Past
In this workshop with TBA Opening Night artist Holland Andrews—whose experimental artistic practice spans composition, visual art, and performance using operatic and extended vocal technique—participants will explore guided meditation, vocal embodiment practice, performance, and collaboration.
Learn moreNOCHE LIBRE is a radical Latinx DJ collective of women creating space for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. We spin music that spans genres and geography from cumbia and quebradita to dancehall and perreo. We celebrate our family’s roots and rituals by carrying on the tradition of puro pinche pair.
Learn moreOne of the brightest voices on the Portland hip-hop scene is Alana Chenevert, aka The Last Artful, Dodgr. Her name is a nod to her hometown of Los Angeles, a pun on its baseball team, a reference to Oliver Twist, and it illustrates a life spent dodging bullets. Since arriving in Portland in 2013, she’s made the city her own and has quickly become a rising star. Press and fans have compared her to Chance the Rapper, Missy Elliott, and Dizzee Rascal with lyrics inspired by Sufjan Stevens. While we’re always sad to see the festival end, brilliant hip-hop delivered by a queer black woman is the perfect way to say ‘until next year.’
Learn moreSounds et al presents an electroacoustic collaboration from duos Caspar Sonnet/Kozue Matsumoto, and Kaori Suzuki/John Krausbauer.
Learn morePortland artist-run space and TBA late-night artists/curators S1 will facilitate a workshop on sound collage and layering with multiple DJ set-ups, taught by members of the internationally recognized S1 Synth Library. Explore basic concepts of using CDJS and how to create soundscapes and unexpected layers and rhythms from field recordings, samples, and more. No expertise or experience necessary.
Learn moreSubharmonic: A Sonic Arts Symposium spans two immersive days of interactive workshops, thought-provoking panels, and live performances for artists and audiences of all experience levels to explore, discuss, and engage with a broad range of contemporary and experimental sound art and its influences. Programs will touch on electronic and noise music, video and light installation, film and video, space and architecture, racial and gender equity in the field, and more.
Learn morePortland’s Inaugural South Asian American Arts Festival will be an all-ages, multi-cultural celebration that showcases and highlights South Asian arts and artists living and working in America.
Learn morePart song and dance, part IBQTPOC prom, but mostly dedicated to honoring the labor and intelligence of indigenous and brown punk energy that continues the fight against heteropatriachy, white supremacy, and settler colonialism. Join us as we honor the revolutionary spirit of activists, artists, and lovers whose lives were lost, whose lives are threatened, and those who are yet to come. This is as much a sweaty celebration as it is a ceremony. Albuquerque, New Mexico’s angry pop punk trio, Weedrat, and San Antonio’s riot grrrl chicano punk band, FEA, will provide live music along with local poetry that will help set the tone for the evening. Video projections, live printing, and punk/riot grrrl music will do the rest. Bring your beautiful body, and let’s collectively celebrate how far we’ve come as community while we smash heteropatriarchy to pieces.
Learn moreKlyph once again curates a night of hip-hop music for the TBA festival featuring artists representing Portland, Oregon. A night celebrating hip-hop and social consciousness with performances by Champagne Duane, Wynne and special guests DJ O.G. One.
Learn moreSounds et al presents Apperceptive Moment. Sound artists Ben Glas, Dolphin Midwives, Samson Stilwell and Amenta Abioto mix sound, visuals and movement into a cohesive exploration of the senses. The experimental performance will engage with acoustics, psychoacoustics, physical interaction with sound, movement, music and noise, to lead the audience on a journey through time and space.
Learn moreDrawing on his versatile 3+ octave voice, videos, monologues, and songs, Joseph Keckler delivers highlights of his work in an evening of wild miniature operas about contemporary life, haunted torch songs, and narratives infused with humor and longing.
Learn moreRECORD RELEASE SHOW: EMA (Erika M. Anderson) has been part of the West Coast noise and experimental music / performance scene for over 10 years. Originally from South Dakota, Anderson moved to LA and began playing with noise folk legends Amps For Christ before forming the group Gowns with Ezra Buchla. Gowns released the ground-breaking Red State in 2007, combining noise and drone elements with lyrical singing and melodies in ways that were rare at that time. After the breakup of Gowns, EMA released her breakout solo record Past Life Martyred Saints in 2011, which topped many critics "Best Of" lists that year. Since then she has continued to refine her unique sonic palette of synth drones, spoken narrative, and heavy guitar hooks. In 2015, she expanded into durational performance and installation, including performances at MoMA PS1 and The Barbican Centre that involved virtual reality. In August 2017, she released her latest record Exile In The Outer Ring. This TBA late night performance will be the first stop on her international tour supporting the record. DJ madison moore closes the night with all-encompassing bass and queer techno vibes.
