Artists Archive
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Adela Demetja is a curator and author born in 1984 in Tirana, Albania. She holds a Master's Degree in Curatorial and Critical Studies from Goethe University and Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Demetja was first trained as a painter and studied from 2002 to 2006 at Academy of Art in Tirana, Albania. She is the director of Tirana Art Lab – Center for Contemporary Art, Albania's leading independent art institution, which she established in 2010. As an independent curator, she has organized, managed, and curated numerous international exhibitions and events in a number of European countries. In 2016, she was appointed curator of Focus: Ex-Yugoslavia and Albania at viennacontemporary international art fair in Vienna, Austria. In 2015, she co-curated the Third Edition of the International Contemporary Project Biennale D-0 Ark Underground, which took place in the anti-atom shelter build by Tito in Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other thematic exhibitions she has curated include: The aesthetic of the small act at Action, Action Field Kodra Festival in Thessaloniki, Greece and Voices of Truth in Villa Roman, Florence, Italy. As an author, she writes exhibition reviews, catalogue texts, and articles for online platforms and publications in Albania and throughout Europe.
Learn moreAlissa DeRubeis lives in Portland, where she works for 4MS and S1. A co-founder of the S1 Synth Library, Alissa enjoys teaching intro workshops, facilitating library hours, and patching pre-amps and resonant filters. Her interests include playing music, curating, collaborating, education, improvisation, sharing, and experiments.
Learn moreAndrew Dickson has been part of the PICA community for over two decades, first as an artist premiering shows like AC Dickson: eBay PowerSeller, Sell Out, and Life Coach at the Time-Based Art Festival, and for the past six years as a board member. He’s also a storyteller and host of The Moth, co-host of the podcast BACKFENCE Unhinged, and is developing his Life Coach performance into a web series.
Learn moreAndrew Dinwiddie and Jeff Larson are performers and creators in Brooklyn. Together, they curate a dance, theater, performance, and video series called Catch. They premiered Get Mad at Sin !, their first full-length collaboration, at the Chocolate Factory Theater, with sound design by Jon Moniaci, set design by Sara C. Walsh, and lighting design by Chlöe Z. Brown. They have recently presented the show at Minneapolis’ Bryant-Lake Bowl and in Austin’s Fusebox Festival. Dinwiddie is a frequent performer with David Neumann / Advanced Beginner Group, and Larson is currently designing video for Big Dance Theater.
Selected Press
Not Exactly Preaching to the Choir, Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, June 2, 2010.
Andrew Dinwiddie at the Chocolate Factory, Andy Horowitz, Culturebot, May 28, 2010.
Learn moreAntoine Defoort tries to maintain a good atmosphere and a high level of porosity between his seasonal whims, life, as in real life, and contemporary art. He therefore often finds himself struggling with blatant contradictions that are either proudly assumed or shamefully hidden through the use of mind numbing non-sequiturs and wild digressions. Failures and accidents are welcomed with open arms and create a crispy granularity particularly appreciated by connoisseurs. Together, Julien Fournet, Antoine Defoort and Halory Goerger co-founded l’amicale de production, a small production house in Lille / Brussels (France / Belgium) For greater context and a more in-depth exploration of Antonie Defoort and his collaborative work with Halory Goerger, 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 moreBen Darwish is a pianist and composer who has been playing music since the age of six. He attended University of Oregon and received a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies. Upon graduation, he was awarded "Outstanding Undergraduate Performer in Jazz Studies." Darwish has played with many artists, including Kevin Mohagany, Rich Perry, Ron Miles, Devin Phillips, Esperanza Spalding, Alan Jones, Reggie Watts, Bill Summers (of The Headhunters), Stephanie Schneiderman, Ohmega Watts, and Ryan Dolliver. In 2009, he was nominated for “Outstanding Achievement In Jazz” by the 2009 Portland Music Awards and recently released his second album Ode To Consumerism with his band, the Ben Darwish Trio.
Learn moreChoreographer Suniti Dernovsek and visual artist David Stein began making work together in 2004 under the name Hot Little Hands, which, in 2011, evolved into the Portland-based contemporary dance company bobbevy. In addition to 18 shorter works, Dernovsek and Stein have produced six evening-length shows: This is how we disappear (2013); Palace of Crystal (2011); ill-starred (2009); Lawn of the Limp (2008); Avian Fable (2007); and Marionette (2004). They have been presented by Conduit Dance, Reed College Arts Week, Danspace in NYC, Velocity Dance Center, Northwest New Works at On the Boards, Ten Tiny Dances’ South Waterfront Project, and PICA’s Time-Based Art Festival. They have received several grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, as well as the Dance New Work Award from UWM.
Learn moreChristi Denton is a Portland based composer and sound installation artist who works with found sounds, electronics, and homemade and modified instruments.
Learn mored.a. carter is a writer, teacher, and cognac sipper. He is co-editor of The Iconic Obama, 2007-2009: Essays on Media Representations of the Candidate and New President (2012). He is currently completing Obscene Material, a book examining black girlhood and scandal in 1919 Washington, D.C. and is also a member of the Queering Slavery Working Group, an interdisciplinary scholarly collective that uses Tumblr to place black queer studies in conversation with the history of enslavement: http://qswg.tumblr.com and http://qswgremix.tumblr.com. He is an assistant professor of Black Studies at Portland State University, with research interests in 20th Century African American History, gender and sexuality studies, and black cultural studies.
Learn moreDakhaBrakha is music quartet from Kyiv, Ukraine. Reflecting fundamental elements of sound and soul, Ukrainian “ethno chaos” band DakhaBrakha creates a world of unexpected new music. DakhaBrakha was created in 2004 at the Kyiv Center of Contemporary Art “DAKH” by the avant-garde theatre director Vladyslav Troitskyi, and given the name that means “give/take” in old Ukrainian. Theatre work has left its mark on the band performances—their shows have never been staged without a strong visual element.
