregon ArtsWatch
Selected Press
"Weekend MusicWatch: Pirates, Fairies, and more," Brett Campbell, Oregon Arts Watch, November 25, 2011.
"Singing with The Julians," Dmae Roberts, Stage and Studio, November 5, 2011.
"Let's Get to Know: The Julians," Artslandia, June 2013.
Learn moreIn 1997, riot grrrl legend Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre) released a solo album under the name Julie Ruin, hoping someday to find a band to play the songs live. She finally assembled her dream team in 2010 as The Julie Ruin, with her ex-Bikini Kill bandmate Kathi Wilcox on bass; Kenny Mellman (half of the legendary punk cabaret act Kiki and Herb) on keys; actor, filmmaker, and musical juggernaut Carmine Covelli on drums; and, Sara Landeau, who Kathleen met while through the Rock Camp for Girls, killing it on guitar. The Julie Ruin brings a strong, tight musical backbone to Hanna’s iconic vocals. Run Fast—their debut album as a band—spans topics from euthanasia to cookies and will be released in September 2013.
Selected Press
"Kathleen Hanna Shares Details of Her Band Julie Ruin's Collaboration With James Murphy", Jenn Pelley, Pitchfork.com, December 10, 2012.
Learn moreSTEW: Guitars/Vocals, Text/Music
THEATER: Book, Co-Composer and Lyricist for Passing Strange (2008 Tony—Best Book, 2-time 2007 Obie (Best New Theater Piece and Best Ensemble ), Family Album (2014 Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Notes of a Native Song (Spring 2015 Harlem Stage), Wagner, Max! Wagner! (Fall 2015 Kennedy Center) The Total Bent (Public Theater 2016), Making It (Spring 2010 St. Anne’s Warehouse), Brooklyn Omnibus (Fall 2010 Brooklyn Academy of Music) Resurrection City (2016 Studio Theatre), Chicago Omnibus (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 2012) FILM: Spike Lee’s Passing Strange. ROCK AND ROLL: Stew and The Negro Problem. Albums: Post Minstrel Syndrome, Joys and Concerns, Guest Host and The Naked Dutch Painter (both called Album of the Year by Entertainment Weekly), Welcome Black, Something Deeper than These Changes, Making It and the cast album of Passing Strange. Numerous Lincoln Center appearances, United Nations, Symphony Space.: Guest Host and Album of the Year by Entertainment Weekly TV: Stew is co-composer (w/ Heidi Rodewald) of “Gary Come Home,” for SpongeBob SquarePants. ARTS EDUCATION: Doctor of Humane Letters, Oshkosh University, Wisconsin; California Inst. of the Arts; New School; Stanford; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of the Arts, Philly. Stew is a Sundance Institute Alum and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence.
Heidi Rodewald is the Tony Award nominated, Obie Award winning co-composer of the musical Passing Strange, which transferred from The Public Theater to Broadway in 2008. Rodewald composed music for Karen Kandel's Portraits: Night and Day (2004); Brides of the Moon by The Five Lesbian Brothers (2010); and co-composed music for Shakespeare's Othello and Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet (2010-12). Rodewald joined the band The Negro Problem in 1997, where she began a longtime collaboration with singer songwriter, Stew. She has collaborated with him in a range of capacities -- as a co-composer, producer/arranger and performerSheis. the co-composer with Stew of the musical Family Album which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival during the 2014 season, Notes of a Native Song, at Harlem Stage in 2015, Wagner, Max! Wagner!! at the Kennedy Center in 2015, and The Total Bent at The Public Theater,May 2016.Heidi is the composer of The Good Swimmer, with librettist Donna DiNovelli, presented by Prototype Festival January 2016 at the space HERE in NYC,and scored her first film I Dream Too Much, which had it's world premiere at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival.
