Past
Nothing To You is a temporary site-specific installation that will act as a frame for an encounter. MPA will direct an action that tours the perimeters of thoughtful collision between bodies, objects and sound within the space. Here, speakers mature into characters, and bodies regress into objects, calling into question the notion of pre-tense, the state of being before action, during approximately 45 minutes of provocative and attentive collapse.
Learn moreGet a glimpse of the Portland dance scene in this afternoon of two works by local choreographers.
Learn moreConceived by Portland artists Sharita Towne and keyon gaskin, in collaboration with BCC: BrownHall (Black Creative Collective), GLOVES OFF will take the form of a panel discussion and community conversation on Black contemporary, experimental, and abstract arts and audiences. Featuring artists and scholars Sampada Aranke (San Francisco), Samiya Bashir (Portland), keyon gaskin (Portland), Jibade-Khalil Huffman (Los Angeles), Eileen Isagon-Skyers (Portland), and sidony o'neal (Portland).
Learn moreIn this politically and artistically timely presentation, Sampada Aranke (Asst. Professor of History and Theory of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Art Institute) examines critical and often forgotten works by black conceptual performance artists. Taking the body seriously, these artists engage violent histories against black flesh, while opening up possibilities to imagine a fugitive future.
Learn moreTBA artist Okwui Okpokwasili reflects on her TBA solo performance, Bronx Gothic, and its personal inflections. With Angela Mattox, PICA Artistic Director.
Learn moreThe Bay Area’s legendary boundary-breaker Fauxnique (the drag queen alter-ego of artist/choreographer/dancer Monique Jenkinson) leads an expedition through layers of femme artifice and authenticity. We will rigorously honor practices of drag tradition and boldly expand definitions of drag performance. Be prepared to move and WERQ! Performance; All Levels.
Learn moreMusicians rooted in punk feminism will perform a selection of songs expanding the notion of Riot Grrrl "hits," ranging from Canadian indie pop Cub to S.F. queercore Tribe 8. The audience can sing along to karaoke style videos made for this occasion by Dana Bishop-Root & Ginger Brooks Takahashi of General Sisters and Deirdre Logue & Allyson Mitchell of FAG Feminist Art Gallery. Live Riot pulls into focus the politics that arise when revisiting the lyrics and spirit of these fearless and danceable songs. Following the show Ginger will DJ the night away as you dance it out. Singing, we must rage!
Learn morekeyon gaskin it's not a thing
Learn moreLauded Italian choreographer and theatre director Alessandro Sciarroni is known for his stagings that marvel and works that straddle dance, performance art, and ritual anthropology. In FOLK-S, the Schuhplatter, a Bavarian folk dance, meaning “shoe batter”, is refined to its most essential form invoking a sense of playful experimentation and ritualized trance.
Learn moreHolcombe Waller’s Requiem Mass: LGBT / Working Title is a ceremonial choral work that deeply explores contemporary faith, advocacy through art, and collective catharsis. Performed in historic Trinity Episcopal Cathedral with an all-abilities community choir drawn from all walks of life towards the project’s mission, Requiem Mass is an emotional and personal work invoking remembrance and peace for the dead who have suffered persecution for their sexual orientation or gender expression. Requiem Mass was additionally informed by research into the pivotal gay history from the 1980s through present day and by community engagement that has included working with experts in liturgical music, queer theory, faith-based equality initiatives as well as over 100 participants in a series of choral workshops with Waller over the past year.
Learn moreLeading curators discuss the festival format as a uniquely relevant platform for global contemporary art, performance, and public engagement. With Angela Mattox, PICA's TBA Festival (Portland, OR); Jeff Khan, Performance Space (Sydney, Australia); Norman Armour (PuSh Festival, Vancouver, BC); and Vallejo Gantner (PS122 / COIL Festival, New York City). Moderated by Sara Krajewski, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Portland Art Museum. Note: We regret that Seunghyo Lee (Festival Bo:m, Seoul) and Helen Cole (In Between Time Festival, Bristol, UK), both listed in the TBA Festival print catalog, are unable to join us.
