Past
One of PICA's most popular year-round programs gets TBA treatment with five festival Field Guides facilitated by visiting and local artists and scholars. Each small-group session creates context around contemporary performance and a particular artist's social, political, cultural, and aesthetic influences through a pre-show workshop with lecture and discussion; group viewing of a performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. Online artist interviews and other media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art is welcome.
Learn moreHalory Goerger and Antoine Defoort dissect GERMINAL’s philosophical investigations into a staging of the construction and deconstruction of society, civilization, and the world. Moderated by Kate Bredeson, Assistant Professor of Theater, Reed College.
Learn moreWE ARE THE INSTITUTION: after inside/outside there is this mass of people. We are already whole. We're all here together. Administrators need to be involved in the uselessness of practice. Beyond outcome and object, there is a culture of questions, a pursuit of pleasure, an acceptance of our inevitable wasting. This workshop will create a non-utilitarian space for the human basis of art. Though open to all, this workshop is designed for art’s administrators and artists working in concert in the hot bed of the studio. Come, be useless, be pleasure, be awkward, be sincere, be wasted.
Learn moreExperimentalists Liz Harris (Grouper) and Paul Clipson discuss HYPNOSIS DISPLAY, a their cross-disciplinary collaboration of live sound performance and 16 mm film. They are joined by Andrew Neerman of Beacon Sound, a record store/music label in Portland.
Learn moreIn their individual and collaborative work, Hilary Clark and Luke George share an investigation into the ways we exist, move, relate, and experience ourselves and one another, and how that translates into presence and performance. In this workshop, we will consider how to develop tools, methods and questions for ourselves towards openness, vulnerability, rebellion, ability and perceived lack of ability, and about how being a performer is also being a maker and an audience. The workshop will include improvisation as a practice and tool to know our bodies while generating energy and depth.
Learn moreOne of PICA's most popular year-round programs gets TBA treatment with five festival Field Guides facilitated by visiting and local artists and scholars. Each small-group session creates context around contemporary performance and a particular artist's social, political, cultural, and aesthetic influences through a pre-show workshop with lecture and discussion; group viewing of a performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. Online artist interviews and other media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art is welcome. Limited to 25 participants.
Learn moreJoin the community choir! Singer, composer and performing artist Holcombe Waller will lead warm up and rehearsal for a working excerpt from his new project, LGBT Requiem Mass. This full-body chorale music workshop will include writing, improvisation, and discussion to explore the convergence of LGBT voice, song, community and the legacy and shadow of Christian liturgical and spiritual music. Amateur and professional singers, sight-readers and ear-exclusive learners all welcome. Wear comfortable clothes you can move in.
Learn moreLuke George and Hilary Clark reflect on their collaborative process and unpack notions of intimacy and transmission between artist and audience explored in their TBA:14 piece, Not About Face. In conversation with choreographer, dance artist, and professor Linda K. Johnson.
Learn moreOur second of two TBA Festival Flights, Seniors, Sex, Spirituality: Art and Social Change references two TBA projects: Holcombe Waller’s LGBT Requiem Mass (a work-in-progress to debut at a future TBA Festival) and Mammalian Diving Reflex’s All the Sex I’ve Ever Had.
Learn moreOlive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad of BodyCartography Project discuss the intersection of movement, empathy, and tension in their project, Super Nature with Michael Sakamota, interdisciplinary artist and Program Co-Director of the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College.
Learn moreJoin public intellectual Madison Moore, (King’s College, London) and Portland's premier art queen, Pepper Pepper, for an unconventional lecture and discussion about their academic and artistic work and collaboration for Critical Mascara.
Learn moreIn this workshop we will use movement to reveal the connection between how we feel, how we think and how we act. We will practice enacting one-on-one performances that travels through public space. As performers’ our score is to be present. Like a therapist, we will attempt to meet our audience’s tone, energetically and physically. This non-verbal experience will challenge both the audience and performer to navigate the city through feeling and curiosity. Using this practice as point of departure we will initiate conversations that reflect on movement, behavior and transformation.
Learn moreOne of PICA's most popular year-round programs gets TBA treatment with five festival Field Guides facilitated by visiting and local artists and scholars. Each small-group session creates context around contemporary performance and a particular artist's social, political, cultural, and aesthetic influences through a pre-show workshop with lecture and discussion; group viewing of a performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. Online artist interviews and other media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art is welcome.
Learn moreSamita Sinha and Tanya Tagaq join Reuben Roqueñi, Program Officer of Performing Arts at the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, to discuss aspects of voice, body, gender, colonial politics, and experimentation with traditional forms in their respective sound and vocal performances.
Learn moreSouth African dancer and choreographer Mamela Nyamza uses dance to access the deepest layers of the body, such as emotions, fears, and expectations. During this masterclass, she draws inspiration from the participants, working from the inside to the outside, guided by her and the participants' inner feelings. Part of the masterclass will be working with empty Cola cans, so every participant is asked to bring two cans. 2 hours, Intermediate/Advanced, Performance/Movement
Learn moreOne of PICA's most popular year-round programs gets TBA treatment with five festival Field Guides facilitated by visiting and local artists and scholars. Each small-group session creates context around contemporary performance and a particular artist's social, political, cultural, and aesthetic influences through a pre-show workshop with lecture and discussion; group viewing of a performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. Online artist interviews and other media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art is welcome.
Learn moreVisiting choreographers Meryem Jazouli (Morocco) and Mamela Nyamza (South Africa) will discuss their respective creative practices, current projects, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and cultural outreach and engagement with their communities. Moderated by PICA's Artistic Director, Angela Mattox, with time for audience Q&A.
Learn moreFilipina choreographer Eisa Jocson joins Clare Croft, Assistant Professor of Dance Studies at the University of Michigan, to share insight into her artistic process and technique and the intersection of gender, labour, seduction politics, and social mobility in her TBA performances, Death of the Pole Dancer and Macho Dancer.
Learn moreDennis Scholl, Knight Foundation Vice President / Arts and well known art collector, talks about what today's audiences want from the arts. Dennis will give examples from Knight’s own engaging initiatives, including Random Acts of Culture, the Knight Arts Challenge and Community Supported Art (CSA). He will also discuss the challenge cultural institutions face in keeping pace with their audiences in the face of the digital revolution and changing demography.
Learn morePICA's education and public engagement series, Field Guide helps audiences discover and feel more informed about contemporary performance. Through facilitated workshops with visiting and local faculty, focused explorations of artist's work, and connection with other festival-goers, Field Guide sessions include various combinations of pre-show workshops, social outings to performances, post-show conversations, and online interviews and media to more deeply contextualize the art and artists of our time.
Learn moreLos Angeles-based visual artist Jennifer West discusses her newest TBA:14 project, Flashlight Filmstrip Projections, and experimentation with the synesthetic, performative, and material qualities of film with Kristan Kennedy, Visual Art Curator at PICA
Learn moreAlgerian choreographer Nacera Belaza will share exercises that seek movements from within the self but remain neutral and open to the space around the body. The exercises propose a free and open movement that feels out the space, seizing it and investing it with action.
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