Learn moreBorn and raised in Asheville, NC; bred and perfected in the cities of Las Vegas, Atlanta and Portland, The Real Hyjinx is an infusion of music and comedy that has made him a fast-rising all around entertainer. He has appeared on AMC's Showville (Summer '13) as a finalist and was voted Fan Favorite. He is a well known performer and has hosted many events throughout the Pacific Northwest. He also co-produces a weekly open mic (The Real Comedy Spot) and a monthly showcase (The House of Hyjinx) and co-founder of the NW Black Comedy Festival. The Real Hyjinx has shared the stage with Rodney Perry (The Monique Show), Honest John (The Wash), the late great Ricky Harris (Everybody Hates Chris), Ralph Porter (BET's CommicView), Tony Roberts & Easu McGraw (Lil Yellow Bus Tour), Nate Jackson (Wild' N Out), Eric Blake (P. Diddy Presents Bad Boys of Comedy) to name a few. He also co-hosted a radio show on 99.1 FM Portland Radio Project titled Soulfull Saturdays. He can currently be seen hosting and performing in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Learn moreThe Suicide Kings are a spoken word power-house comprised of Geoff Trenchard, Jamie DeWolf, and Rupert Estanislao. Collectively, they are known for their explosive live performances combining gritty punk rock theatrics, a cappella hip-hop and vaudeville comedy. The Kings also facilitate workshops and host slams for the inmates in San Quentin Penitentiary and create feature length performances with at-risk youth. Their work has been featured on two seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, UPN, 60 Minutes and radio stations from the Midwest to the Phillipines.
Learn moreWith legendary bits like their signature audience participation costume changes and Guns n Roses trapeze act, The Wau Wau Sisters are widely recognized by their peers for revolutionizing circus aesthetics and carving out a new niche for circus events – where high physical skill, comedy chops, burlesque and outright nudity mix with just the right splashes of chaos and irreverence are so close and palpable you can see the tear in their fishnets, the sinew of their muscles and the sweat on their skin! Don’t miss them as they fly through their trapeze routines with all the adrenaline and abandon of a rock concert, deconstruct the humor and paradigms of country and heavy metal music, while playing matching guitars and barely sitting on one another’s shoulders! They do it all in a festive, freewheeling hour that keeps the audience guessing every second, who’s in control and for how long?!
They have made appearances at these fantastic festivals and venues: The World Famous Spiegeltent,(VAC, Edinburgh, Auckland, Sydney, NYC), Lincoln Center (NYC), The Mayan Theater (Los Angeles), The Roundhouse (London), Olivia Cruise Lines, Feast Festival (Adelaide), Soho Bar (London), El Cid (Los Angeles), The Grammys (Los Angeles Staples Center), Irving Plaza (NYC), The Palms (Las Vegas), CBGB’s (NYC), The Hammerstein Ballroom (NYC), Joe’s Pub (NYC), The Bowery Ballroom (NYC), The Henry Fonda Theater (Los Angeles), The Pica Festival (Portland, OR), Edinburgh Fringe Festival/The Pleasance (Scotland), The Jermyn St. Theater (West End, London) , The Art House, Crown & Anchor (Provincetown, MA), Philadelphia Fringe Festival (Philadelphia, PA), Sydney Festival, Auckland Festival among countless other cities and venues!!
They’ve been profiled or featured in the pages of: The Village Voice, The New York Post, Time Out New York, Time Out London, The New York Times, Jane, BUST and New York Magazine, The Guardian, Metro, VENUS, The Sun, LA Weekly, GONYC, French Vogue, Spectacle, The Australian, The Times (London, Scotland), Sydnay Morning Herald and countless others!
Television & Film exploits include the feature film “Shortbus” by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), the film “Who’s the Top?” by Jenny Livingston (Paris Is Burning), ABC Australia’s “Sideshow”, Nipon TV’s “Good Morning Japan”, “The Isaac Mizrahi Show” w/ Rosie Perez, NPR’s “The Next Big Thing”, “Live From Downtown”, “The Sharon Osbourne Show”, and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Learn moreThe Wooster Group is an ensemble of artists who make new work for the theatre, dance and media. The Group has created over 40 pieces since its first in 1976.
Elizabeth LeCompte, a founding member of The Wooster Group, has directed all of the company's works. Her honors and awards include a NEA Distinguished Artists Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in American Theater, a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a US Artists Fellowship and a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Selected Press
Two Experimentalists Under One Roof, Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, March 26, 2010.
Learn moreThird Angle New Music Ensemble is one of the foremost producers and performers of contemporary chamber music in the United States, and is recognized as a primary creative force in the cultural landscape of Portland and the Pacific Northwest. Since 1985, Third Angle has presented more than 90 programs of contemporary music, commissioned more than 25 new works and released nine recordings to critical acclaim.
Learn moreThomas Lauderdale (piano) was raised on a plant nursery in rural Indiana. He began piano lessons at age six with Patricia Garrison. When his family moved to Portland in 1982, he began studying with Sylvia Killman, who continues to this day as his coach and mentor. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Oregon Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Chamber Music Northwest and Oregon Ballet Theatre (where he collaborated with choreographer James Canfield and visual artists Storm Tharp and Malia Jensen on a ballet based on Felix Salten’s Bambi, written in 1923).