After experimenting with Ukrainian folk music, the band has added rhythms of the surrounding world into their music, thus creating the bright, unique and unforgettable sound of DakhaBrakha. They strive to help open up the potential of Ukrainian melodies and to bring it to the hearts and consciousness of the younger generation in Ukraine and the rest of the world. Accompanied by Indian, Arabic, African, Russian and Australian traditional instrumentation, the quartet’s powerful and uncompromising vocal range creates a trans-national sound rooted in Ukrainian culture. At the crossroads of Ukrainian folklore and theatre, their musical spectrum is at first intimate then riotous, plumbing the depths of contemporary roots and rhythms, inspiring cultural and artistic liberation.
In March 2010, DakhaBrakha won the prestigious Grand Prix prize named after S.Kuriokhin, in the sphere of contemporary art, and confirmed its place in the culture once again. They have played hundreds of concerts, performances, and have taken part in major international festivals throughout Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, Asia, Australia, and North America. DakhaBrakha has also collaborated with such international musicians as: Port Mone (By), Kimmo Pohjonen Cluster (Fi), Karl Frierson (DePhazz) (Ge), Steve Cooney (IRL), Inna Zhelannaya (Ru), Kievbass (UA), Djam (UA-Iran), and David Ingibaryan (Hu).
Learn moreDakota Camacho is a Matao•CHamoru multi-disciplinary artist / researcher working in spaces of Indigenous lifeways, performance, musical composition, community engagement, and education.
Learn moreDana Michel is a choreographer and performer based in Montreal, Canada. Her practice is rooted in exploring the disorderly multiplicity of identity using intuitive improvisation and image creation. Before entering the BFA in Contemporary Dance program at Concordia University in her late twenties, she was a marketing executive, competitive runner, and football player. In 2011, She received a danceWEB scholarship, allowing her to deepen her research process at ImPulsTanz (Vienna, Austria). She has been making and internationally touring work for the past nine years.
Michel’s newest solo, Yellow Towel, premiered at the 2013 Festival TransAmériques (Montreal) to critical acclaim. The work featured on the “Top Ten” 2013 dance moments in Dance Current Magazine (Canada) and was recently singled out as one of the most remarkable productions at the 2014 American Realness Festival (New York City) by The New York Times. In August 2014, she received the ImpulsTanz Award for artistic excellence in life.
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 moreLike an explosion, DBC unleashes on assault of screaming synthesizers, demonic beats, laser lit fog and passionate singing akin to a Black Mass given by Morrissey.
The Dangerous Boys Club is the baby birthed by Aaron Montaigne (singer), Mac Mann (Synth/electronique Organ) of the legendary 90′s harcore bands Antioch Arrow and Get Hustle. Started in the fog of Portland Oregon in 2009, DBC adopted Mark Burden (bass) of Silentist / Glass Candy and Sam Ott (electronique drums) of Year Future to create a very Unique experimental / pop / noise / dark wave inspired by Roxy Music, Soul Side, Suicide the Misfits and David Bowie.
in 2010 DBC released “VRIL” on Nathan Howdeshell of the GOSSIP’s Portland lable Fast Weapons and toured the west coast numerous times and tour of the east coast playing with bands such as Cold Cave, Salem, The Soft Moon and Bronze.
DBC’s second full release “PRIS” will be released on DAIS records in spring 2012 and will be touring the states and Europe.
Learn moreDan Gilsdorf is a Portland-based multimedia artist whose works address sculptural physicality using immaterial technologies such as digital video, sound, and language. He has exhibited nationally and internationally at Parko Gallery (Tokyo); the East/West project (Berlin); Artists’ Television Access (San Francisco); and Disjecta and Marylhurst Art Gym (Portland). Gilsdorf has been awarded grants and residencies from organizations including the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Selected Press
Interstate, Isaac Peterson, PORT, August 9, 2005.
Dark Corners: Dan Gilsdorf, Richard Speer, Willamette Week, November 26, 2008.
Selected Videos
Dan Gilsdorf talks about art and technology at DorkbotPDX (Vimeo)
Learn moreWinnipeg-based artist Daniel Barrow uses obsolete technologies to present written, pictorial, and cinematic narratives centering on the practices of drawing and collecting. Since 1993, he has created and adapted comic book narratives to manual forms of animation by projecting, layering, and manipulating drawings on overhead projectors. Barrow has exhibited widely in Canada and abroad. He has performed at The Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), The International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands), The Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, BC), and the Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago). Barrow is the 2007 winner of the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton award and the 2008 winner of the Images Festival’s Images Prize. Barrow is represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto.
Learn moreDaniel Kok is an alumnus of BA (Honours) Fine Art & Critical Theory at Goldsmiths College (London), MA (Distinction) Solo/Dance/Authorship (SODA) at the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT, Berlin), and the Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies (APASS) in Brussels. From 2005 to 2010, he was Associate Artist at The Substation (Singapore). In 2008, he received the Young Artist Award from National Arts Council (Singapore).
His performance work deals with the relational politics in spectatorship and audienceship. Q&A (2009), Planet Romeo (2011), Cheerleader of Europe (2014), ALPHA (2014), PIIGS (2015) and Bunny (2016) have been presented across Asia, Europe, Australia, and the USA. Kok is currently researching queerness and a notion of trans-individuality.
As a pole dancer, he won the SG Pole Challenge (2012) and represented Singapore at the International Pole Championships (IPC, 2013). He also identifies as a bondage practitioner and Thai masseur.
Learn moreDanielle Kelly is a Las Vegas-based artist and writer, who received her BA from Beloit College and her MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Working in disciplines ranging from installation to performance, she has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, and Portland.
Learn moreDao Strom is an artist who works with three “voices”—written, sung, and visual—to explore hybridity and contemplate the intersection of personal and collective histories. Using practices of polyvocality, fragmentation, and (re)assemblage, Strom writes arrangements of poetry, music, image, song, and sound, to be experienced as performance, installation, multimedia, recordings, and inside the spaces of a book. Although separate, these elements are unified by a shared (under)current that transposes itself through or despite its conduits, and endeavors toward “re-membering” and attempting to synchronize the divided ‘languages’ within the self and concerning the self as placed in the world.