Learn moreReturning for the second consecutive year, No No Soliciting will feature several of Portland's most talented and respected musiciansand songwriters performing songs specifically written for the event. Each songwriter will take several different directives from the audience regarding form, key, tempo, melody, instrumentation, and lyrical content to compose a song in 15 minutes. Once the song is written, they will return to the ensemble, walk the band and audience through the composition, and then perform the song while the next songwriter is composing the new next song.
Learn moreImmediately following P-Orridge’s performance the dance floor will open up for an evening of celebration and music curated by Y.G.B.Portland. Bomba con Buya, a Chicago-based ensemble that aims to preserve and advance Bomba, Puerto Rico's oldest surviving dance form, will invigorate the audience with Buya (translated to mean good spirit in Taino, the language spoken among the island's indigenous population). Atlanta-based artist and DJ, Father Fannie, closes the evening with their set.
Learn moreIndustrial music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge inaugurates our 15th TBA festival in our new East Side home. P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and performance and visual artist who has been regarded as a provocateur and an icon of the British avant-garde since the early 1970s. S/he’ll be opening the festival with a sonic and visual performance ritual that should not be missed.
Learn moreIndie electronic musician and vocalist Shannon Funchess has had her feet firmly planted in the fertile underground scene for two and a half decades. Also a DJ and sometime dancer for the likes of The Knife, Funchess is a multidisciplinary performance artist with a gravitation toward the synthesis of dark, angular sound, and visual bisection.
Learn moreBlind Coven will feature Portland-based songwriter, songstress, and actor Amenta Abioto. Abioto’s work is on the cutting edge of all that is musical, theatrical, and literary. Her music is boldly mystical and soul-fired, and her raw improvisational live performances invoke elements of both theatrical surprise and magic through ancient African diasporic sounds and stories. She brings to the music scene funky academia while skipping vocally from soul-shaking gospel and smooth jazz to hip hop rhythms wrapped in West African beats. The performance will feature a boutique designed 10-channel surround sound system as well as correlating lighting and visuals from artist DB Amorin.
Learn moreNo No Soliciting will feature several of Portland’s most talented and respected musicians and songwriters performing songs specifically written for the event. Each songwriter will take several different directives from the audience regarding form, key, tempo, melody, instrumentation, and lyrical content to compose a song in 15 minutes. Once the song is written, they will return to the ensemble, walk the band and audience through the composition, and then perform the song while the following songwriter is composing the next song.
Learn moreClosing night at THE WORKS lights up the sky with an explosion of a million stars. Enter the sensorial and phantasmagoric world of Evelyn.
Learn moreOneohtrix Point Never, aka acclaimed experimental composer Daniel Lopatin, takes the audience on an odyssey through his latest work R Plus Seven. Hypnotic and unexpected in equal measure, R Plus Seven is full of satisfyingly complex sonic puzzles.
Learn moreWith virtuoso chops, rock-star charisma, and an appetite for pushing her instrument to the edge of avant-garde adventurousness, Maya Beiser is the post-modern diva of the cello.” – The Boston Globe
Learn moreChristopher Sutton describes his whole life as revolving around his love of music. RE: Disc COVER is part performance, thoughtful dissertation, and dance party based on artist Sutton’s lifelong journey as a collector of 12” vinyl.
Learn morePortland electronic music collective and record label Dropping Gems curates a night at The Works featuring London’s Little People, and crewmembers DJAO from Seattle and hometown stalwarts Philip Grass. The artists featured here are known for adding non-traditional live elements to their performances to create an immersive sonic journey. Expect a melting pot of intricate and lush synthesized soundscapes, taking traditional hip-hop melodies, and flipping them upside down.
Learn moreInternational singing sensation DUBAIS has decided to end it all and to leave this world. The place in which DUBAIS now exists is neither heaven nor hell; both of those places actually refer to political parties, the Bible was mistranslated. All souls go to one place—the Unterwelt—a place split in two by ideologies and a wall. Using the city of Berlin as a main backdrop, this multi- media modern day pop opera investigates conceptions of morality, divisions of power, and the landscapes of political indifference.
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