Active in Oregon politics since a student at U.S. Grant High School (where he was student body president), Thomas served under Portland Mayor Bud Clark and Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt. He also worked under Portland City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury on the drafting and passage of the city’s civil rights ordinance. He graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in History and Literature in 1992. He spent most of his collegiate years, however, in cocktail dresses, taking on the role of “cruise director” … throwing waltzes with live orchestras and ice sculptures, disco masquerades with gigantic pineapples on wheels, midnight swimming parties, and operating a Tuesday night coffeehouse called Café Mardi.
Instead of running for political office, Lauderdale founded the ‘little orchestra” called Pink Martini in 1994 to play political fundraisers for progressive causes such as civil rights, the environment, affordable housing and public broadcasting. In addition to his work with Pink Martini, Lauderdale collaborates with international superstar and singing sensation Meow Meow, the surf band Satan’s Pilgrims and novelist/writer Tom Spanbauer. In Spring 2008, Lauderdale completed his first film score for Chiara Clemente’s documentary Our City Dreams, a portrait of five New York City-based women artists of different generations. In 2008, he performed as the featured piano soloist in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia with the Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland under the direction of Roger Doyle, and Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F with the Oregon Symphony under the direction of Christoph Campestrini.
Lauderdale currently serves on the boards of the Oregon Symphony and Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon.
Learn moreTran is a visual artist living in Brooklyn, New York. For five years, she worked with all her best friends in front of and behind the camera as host and creator of FOOD PARTY, the cutest imaginable, 4:20-friendly TV show about food. FOOD PARTY ran for five episodes on YouTube and 26 episodes on the Independent Film Channel. Tran has been named one of Paper Magazine’s Most Beautiful People and has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and ABC News for her work.
Learn moreTim DuRoche is a jazz and sound artist living in Portland whose work ranges from live performance to installation, including projects with Tere Mathern Dance, Linda K Johnson, and Cydney Wilkes.
Learn moreTim Etchells is an artist and writer based in the UK, and the artistic director of the performance group Forced Entertainment. His work spans performance, video, photography, text projects, installation, and fiction.
Thoughts on Autoteatro and The Quiet Volume, Ant Hampton, La Otra Parte (Buenos Aires), November 2010.
The Quiet Volume - Review, Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, April 17, 2011. Learn moreTim Hecker is a Canadian-based musician and sound artist, born in Vancouver. Since 1996, he has produced a range of audio works for Kranky, Alien8, Mille Plateaux, Room40, Force Inc, Staalplaat, and Fat Cat. Hecker’s work is focused on digital and organic sound sources that often combine treated instrumentation, synthesizer, digital software, and effects pedals. His works have been described as “structured ambient”, “tectonic color plates” and “cathedral electronic music.” The New York Times has described his work as “foreboding, abstract pieces in which static and sub-bass rumbles open up around slow moving notes and chords, like fissures in the earth waiting to swallow them whole.” His Harmony in Ultraviolet received critical acclaim, including being recognized by Pitchfork as a top recording of 2006. Radio Amor was also recognized as a key recording of 2003 by Wire magazine. His work has also included commissions for contemporary dance, sound-art installations, as well as various writings.
Selected Press:
"First Listen: Tim Hecker, 'Virgins'," Peter Macia, NPR, October 6, 2013.
"Tim Hecker: Attack of the Drones," Christopher R. Weingarten, SPIN, October 10, 2013.
Tim Hecker review, Mike Powell, Pitchfork, October 15, 2013.
Learn moreTimothy White Eagle is a mixed race artist. He graduated from the University of Utah with a BFA in theater. His art practice rises from a decades-long exploration of traditional ritual and embodiment practice. His preferred mediums include objects, photography, durational performance, storytelling, and installed space.
He has served as an artist-in-residence at Town Hall and On The Boards in Seattle, as well as La Mama ETC in NYC. Timothy was the recipient of the WAA/AIP Launch Pad award in 2019 as well as a Seattle City Artist award in 2020.
Timothy toured internationally as one of the artistic directors and a performer with MacArthur Fellow Taylor Mac’s Pulitzer Prize finalist “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.”
Timothy’s new ritual performance work, “What To Do When The Air Returns,” will premiere at LaMama in November 2021.