Strom is the author/composer of several hybrid works, including the music/poetry project TENDER REVOLUTIONS/YELLOW SONGS (2025), and INSTRUMENT (2020), which won the 2022 Oregon Book Award for Poetry, and its musical companion of song-poems, TRAVELER’S ODE. She co-curated and co-edited the hybrid-literary anthology and exhibition, A Mouth Holds Many Things (2024), and released an album of ambient-folk songs, Redux (2022). She is also the author of a bilingual poetry-art collection, You Will Always Be Someone From Somewhere Else; a hybrid-form memoir, We Were Meant To Be a Gentle People, with song cycle, East/West; and two books of fiction. Her work has received support from the Creative Capital Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation, Ford Foundation, Precipice Fund, NEA, and others. She is the co-founder of She Who Has No Master(s), a collective of Vietnamese women writers and artists making polyvocal poetry-art works; and de-canon, a literary social art project centering BIPOC writers. Born in Vietnam, Strom grew up in the Sierra Nevadas of northern California and now lives in Portland, OR.
Learn moreDavid Commander’s In Flight questions the reliability of two modern comforts: airplanes and news media. Aboard a crashing airliner, a banal drama unfolds as the puppet passengers relax with daytime talk show reruns and SkyMall infomercials. In Flight mocks our cultural embrace of misinformation and our limitless potential for mass apathy, even in the face of immediate danger. Commander has been a member of Big Art Group for 12 years, working as a performer, assistant director, videographer, and miniature set/prop builder. Outside of the group, he has written, directed, and performed in his own works at the NYC International Fringe Festival, the 2007 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the Toy Theater After Dark Festival in Minneapolis
Learn moreDavid Eckard is an artist, educator, and performer based in Portland, Oregon. His practice as a visual artist includes fabricated objects, drawings and prints, installations and performances. Through these varied approaches and diverse presentational strategies, Eckard fabricates residual, fictive artifacts, creates biomorphic, sexualized schematics, assembles arrested moments and orchestrates transient theatrics and temporary monuments for incidental audiences in civic spaces. Futility, authority, theatricality and persona enter into his creative explorations as notions to investigate, critique, utilize and exploit. Solo shows include Kim Foster Galley, New York; Fassbender Gallery, Chicago; Consolidated Works, Seattle; and Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland. He has performed at PICA’s TBA Festival in 2004, 2006, and 2011, and for Northwest New Works at On The Boards, Seattle, in 2005. Eckard was awarded the Bonnie Bronson Fellowship for 2010, was one of the inaugural recipients of the Hallie Ford Fellowship in Visual Arts for 2010, and was a Juror’s Award recipient at the 2006 Oregon Biennial. Selected Press David Eckard's Liveries (summer stock) at Mark Woolley Gallery, Jeff Jahn, PORT, July 28, 2007.
Learn moreA multi-disciplinary artist and 2006 Guggenheim Fellow in Choreography, Dayna Hanson has been creating dance, film and performance in Seattle for more than 20 years. She was one-half of dance/theater company 33 Fainting Spells and a founding member of Run/Remain Ensemble. She has performed her work at venues including Dance Theater Workshop, On the Boards, Wexner Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, and ICA in London. Hanson’s award-winning dance films have screened worldwide at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, New York Film Festival and Melbourne International Festival of Arts, and can be found on First Run Features’ Dance For Camera DVD.
As Co-Artistic Director of 33 Fainting Spells, Dayna Hanson co-curated New Dance Cinema from 1999–2003. With 33 Fainting Spells and independently, Hanson’s award-winning dance films have screened worldwide, including at Edinburgh International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Festival Internacional de Videodanza de Buenos Aires and Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. Hanson recently directed a mini-documentary for MTV.com about Seattle band The Dutchess and the Duke and choreographed a dance scene for Korean director Tae Yong Kim’s feature film, Late Autumn.
Selected Press
A clever musing on our demise, Alice Kaderlan, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 2, 2006.
Learn moreDB Amorin (b. Honolulu, Hawai'i) is an interdisciplinary media artist who explores audio-visual non-linearity as a container for intersectional experience. He frequently emphasizes the generative role of error as an opportunity for creation, resulting in media-centered projects driven by DIY methodologies, lo-fi translations, and persistent, inquisitive experimentation with available materials.
His work has garnered awards from esteemed organizations including the Jersey City Arts Council, Oregon Arts Commission, the Ford Family Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Precipice Fund grant funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Calligram Foundation and administered by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). His visual art, performances, curatorial & collaborative programming have been presented internationally at A4 Arts Foundation; the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival; Onassis Foundation; ICA at MECA&D; Luggage Store Gallery; Soundwave ((7)) Biennial; PICA; Portland Art Museum; the Honolulu Museum of Art; Honolulu Biennial 2019.
Learn moreDean & Britta are Dean Wareham and Britta Philips, formerly of iconic 90s band Luna. Started by Wareham in 1992, Luna made seven studio albums and played their final shows in 2005. Prior to Luna, Wareham fronted Galaxie 500. Philips joined Luna in 2000, before which she played in several bands, starred in the movie Satisfaction, and was the singing voice of 80s cartoon character JEM. The duo released L’Avventura, an album of covers and duets, in 2005, and Back Numbers in 2009. Dean & Britta have scored several films, most notably Noah Baumbach’s The Squid & The Whale.
Selected Press
For Warhol Visitors and Would-be Superstars, 4 Minutes of Mystique, Stephen Holden, The New York Times, January 19, 2009.