Learn moreKarl Larsson and Pascal Prosek (Sweden) with Morgan Ritter and Gary Robbins (Portland) discuss their TBA project, Commonplace, the genesis of their collaborations, and attempts to create a book that defies its own form. With Kristan Kennedy, Visual Art Curator, PICA.
Learn moreJoin PDX stand out performer Isaiah "Esquire" Tillman and Vogue dancer David (Dee) Yu as they teach a vogue and dance class to get you ready to serve and twirl on the runway. This class is for any level, but come ready to sweat, prance and LIVE! Performance; All Levels
Learn moreOPENING NIGHT: The influential and relentlessly relevant rock band of mythical standing Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks kick off TBA:15 with a free concert for all! Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks are veteran Portland-based musicians Joanna Bolme, Mike Clark, Jake Morris, and frontman Stephen Malkmus.
Learn moreOPENING NIGHT DINNER AT THE WORKS! To kick off the first night of TBA:15, this year's Opening Night Dinner guests will enjoy a sneak peek of the Festival's visual art program and a champagne toast before being whisked away to dine at our TBA:15 central hub. This year’s dinner will highlight everything from the season’s bounty, expertly prepared with love by the accomplished chefs of Feastworks. Gather at the PICA family table with friends and artists for a radiant late summer feast that is not to be missed!
Learn morePICA and Pacific Northwest College of Art's MFA in Visual Studies present a public lecture by Jibade-Khalil Huffman, an artist and the author of three books of poems: 19 Names For Our Band (2008), James Brown is Dead (2011), and Sleeper Hold (2015). Huffman's art and writing projects, which span performance, photography, poetry, and video, have been presented at MoMA/PS1; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Poetry Project; and the Hammer Museum, among others. He is a 2015-16 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem though otherwise lives and works in Los Angeles.
Learn morePictures of the moon, is the holy spirit, is the tongue of fire, is the ghost body, is host body, is the formless thing, is anxiety, is ecstasy, is seeing through the mirror, is energy, is neither here nor there, is god, is G–D, is godS, is NO GOD ever was, is inside you, is clay, is crystal, is vapor, is hair, is sound, is gold, is light, is words, is wave, is lump, is desert dot, is geometry, is concrete, is floating, is memory, is trickery, is hawk overhead, is notion, is nature, is knowing, is never knowing, is why go on.
Learn moreWHAT IS TIME? a new site-specific performance composition illustrating historical perceptions of time in the ‘age of anxiety’. Referencing philosophical topics such as the meaning of life, existentialism, and time, this work intends to explore, interpret, and draw lines of interconnectivity through improvised movement and sound.
Learn moreFor TBA:15, Jibade-Khalil Huffman presents two concurrently running video works. Within the exhibition space, each will operate independently finding moments of alignment that express a larger narrative between the two. The result is an exploration of adaptation, mediation, and the act of seeing by way of pursuing the vanishing point and the nostalgia of drive-in movie theaters.
Learn moreSimensky’s multi-part Surface Contents 1 & 2 employs gold in a series of actions, prints, and architectural interventions. The resulting work will form a dialogue that sees gold as a literal index of locatable value and something ever-shifting in meaning and immense influence.
Learn more2015 Time-Based Art Festival
Learn moreHYPNOSIS DISPLAY is an original live sound and 16mm film collaboration between experimental vocalist and musician Grouper (Liz Harris) and filmmaker Paul Clipson.
Learn moreTHEESatisfaction are artists that blend elements of hip-hop, electronic, and dance. They’re positive energy. Black energy, black women leaping oceans and continents at a single bound. With positive strength of purpose. Even crowds with nary a right foot between them find the steps when faced with THEESat’s unorthodox but right-on-time rhythms. Synchronized, sinewy and sensuous, the regal Stas and Cat channel the higher, whipping like waves of space-borne radiation onstage, leaving a trail of glowing observers abuzz like Geiger counters. THEESatisfaction, the Queens Supreme. Bring yourself!
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