Learn moreTimothy Yanick Hunter (b. 1990 Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is an artist and curator based in Toronto. Hunter’s practice employs strategies of bricolage, archival exploration, reference, citation, and exploring remix and rearrangement as methods of practice. His approach alternates between exploratory and didactic, with a focus on the political, cultural, and social richness of the Black diaspora. Hunter’s work often delves into speculative narratives and the intersections of physical space, digital space, and the intangible.
Hunter received his BA from the University of Toronto, and has been an artist in residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada, and Black Rock Senegal. He was included in the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art and longlisted for the 2022 Sobey Art Award. He has exhibited nationally and internationally at the Center for Art, Research and Alliances in New York (2023), Cooper Cole, Toronto (2022), Bamako Encounters – African Biennale of Photography, Bamako (2022), Gallery 44, Toronto (2021); A Space Gallery, Toronto (2020); among others. Hunter lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Learn moreTim Reid makes theater, writes, teaches, performs. He takes analytic thought to absurd ends, looking for rupture and frames. The work is about love and trouble. He has made and directed pieces at PAM Residencies, Machine Project, and Highways, and performed at Pieter, REDCAT, Night Gallery, USC Visions and Voices, the Hammer Museum, and Links Hall, among others. He is a co-curator at PAM Residencies, a co-editor at Riting.org, was an ensemble member of The Neo-Futurists in Chicago and an original member of Wet The Hippo in Los Angeles. Most recently, he has researched and written on both melodrama and clown. He has a BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA from CalArts in Critical Studies.
Learn moreHalf Straddle is an Obie-winning, Brooklyn-based ensemble of performers and designers that makes plays, performances, videos, and music led by Artistic Director Tina Satter. This critically acclaimed company began in 2008, and has toured its shows to cities throughout U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Tina Satter is an American writer, director, and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn-based, Obie-winning theater company Half Straddle. She is a recipient of a 2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award; a 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award, and was named an Off-Off Broadway Innovator to Watch by Time Out New York. She has written and directed 9 full-length shows and a number of smaller performance and video pieces with Half Straddle that have premiered in New York City. Tina’s work has been presented at theaters and festivals in Europe, Asia, Australia, and other U.S. cities. Tina has had residencies at Yaddo, Headlands Center for the Arts, LMCC, The Performing Garage, Kitchen L.A.B., MASS MoCA, and New Museum for Contemporary Art. She’s been a visiting artist at Princeton University, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, Reed College, and Fordham University—and a visiting playwriting professor at the University of Michigan. Drawing on her recent teaching work, Tina has been developing and leading generative writing and directing workshops to participants from a range of backgrounds and experience. Tina attended Mac Wellman’s graduate playwriting program at Brooklyn College and received an M.A. from Reed College and a B.A. from Bowdoin College. Her first collection of plays, Seagull (Thinking of you), was published by 53rd State Press in 2014.
Learn moreTonya Lockyer is the Executive/Artistic Director of Velocity, Seattle’s premier arts center and essential incubator dedicated to contemporary dance and movement-based art. Lockyer has overseen the significant artistic expansion of Velocity including: the development of Velocity’s first humanities programs, initiating an Artist-in-Residence program; commissioning and developing more than forty new works of performance, installation and film; and the presentation of over a hundred contemporary performances by established and emerging artists including zoe | juniper, Keith Hennessy, Faye Driscoll, Jennifer Monson, Ralph Lemon, Miguel Gutierrez, Amy O’Neal, Danielle Agami.
As an educator Lockyer has taught inter/nationally with a focus on her research at the intersections of performance, embodiment and social action. Lockyer is an Affiliated Faculty Member of Cornish College of the Arts since 2001. She has taught Art & Social Justice, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Movement Analysis, Somatics; as well as Dance Technique, Choreography, Improvisation, History, and Choreographic Culture since 1960. In 2010, Lockyer coordinated Cornish’s yearlong, citywide Merce Cunningham Project. Her course "Live Art and Choreographic Culture Since 1960" was an inaugural course of the Center for Performance Studies at The University of Washington. She is published in international journals, exhibition catalogues and the book Vu du Corps: Lisa Nelson Movement et Perception. Her essay "Quiet Riot: Modern Dance as Embodied Feminism" is required reading in the curriculums of Texas Women's University and Cornish College of the Arts.