Learn moreDean Daderko is Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. His first exhibition at CAMH, It is what it is. Or is it? (2012), explored how contemporary artists have recast the readymade to address a variety of social, political, and temporal concerns as this artistic form nears its 100th anniversary. Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas & Gina Pane (2013) brings together a selection of works made between 1965 and 2010 by two foundational performance artists with multidisciplinary practices working in New York and Paris respectively. His upcoming CAMH exhibitions include a solo exhibition of documentary work by LaToya Ruby Frazier, which will travel to the ICA Boston. Previously working as an independent curator based in New York, Daderko has mounted curatorial projects in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Montreal, Canada; and Vilnius, Lithuania, among other locations. He has also organized programming for Art in General, Artists’ Space, The Kitchen, and Visual AIDS in New York. Daderko has been a graduate seminar instructor at Yale University School of Art where he led the course Queer Strategies, and a visiting curator at Centro de Investigaciones Artisticas in Buenos Aires; Cooper Union School of the Arts in New York; the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris; M.I.T. in Cambridge, MA; and the University of Houston. He writes and speaks extensively in conjunction with his exhibitions, and his writing has been published in catalogues by CAMH, The Studio Museum in Harlem, El Museo del Barrio, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The Americas’ Society, and Rutgers University.
Learn moreYou seen her on BET comic view, and also she was a finalist in funny is Mom’s in America. She has been in the business over 30 years and has open for all the fellow comedians such as Jamie Foxx,Sinbad, And recently perform at the Northwest black comedy festival with Marsha Warfield that is just a few. She believes laughter is a healer and is known as comedy nurse because she knows the power of laughter, she is the diva Comedy Debbie Wooten.
Learn moreDeborah Hay is an American choreographer, dancer, dance theorist, and author working in the field of experimental postmodern dance. She is one of the original founders of the Judson Dance Theater.
Learn moreFounded in 2015, Deep Under Ground (DUG) is a community-based arts platform that curates intentional gatherings in support of local artistry striving to encourage young, diverse talent to change the landscape of the Portland arts community. Through organizing and making art, DUG’s intention is to uplift individuals and synchronize different avenues of expression; emphasizing artistic cultivation as an essential outlet to every individual and community.
Learn moreDemian DinéYazhi´ (born 1983) is a Portland-based Diné transdisciplinary artist, poet, and curator born to the clans Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) & Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water). Their practice is a regurgitation of purported Decolonial praxis informed by the over accumulation and exploitative supremacist nature of hetero-cis-gendered communities post colonization. They are a survivor of attempted european genocide, forced assimilation, manipulation, sexual and gender violence, capitalist sabotage, and hypermarginalization in a colonized country that refuses to center their politics and philosophies around the Indigenous Peoples whose Land they occupy and refuse to give back. They live and work in a post-post-apocalyptic world unafraid to fail.
Instagram @heterogeneoushomosexual
Learn moreDescending Pharaohs is an ethno-psych project soundtracking the alleyway fight scenes to near-eastern films of the ’70s. Half structure/half improvisation, drawing influence from Arabic/Anatolian electric music, spiritual jazz, British psych, and the heavier side of Krautrock, Descending Pharaohs is Ricardo Esway (Militant Children’s Hour, Gazillions, Gamelan Sekar) on guitar; Larold Will (Les Etrangers, Topiary Kings, Brainwarmer) on drums and electronics; and Theo Khoury (Tunneler, Gaza Tunnels) on bass, oud, and djoura.
Learn moredevynn emory is a mixed Lenape/Blackfoot transgender choreographer, dance artist, bodyworker, ceremonial guide, acute care and hospice nurse currently working as a COVID-19 nurse in NYC. emory's performance company devynnemory/beastproductions draws from their multiple in-between states of being, holding space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition. their formal dance training pulls on mathematical and mapped scores to support bodies decolonizing and bleeding human truths, opening peep holes and revelations for collective performers and audiences. they are currently working on a trilogy centering medical mannequins processing transitional mediumship. deadbird with it’s touring public altar can anyone help me hold this body will be first. Cindy Sessions and boiling-rain are to follow which are interactive storytelling projects with an elder mannequin holding a collection of grandmother wisdom. As a healer they have dual licenses in "western" and "eastern" bodywork and run a private practice sage-massage that offers end of life consultation, channeled counseling and hands on care modalities in conversation with thresholds. you can find their work at devynnemory.com and sage-massage.
Learn moreDez Ramirez is a writer, filmmaker, artist and DJ. Known as DJ La Cosmica, Dez has been a member of the Noche Libre DJ Collective since 2018, and has hosted, recorded and produced episodes of Radio Noche Libre! on XRAY FM. Currently living between the Mojave Desert, Los Angeles, and Portland - La Cosmica's style and musical curation ranges widely as she draws from the influences of dramatic wilderness, urban vibrancy, and the pulse of collective and radical liberation in the communities in which she lives and creates. Recent flavors consist of electrocumbia, electronica, house, synth, R&B, bass, reggaeton, norteno, salsa, and disco.
Find her at:
@silver_mother
Learn moreDisorientalism is an ongoing collaboration between Katherine Behar and Marianne M. Kim. Through live performance, video, and photographic projects, the duo explores how technologized labor, junk culture, and consumerism mediate race, gender and bodies. In character, the Disorientals expose our hapless submersion in junk culture, and our failed attempts to rationalize it by mistakenly resorting to industriousness and work. Recent exhibitions include de la Cruz Collection in Miami, the Poznan Biennial, and The Wassiac Project. Behar and Kim have individually been supported with grants from the Franklin Furnace Fund, NEA/Dance USA, Meet the Composer, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, and the U.S. Consulate General in Leipzig.
Learn moreDJ Black Daria is a Portland-based DJ and selector of R&B, hip hop, funk, afro caribbean and latinx sounds. She co-hosts Everyday Mixtapes on XRAY.FM with DJ Shi Shi (Saturdays 5-6pm) and is a part of the Noche Libre collective. She draws inspiration from her Black and Latinx roots and brings a variety of bass-heavy, beat-laden sounds to the Northwest scene. She holds a residency at Dig a Pony and the 1905.
Learn moreDJ Klyph has been bringing the very best from the northwest and worldwide to the airwaves since ’09. Featuring hip hop, funk, soul, and providing a platform for artists that are often underserved to share exclusive content like in-studio interviews and on-air rhyme sessions. A fan of conscious hip hop with a lean towards the golden era east coast sound, Klyph utilizes the multimedia platforms of radio broadcast, podcasting, and visuals to impact the community consciousness and real good music.
