Past
H.P. Lovecraft’s Commonplace book, published after the author’s death, consists of 221 short ideas and sketches for weird fiction. In their lack of narrative outlines and prosaic structure, they appear almost more potent than they would be as long- form formal works. Karl Larsson’s Commonplace takes Lovecraft’s book as a starting point where fragments of horror, poetry, craft, CAD, waste, design, play, and climate change assemble in a book and an exhibition for TBA:15 where the unfinished idea, the formless form, and fear of what can never be fully grasped works as a methodological engine.
Learn moreAncient Japanese haiku describes the sea as "hinemosu notari notarikana… all day and night it moves slow and calmly," with the shapes of waves never ceasing to shift and turn. In his work Nami, meaning waves, legendary sound artist Akio Suzuki translates this idea as sound installation.
Learn moreTannaz Farsi renders in light text by Bertolt Brecht with 5000 LEDs programmed to brighten and intensify parts of this well-known author’s writing. The decentralized method of reading and understanding this text disrupts narrative, highlighting words as “vehicles of ideas” and with compelling simplicity suggests a thesis on the relationship of visibility to power.
Learn moreA continuation of Jenkins’ experiments with light and architecture, this installation is constructed and composed using a system of tarps and ducts to effect and capture the light. The work evokes mass infrastructures but is made of readily available consumer materials and deployed in contradictory spaces that raise questions of individual agency in relation to the complex historical, financial, and social structures that form spaces for living and working.
Learn moreNIGHT TRIPPER is at once an outdoor ritual, social event, forest walk, and concert that unfolds in the theatre of the outdoors at the first glow of dusk. The piece features dancers, art objects, a local choir, and potent forest spirits. Ancient mythology meets a vision of contemporary life where dreams and reality merge into an otherworldly tale. NIGHT TRIPPER explores the idea of nature as a place of healing, destruction, immanence, and transcendence.
Learn moreFor this culminating conversation, join PICA's Creative Exchange Lab artists will share their experiences and interpretations of the festival and residency, including TBA as a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, critical inquiry, creative research, and community. Moderated by Kristan Kennedy, Visual Art Curator, PICA.
Learn more2015 marks 20 years of PICA. Join us along the TBA Festival Flight: Local Legacies & Landscapes to reflect on our current context, and shifts in the local landscape, with a focus on how to continue nurturing thought-provoking contemporary art in Portland and ensure that our artists thrive.
Learn moreOne of two TBA Festival Flights, Identity & The Body reflects a range of artists from diverse disciplines who work across dance/choreography and interdisciplinary performance to engage the embodied politics and poetics of race, ethnicity, gender, culture, and their intersections.
Learn moreBorn from Bronx street gang culture in the 1970's, Breaking became a worldwide dance style by the ‘80's. Fever One of NYC's legendary Rocksteady Crew has lectured on Hip Hop history, theory, and culture and taught Breaking around the world, including top universities. Wear comfortable clothes and be ready to explore hip hop history as well as Breaking basics. Movement; All Levels.
Learn more1995 was a fruitful year in Portland. Punk and indie bands filled clubs like Satyricon and La Luna; DIY ruled and PICA was born. For the closing night of TBA, we'll celebrate the spirit of 1995 with with songs, stories, and videos inspired by the pioneering music and artists of the era, followed by a 1995-focused edition of SNAP! 90's DANCE PARTY, and 1995-priced drink specials at the bar! Co-produced by Claudia Meza.
Learn moreDakhaBrakha is a force of intricate vocal harmonies, pounding drums, and murmuring cello that builds to an anthem and invocation of visual spectacle. Droning vocals, crimson beads, and punk sensibilities serve as backdrop for their their mission to bring the music of Ukraine to the world. DakhaBrakha is intimately tied to their homeland—crafting new sonic worlds for traditional songs with one foot in urban avant-garde theatre and one foot in Ukrainian village life. Accompanied by a sweeping range of instrumentation, DakhaBrakha crafts a powerful performance at the crossroads of Ukrainian folklore, politics, pop, punk, and theatre.
Learn morePICA’s signature public engagement program continues to cross disciplines and explore new thematic territory with five Festival Field Guides facilitated by leading local and visiting 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 lively discussion; group viewing of a TBA performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. For this session join Lisa Jarrett, Artist and DePriest Visiting Professor of Art & Ethnic Studies at Portland State University, in exploring artist Dana Michel's practice and her work Yellow Towel. Online artist interviews and media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art welcome. Bring a friend!
Learn moreIn light of rapid economic development in West Coast cities, how are local artists and cultural institutions faring? What opportunities and challenges have arisen? How do race, class, and other factors influence our experiences? How do intergenerational artists and arts leaders recount Portland’s past and imagine its future? What can we learn from other cities’ shifting landscapes? Featuring Victoria Frey (PICA, Portland); Andre Middleton (Black Creative Collective and RACC, Portland); Julie Phelps (CounterPulse, San Francisco) and more. Moderated by Ethan Seltzer, Professor of Urban Studies & Planning, Portland State University.