Lockyer is an accomplished artist with more than twenty-years experience commissioned and presenting her work internationally. She has received awards and commissions from Arts International, The Canada Council, The Banff Center, Artist Trust and On the Boards among others, for projects including inter-cultural collaborations, 24-hour improvisations, and large-scale site-specific performances. She holds an MFA from The University of Washington, is a Certified Movement Analyst, and participated in the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance/Wesleyan.
Learn moreTrajal Harrell’s work has been presented in New York and across the US at venues including New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, American Realness Festival, ICA Boston, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 122, and Walker Arts Center, among others. Internationally, his work has toured in France, Switzerland, Portugal, Japan, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Poland, Croatia, Brazil, and Mexico, and has shown his performances in visual art contexts such as Performa, Fondation Cartier (Paris), The New Museum, The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Art Basel-Miami Beach, as well as galleries in Tokyo, Berlin, and New York. His latest works have been seen in 2013 at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and MoMA PS1.
Learn moreTravis Stewart is a contemporary Northwest artist of Chinook, Rogue River, and Kalapuya descent. He lives in Grand Ronde, Oregon, and works in a variety of mediums to depict stories defined by the cultural landscape and design of the Willamette Valley and Columbia River people. He also works as a curator at Chachalu Museum and Cultural Center (Grand Ronde, OR) and has devoted his life to the preservation of the art and culture of the tribes of Western Oregon. Travis is a founding member of the Shawash Ili?i Kanim Tilixam, which is a nonprofit cultural preservation group and canoe family that works to impart traditional teachings to at-risk tribal youth through song, dance, language, and art.
Learn moreTyler Wallace is a Portland-based artist working in video, installation, and performance to investigate concepts of identity and personal history. Nicole Dill is a Portland-based artist whose work interrogates the function of celebrity culture in contemporary society through photography, performance, audio, sculpture, and installation. Both Wallace and Dill recently defended their theses at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and received their BFAs in May 2009.
"Between Us," Leah Bobal, PNCA UNTITLED.
Learn moreTyler White is a young, black, De La Salle North Catholic High School student, community organizer, blogger and cultural enthusiast. White has spent his last year interviewing Portlanders, exploring the nuances of gentrification and recently, producing a show with OPB, The Future of the American Dream. He formally holds the titles of Project Coordinator and Chief Blogger for the I Love This Place Project, Youth Outreach Coordinator for the CENTER (part of Catlin Gabel’s PLACE program), along with being a member of many other organizations and boards.
Learn moreBraxton has been writing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively, under various group titles, since the mid-1990s. He is the former front man of experimental rock band Battles, whose debut album Mirrored was both a critical and commercial success. Since departing Battles in 2010, Braxton has focused on composing music for HIVE, as well as composing commissioned pieces for ensembles such as The Bang on a Can All Stars, Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, and Brooklyn Rider. In 2012, he collaborated with Philip Glass during the ATP I'll Be Your Mirror festival. He has also performed his orchestral work Central Market with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and New York’s Wordless Music Orchestra. His newest album HIVE1 was released this year by Nonesuch Records.
Learn moreWoolly is an aesthetically-inclined, trans-pop-culture, dance-therapy performance group formed in Portland, OR in 2006. They have performed in venues ranging between burned-out buildings, black box theaters, Mexican bars, fields of llamas, cowboy dance halls, and downtown alleyways. Traversing between hilarious absurdity and a dark intensity, they bring audiences to the precipice of tantalizing confusion.
Selected Press
Ultra Q: Woolly Mammoth Comes to Dinner, Lisa Radon, ultrapdx.com, January 14, 2008. (PDF)
Learn moreYo La Tengo is a critically acclaimed indie rock band from Hoboken, New Jersey. They’ve recorded twelve studio albums, written soundtracks to the films Junebug, Shortbus, and Old Joy, and provided a score for the surrealist aquatic films of Jean Painlevé.
Learn moreYOUNG JEAN LEE (Artistic Director) is an OBIE award-winning playwright and director who has been called “the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation” by the New York Times and “one of the best experimental playwrights in America” by Time Out New York. She has written and directed nine shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and toured her work to over twenty cities around the world. Her plays have been published by Theatre Communications Group (Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays, The Shipment and Lear) and by Samuel French (Three Plays by Young Jean Lee). She is currently under commission from Plan B/Paramount Pictures, Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. She has received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Creative Capital, NYFA, NEA, NYSCA, the Jerome Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and the Rockefeller MAP Foundation. She is also the recipient of two OBIE awards, the Festival Prize of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel, a 2010 Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award.
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