Learn moreFounded in 2014, Dohee Lee Puri Arts (DLPA) is the producing organization of performance artist, Dohee Lee. Our mission is to create and tour multi-disciplinary performance rituals under the direction of Dohee Lee. We utilize art to heal fractured relationships in the urban environment – relationships between humans and the land and between individuals and their communities. We say "performance ritual" because Dohee's work arises from her intensive training in the practices of mudang (Korean shamanism). This tradition combines singing, dancing, drumming, costuming into communal village healing gatherings. DLPA applies this ancient, indigenous approach to community healing to our urban village of the Bay Area, updated with modern tools of multi-disciplinary immersive art. Since her arrival in the US in 2002, Dohee Lee (Artistic Director) has been a vital contributor to both the traditional and contemporary arts landscape of the Bay Area, working with Kronos Quartet, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Anna Halprin, Amara Tabor Smith, inkBoat, Kunst-Stoff Dance. Recent awards: 2016 Alpert Prize, Music; 2016 Rainin Grant; Korean Americans for Peace, 2016 Korean American Peace Award; 2015 CCI; 2015 Doris Duke Impact, Theater; 2015 Gerbode, Choreographer; 2015 Ucross Residency; 2014 Djerassi Residency; 2014 William and Flora Hewlett Honorary Fellowship; 2013 East Bay Community Foundation; 2013 Creative Capital; 2013 MAP.
Learn moreHailed by Ms. Magazine’s end of the century issue as “a choreographer making great leaps forward into the 21st century,” Donna Uchizono is the Artistic Director of Donna Uchizono Company, a New York-based company established in 1990. Since her choreographic debut in 1990, Uchizono rapidly emerged from the “downtown scene” as a choreographer known for her spicy movement, wit, and rich invention. Donna Uchizono Company has toured throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Asia and Australia and has created work for notables Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright, Paula Vogel, MacArthur Fellow, David Hammons, and neurologist/writer Oliver Sacks.
In 2011, after decades of critically-acclaimed dance works that toured nationally and internationally, Donna Uchizono was identified by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Dance Heritage Coalition as a master choreographer whose works require preservation. Donna Uchizono Company received a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts award for Phase 1 of the archival and preservation of her work.
In addition to being a Unites States Artist, Guggenheim Fellow and a “Bessie” award winner, Uchizono has been recognized by many awards including United States Artist Award in dance, an Alpert Award in Dance, Rockefeller, the National Dance Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, Altria Group, Inc., the Jerome Foundation, Dance Magazine Seed Grant, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Arts International, Foundation for Contemporary Performance, Metropolitan Life Foundation/ADF Commission, the National Performance Network, the Suitcase Fund, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Greenwall Foundation, Meet the Composer, and the Bossak Heilbron Charitable Foundation. Uchizono has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and five New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.
Learn moreDorothée Munyaneza (Marseille, France) is a singer, writer and choreographer who spent her childhood in Rwanda. Her style of creating and performing on stage is directly inspired by what life has so intensely given her. Her artistic research draws from the diversity of her cultural heritage but more so by her appetite for encounters. In all her projects, the human dimension is especially of great importance. Her artistic curiosity and interest for a dialogue between music and other modes of expression blossomed through her participation in François Verret’s shows. In 2013, she created Compagnie Kadidi to start developing her own work, including “Samedi Détente,” her first work as a choreographer which has been presented 100 times touring all over Europe and in the USA.
Learn moreSeattle’s [self professed] hottest postmodern nightlife performance duo, Drama Tops was born of the artistic partnership of Elby Brosch and Shane Donohue. They began making work together seven years ago with the creation of a solo on two bodies. The dynamic between their trans body and cis body has created beautiful moments of frustration, competition, tenderness, and comedy. Drama Tops blends the worlds of nightlife and concert modern dance to create an interesting and unique blend of accessible and funny modern dance. You may have seen Drama Tops perform their smash hit Boys! Boys! Boys!, presented by Velocity Dance Center’s Made in Seattle program, or their self-produced show, Drama Tops, this is for you at Washington Hall in Seattle. Other performances include NW New Works Festival presented by On the Boards, Seattle, WA; Family Meal and Catharsis at Kremwerk, Seattle, WA; Heels! at Cha Cha, Seattle, WA; High F@ggotry, Seattle, WA, and more.
Learn moreDrew Michael was born in Bethel, Alaska, and raised in Eagle River, Alaska. He started his art career at the University of Alaska Anchorage in a carving class with Joe Senungetuk in 1997. From there, his practice has developed through the study of other artists' work and through his own experience in trial and error. He has learned under the guidance of Kathleen Carlo and Larry Ahvakana in Anchorage, AK.
His art is deeply influenced by the people and events he has encountered in his life. Currently, his work uses imagery of religious iconography blended with traditional mask making with the hopes of bringing to light different ways of healing. His work is created with a focus on using new materials and combinations of mixed media. He uses carving as a form of expression, to draw understanding and compassion from within, and is constantly using new materials to broaden the form of his work.
"With everything I create I aim to exemplify my thoughts on how our humanity exists within this world, emotions about my relationships with others, perceptions of energy in all things and the constant acceptance into balance. As I learn about my own path I blend my traditional knowledge with everyday living experience and somehow try to connect with that ancestral wisdom that I see us all having within and around."
Learn moreMiller & Shellabarger create artist books and public performances that examine queer identity, politics, and displays of affection and intimacy. They are recipients of a 2008 Artadia Chicago Award and a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award. Together, Miller & Shellabarger have presented their projects at venues across the United States and at art fairs including Volta in Basel; Switzerland; NEXT in Chicago; NADA in Miami; and the Affair at the Jupiter in Portland, Oregon. The two artists also maintain separate artistic practices. Miller & Shellabarger are represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago, where they live and work.
Selected Press
Run, Don't Walk, Carlos Suarez de Jesus, Miami New Times, September 17, 2009.