Learn moreDana Michel discusses complex performance work Yellow Towel and its explorations of race, gender, body politics, and their intersections. With Lisa Jarrett, Artist and DePriest Visiting Professor of Art and Ethnic Studies, Portland State University.
Learn moreJoin PICA and Know Your City as we look back on PICA’s 20-year history through a tour of central Portland! Together, we’ll see sites that shaped our colorful past; share memories of intimate moments and outrageous spectacles; and consider the city’s arts, urban, and economic landscape through the lens of PICA’s pioneering itinerant model. We’ll visit our place of origin; venues for groundbreaking exhibitions and performances; infamous parties and costume balls; early TBA sites transformed from raw warehouses to magical festival hubs; and more. Guest speakers will share unforgettable stories of how PICA and Portland have evolved—and what it means to our future as artists, an arts institution, and a city.
Learn morePhilippe Quesne and Vivarium Studios creates a technical theatre lab that modifies genre conventions to generate an ambiguous universe. The work eschews mastery in favor of curiosity through humor, malaise, questioning, and an upended world vision. In this workshop, we will consider the importance of space and set through Quesne’s rigorous practice. Theatre Performance; All Levels.
Learn moreYellow Towel take its name from Dana Michel’s childhood habit of wearing a yellow towel to emulate blonde girls. Influenced by the aesthetics of fashion, queer culture, and comedy, Michel creates a richly textured and gut wrenching account of black culture stereotypes. Yellow Towel is a conceptual performance work that explores an abstracted marginal character in a performative ritual. This political, honest, and fearless work warrants attention as Michel questions socially ingrained constructions of normativity.
Learn morePICA’s signature public engagement program continues to cross disciplines and explore new thematic territory with five Festival Field Guides facilitated by leading local and visiting 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 lively discussion; group viewing of a TBA performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. For this session, join Choreographer and Performance Artist Keith Hennessy in exploring the practice of Radhouane El Meddeb and his work Au temps où les arabes dansaient... Online artist interviews and media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art welcome. Bring a friend!
Learn morePhilippe Quesne shares the unique artistic vision of innovative theatre lab Vivarium Studios and their TBA project, La Mélancolie des Dragons . With Kate Bredeson, Assoc. Professor of Theatre, Reed College.
Learn moreIn this workshop, we will create short, original solo performance works with built-in coping mechanisms for the inevitable accident of live performance. We will employ/practice inexperience, loopholes, Fibonacci, plagiarism, idiosyncrasies, performance scores, and anything else we want. Please bring one problematic object from your world. Theatre / Movement / Performance; All Levels.
Learn moreWelcome to the Neighborhood Live! expands the reach of the weekly radio broadcast bringing the very best from the northwest to the stage! DJ Klyph curates a night of Hip Hop featuring some of Portland’s finest.
Learn moreOpposing Forces utilizes tropes of contemporary performance to expose fears around the feminine in our culture through the hyper masculine dance style of Breaking. With curiosity, vulnerability, and power, five world-class B-Boys uncover binary perceptions of gender using a range of dance contexts: battling, commercial dance, and cyphering. Featuring Fever One of Rocksteady Crew, Brysen "Just Be" Angeles of Massive Monkees, Alfredo "Free" Vergara of Circle of Fire/Soul Shifters, Mozes Lateef Sa'Leem of Circle of Fire/Soul Shifters, Michael O'Neal Jr of Beat Hippies/CHPT 1, an original score played live by WD4D, stage design by Ben Zamora, and lighting design by Amiya Brown.
Learn moreSeminal French director and TBA alum Philippe Quesne returns with the large-scale theater work La Mélancolie des dragons. Filled with Quesne’s disarming wit and hints of magical realism La Mélancolie is set amid a snowy landscape of classic rock and medieval recorders where a band of metalheads is on a quest to build an amusement park devoted to hard-rock. To create his works, Quesne employs a domino effect—the last scene of a work falls into the first scene of the next. La Melancolie was born at the end of his celebrated work L’Effet de Serge (TBA:08). With an ingenious hand for reinventing the conventions of theater, Quesne smartly constructs La Melancolie into a work that celebrates the absurd and finds the profound joy of friendship.
Learn morePICA’s signature public engagement program continues to cross disciplines and explore new thematic territory with five Festival Field Guides facilitated by leading local and visiting 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 lively discussion; group viewing of a TBA performance; and post-show conversation over food and drink. For this session, join Seattle-based dance, theatre, and performance critic Omar Willey in exploring artist Amy O'Neal's Opposing Forces. Online artist interviews and media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art welcome. Bring a friend!
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