Learn moreDylan Mira is an artist moving between video and text, recording how language makes bodies within the limits of representation and the thickness of time. Her recent projects have been presented at Performa, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles Nomadic Division, and Human Resources. She holds an MFA in New Genres from University of California Los Angeles and a BFA in Video from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Learn moreFaye Driscoll (b. 1975, California, lives and works in New York) is an award winning art and performance maker who uses an alchemy of bodies and voices, objects and live sound to conjure worlds that are, like ourselves, alive and forever changeable. She creates immersive worlds of sensorial complexity and perceptual disorientation aimed to rile up the passive, numb, screened-out body. These interventions come in the shape of intimacies: a performer holding your hand, death metal song made through recording your stomping feet, a place to rest and a private guided choreography in your ear.
In Thank You For Coming, her recently completed trilogy of performance works—Attendance (2014), Play (2016), and Space (2019)—each took a distinct genre blurring while summoning the unnamed forces that surge between the viewer and the viewed. For her first solo exhibition, at Walker Art Center, Driscoll brought the immersive experience of theater into the exhibition space, inviting viewers to become active participants through a series of prompts and subtle directives from her series of audio works, Guided Choreographies for the Living and the Dead.
She is currently the Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, and is the recipient of a Doris Duke Award, Guggenheim fellowship, a Bessie award and the Jacob’s Pillow Artist Award, among many others. Select presentations include Kunstenfestivaldesarts, La Biennale di Venezia, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Walker Art Center, Melbourne Festival, Wexner Center for the Arts, Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, Centro de Arte Experimental in Buenos Aires.
Learn moreFUTURE DEATH TOLL (F-DT) is an art-oriented collective that releases Creative Commons licensed audio and video primarily online. The elusive group creates work circumventing the normal bounds that geography (namely museums and galleries but also physical media) imposes on an art form. Armed with modular synthesizers, projectors, and uniformed in blaze orange, F-DT is a throbbing mess of noise that mutates sound and video in a sculptural fashion.
Learn moreWith strong ties to the visual art community and almost boundless creative energy, Gang Gang Dance grew out of the turn-of-the-century Null New York scene, with members who played or worked with The Cranium, Actress, Russia, SSAB Songs, and Jackie-O Motherfucker. The genesis of the band was collaborative in nature, with Brian Degraw, Tim Dewit, Lizzie Bougatsos, Nathan Maddox, and Josh Diamond experimenting in tiny practice spaces. Tragically, in 2002 Maddox was struck by lightning and killed while watching a storm on the roof of his apartment building.
By 2003, the band had refined the tribal-futurism sound to its purest form. GGD samples and processes beats and melodies, looping them into pulsating rhythms that pull from ancient traditions but deliver a modern sound. Exploring dance, performance art, theatre, DJing, film, and visual art as well as music, the group regularly performs in galleries, museums, and art fairs and was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial.
Gang Gang Dance has toured with Sonic Youth, TV on the Radio, and Animal Collective; played venues and festivals worldwide; and released four albums: Revival Of The Shittest (2004), God’s Money (2008), RAWWAR (2004), and Saint Dymphna (2004), as well as the DVD Retina Riddim (2007), a multimedia project consisting of a 33-minute art film and a 20-minute audio collage, both of which were drawn from the band’s archives and authored by band member Brian Degraw.
Learn moreIvo Dimchev is the author of more than 30 performances. He has received numerous international awards for dance and theater and has presented his work across Europe, South America, and North America. He has led master classes at the National Theater Academy in Budapest, the Royal Dance Conservatory of Belgium in Antwerp, Hochschule der Künste in Bern, Switzerland, DanceWeb in Vienna, Giessen University in Germany, the Bremen Academy of Art, and other institutions. Dimchev is the founder and director of the Humarts Foundation in Bulgaria and organizes an annual competition for contemporary Bulgarian choreography. Dimchev is currently an Artist in Residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels. In 2014, he opened MOZEI in Sofia, Bulgaria, as an independent space for presenting contemporary art and music.
Learn moreDancing has been in my blood since I can remember. It started off with hip hop dancing for my high school -- I began to recognize my skill and talent. After 4 years of that, I was introduced to the world of J-Sette by women. J-Sette historically refers to Jackson State University’s female drill team that began in the 1970s. They “created” the dance style, and thus far have made it a distinctive form of dance. I was interested in this type of dance, but not entirely until I saw a group of males performing it. At that point, I claimed the style for myself and perfected it on my body. Currently, I have my own J-Sette line, Mystic Force, and plan to increase our already considerable renown in this style of dance in our community, and eventually internationally. Previously, I served as co-captain of Dallas’ Texas Teasers. I have participated and competed in several events and competitions, including 2 SetteItOff video challenges, Atlanta Pride 2010, Tennessee Classics 2009, and Memphis Pride 2008. In 2015, I was named New Legendary by the Meet Me on the Dance Floor J-Sette council, and have gained many titles since then, such as, Best Dancer and Most Entertaining.
Re-Sette the Stage—a three-part conversation series happening in August, September, and October 2021—was conceived by Jermone Donte Beacham in partnership with jumatatu m. poe and Jamarsa Peters.
Learn moreJessica Decker is a Vice President and Wealth Advisor at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. There, she spent more than a decade advising, executing, and delivering banking, lending, planning, and wealth management services with internal and external partners. Jessica delivers comprehensive wealth strategies, advice, and services to individuals, families, nonprofits, and foundations.
Jessica delivers comprehensive wealth strategies, advice and services to individuals, families, nonprofits and foundations. She partners with clients to help pursue their wealth objectives, advising them on wealth planning, portfolio design and management, treasury management and banking services.
Passionate about building lasting relationships, Jessica listens to each individual’s stories and builds long-lasting connections. She serves as an advocate, keeping values and goals top of mind as she constructs strategies to help clients flourish. Her goal is to take extraordinary care of their financial lives and legacies by bringing to bear the platforms, specialists and thought leadership of the firm.
Jessica transitioned to J.P. Morgan in 2023 from a Senior Relationship Manager role at First Republic Bank. There, she spent more than a decade advising, executing and delivering banking, lending, planning and wealth management services with internal and external partners. Previously, Jessica served as a Corporate Finance Associate at Orca Capital, which she joined in 2012. She spent her early career in New York working for top New York galleries Castelli and Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
Jessica holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. She earned a B.A. with a dual major in Fine Art and Art History and a minor in French from Scripps College in Claremont, CA.
Jessica lives in Portland, Oregon, with her young family. She values the importance of art accessibility and is a recent board member of Converge 45, Portland’s citywide contemporary art exhibition. She currently serves on the PAM CUT committee for the cinema and new media wing of the Portland Art Museum. She is also on the gala committee for the Oregon Symphony. She is passionate about financial empowerment for women and athletes and has recently led financial education workshops with Women in Nike, Women in Science, and the National Alliance of African American Athletes.
In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis, cycling, hiking, and seeking new additions to her collection of contemporary art. She is fluent in French.
Learn moreJibz Cameron is a performer, visual artist, and writer living in Los Angeles, most well known for her multimedia work as alter ego Dynasty Handbag. Over the last 20 years, Cameron has combined tragedy and comedy at such institutions as MOCA, PS1, Joe’s Pub, The Kitchen, REDCAT, The Broad Museum, The Hammer Museum, and the New Museum, among others. The New York Times has heralded her as “the funniest and most pitch-perfect performance seen in years,” and New York Magazine has called her “outrageously smart, grotesque and innovative.” Cameron has written and produced seven evening-length performance pieces and countless short works that have been performed in clubs and venues internationally. She has also produced multiple video works and three albums of original music. She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2020 Creative Capital Awardee, and a 2021 United States Artist. Her film, Weirdo Night, made with director Mariah Garnett, is an official Sundance Film Festival 2021 submission. Cameron also produces and hosts Weirdo Night!, a monthly experimental comedy and performance event in Los Angeles + New York. Jibz is honored to be included in 2023’s Made In LA Biennale “Acts Of Living” at the Hammer Museum. Cameron's memoir, Hell In A Handbag, is being released by DOPAMINE Books in 2026.
Learn more"lucky dragons" means any recorded or performed or installed or packaged or shared or suggested or imagined pieces made by Luke Fischbeck, Sarah Rara, and/or any sometimes collaborators who claim the name.
the name "lucky dragons" is borrowed from a japanese fishing boat caught in the fallout of hydrogen bomb test at bikini atoll in the 1950's. the crew stricken ill, and the boat itself contaminated, the "lucky dragon" became a crystalizing symbol for the previously diffuse worldwide anti-nuclear sentiment. eventually the boat was painted black, renamed the "dark falcon", and put into reuse as a fishing vessel, until it was retired and disposed of on the man-made trash island "dream island", where it remains today.
lucky dragons are about the birthing of new and temporary creatures--equal-power situations in which audience members cooperate amongst themselves, building up fragile networks held together by such light things as skin contact, unfamiliar language, temporary logic, the spirit of celebration, and things that work but you don't know why. There have been hundreds of these simple yet shifting and unpredictable instances--with audiences ranging from the intense intimacy of one person to the public spectacle of thousands of people. At the heart of it all is playing together--building up social collectivities, re-engaging the wonder and impossibility of technological presence. It sounds--and looks--like simple and ancient patterns coming together and falling apart in a sincere attempt to let wires and screens and words become clear and crystal.
Fischbeck and Rara have presented interactive performances and installations in a wide variety of contexts--including MOCA Los Angeles, The Smell, Smithsonian's Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial), The Kitchen and PS1 in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, REDCAT and LACMA in Los Angeles, Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle, ICA London, ICA Philadelphia, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
lucky dragons' sister projects include "sumi ink club"--a weekly collaborative drawing society, and "glaciers of nice"--a small press and internet community.
Learn moreFounded in 1993, Mammalian Diving Reflex is a research-art atelier dedicated to investigating the social sphere, always on the lookout for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences. Mammalian creates site and social-specific performance events, theatre-based productions, gallery-based participatory installations, video products, art objects and theoretical texts. They create work that recognizes the social responsibility of art, fostering a dialogue between audience members, between the audience and the material, and between the performers and the audience. It is their mission to bring people from across the planet together in new and unusual ways to create ideal entertainment for the end of the world. For greater context and a more in-depth exploration of Mammalian Diving Reflex's projects and philosophy, 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 moreMike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by The New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His controversial work, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was recognized as one of the year’s best theater pieces by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, San Jose Mercury News, and The San Francisco Bay Guardian.
This fall he will premiere All the Faces of the Moon, a 29-night epic monologue performed over an entire lunar month, at the Public Theater in New York City. That work will be available for free online for people around the world to listen and watch as the story unfolds. At more than forty hours, All the Faces of the Moon will be the largest piece of sustained theatrical narrative since the 13th century medieval mystery plays.
As a playwright, his transcript of The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was downloaded over 100,000 times in the first week it was made available. Under a revolutionary open license it has seen more than sixty productions around the world and been translated into six languages. The first Chinese production opened last year in Beijing, and will tour to Hong Kong and Shenzhen this year.
Since his first monologue in 1997, Daisey has created over fifteen monologues, including the critically-acclaimed The Last Cargo Cult, the controversial How Theater Failed America, the twenty-four-hour feat All the Hours in the Day, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, the four-part epic Great Men of Genius, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years.
He has performed in venues on five continents, ranging from Off-Broadway at the Public Theater to remote islands in the South Pacific, from the Sydney Opera House to an abandoned theater in post-Communist Tajikistan. He’s been a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, the Late Show with David Letterman, a longtime host and storyteller for The Moth, as well as a commentator and contributor to The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s Magazine, The Daily Beast, WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. In a brief, meteoric career with This American Life, his two shows are the most listened to and downloaded episodes of that program’s eighteen year history. He is currently at work on a second book, an anthology of his monologues, and he stars in the Lawrence Krauser feature Horrible Child. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, five Seattle Times Footlight Awards, the Sloan Foundation’s Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship.
Learn moreMilka Djordjevich is a choreographer, performer, and teacher based in Los Angeles. Her work has been shown at many venues, including the Kitchen, the Chocolate Factory Theater, the Whitney Museum, the American Realness Festival, and Danspace Project in New York; REDCAT, Grand Performances, Pieter, the Hammer Museum, Machine Project, Showbox LA/Bootleg Theater, and HomeLA in Los Angeles; Counterpulse and the Berkeley Art Museum in Northern California; and internationally in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, and the UK. Djordjevich was a 2006-2007 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a 2008/2010 danceWEB Europe Scholar, and she is currently a 2017-2018 Princeton University Hodder Fellow. Her other projects include serving as guest editor for Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence, and initiating the Monday Morning Class series at Pieter. Djordjevich has co-authored works with composer Chris Peck, choreographer Dragana Bulut, designer Samuel Yang, and artist Marcos Luytens; and has performed for Heather Kravas, Jennifer Monson, Elizabeth Ward, Sam Kim, Sasa Asentic and Ana Vujanovic, among others. She has twice served as Visiting Assistant Professor in the UC Riverside Dance Department and has taught at UC Irvine, AMDA, Pomona College, Movement Research, and PICA’s TBA:15 Festival. In 2016, Djordjevich established STANA, an organization cultivating Los Angeles, national and international dance connections.
Learn moreMx. Dahlia Belle can be seen hosting her monthly stand-up showcase THE AFTERMATH at Alberta St Pub. She is also a frequent host of The Moth StorySLAMs.
Learn moreMyles de Bastion, Artistic Director, Musician, and Creative-altruist who develops technology and art installations that enables sound to be experienced as light and vibration. His work has appeared in the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, Portland Art Museum and on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! Show. He has built large scale installations for music festivals and Grammy-award winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding.
A dual citizen of the UK and the United States, Myles grew up in England where he obtained a BA from the University of Teesside (UK), focusing on computer science & animation, and was the chairman of the Musician's Society for two years. He has taught at Austine School for the Deaf (VT) and at the world's first Deaf Music Camp (MI), where he developed the curriculum and was responsible for the music and sound program. In 2012 Myles moved to Portland OR and founded CymaSpace, a non-profit that facilitates arts & cultural events that are inclusive of the Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing, where Myles further develops his technological artistic works that translate sound into visual mediums. In 2015 Myles took his concepts into the commercial sector and founded Audiolux Devices, a technology company that now produces professional products featuring the synergy of light and sound. Myles continues to live in Portland with his partner Kimberly and CODA daughters Zebra & Juniper.
Learn moreMyles de Bastion develops technology and art installations that enable sound to be experienced as light and vibration. His work has appeared in the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, Portland Art Museum, and on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! Show. He has built large format installations for music festivals and Grammy-award winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding.
Myles is the founder of CymaSpace, a non-profit that facilitates cultural events inclusive of the Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing; and Audiolux Devices, which produces products featuring light and sound synergy. 2018 Director of the first Northwest Deaf Arts Festival. Myles mentors Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing youth, has developed curriculum, and taught workshops in music and sound for Deaf schools, camps, and communities.
A current project, The Ikigai Machine, is a multimedia visual narrative with interactive installations and live performances that he is developing into a feature-length, touring production for disability hubs and art institutions. Myles has received support from Regional Arts & Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Cultural Foundation and Randall Charitable Trust.
Learn moreOffsite Dance Project was started in 2008 to pioneer alternative approaches to arts presentation through site-specific performance in locations such as trains, parks, and museums. Offsite also produces an annual community forum, We dance, to stimulate Japan’s contemporary dance scene by bringing artists from various genres together in unusual circumstances that generate new ways of approaching their art.
Learn moreRobin Deacon (born 1973 Eastbourne, England) is a British artist, writer and filmmaker currently based in the USA. Active from the 1990’s, his work explores questions of memory, absence and fiction in performance, through a constant reconfiguration of his role as an artist - as journalist and biographer, operator and technician, imposter and stooge. His recent research projects have explored histories of video documentation and outmoded media formats, and the practice and ethics of performance re-enactment. His live and screen based work has been commissioned and programmed throughout Europe, the US, and Asia. A MacDowell Fellow, he has been a recipient of a variety of awards and fellowships from organizations such as the Delfina Foundation, British Arts Council, Live Art Development Agency and Franklin Furnace Inc.
Learn moreRoland Dahwen Wu is a filmmaker whose work explores migration, race and memory. His films and installations have been shown at CalArts, Portland Art Museum, Time Based Art Festival, Northwest Film Center, and numerous galleries. His films span nonfiction, experimental, and narrative genres, and are commonly marked by poetry: from his first documentary about the whistling language of the Canary Islands (There are no birds in the nests of yesterday) to his recent short film about 20th century Asian migration (Haft-Seen).
Learn moreSarah Dougher is a musician, composer, and university professor. She has performed for over twenty years, including at PICA’s TBA festival and has received commissions from the Classical Greek Theater of Oregon, the Oregon Arts Commission, the Multnomah County Library, and the Cooley Gallery at Reed College.
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 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 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 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 moreMs. Davis has hosted and curated for 8 years the performative film mega event Rising Stars, Falling Stars at Arsenal Institut für film und Videokunst in Berlin. She has taught her spiky brand of performance art as a guest professor at Lund University-Malmo Art Academy, Sweden, Justus Liebig Universität Gießen, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Harvard, and NYU. Originally from Los Angeles, California, where she never learned to drive a car. She has been living in stylish exile in Berlin since 2005.
Learn moreWhoop Dee Doo is a non-profit community project led by artists living and working in Kansas City, Missouri. The group has created commissioned projects for organizations including the Bemis Center for contemporary Arts (Omaha), Deitch Projects (New York), the Smart Museum (Chicago), The Kemper Museum for Contemporary Arts (Kansas City), Loyal Gallery (Sweden), and others.
Selected Press
Interview with Jaimie Warren of Whoop Dee Doo, Jacob Gaboury, Rhizome.org, August 25, 2010.
Role Model, Marisa Meltzer, NYLON, March 30, 2010.
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)
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