Past
TBA artists jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham share insights and influences from their TBA project and larger performance series, Let ‘im Move You, including explorations of J-Sette dance that originated in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, other Black queer dance vocabularies, and the limits, imaginations, and tensions of performance contextualized by both White aesthetics and institutions as well as the sites and spaces of predominantly Black neighborhoods. With Andrew J. Brown/Sister James, TBA Guest Scholar and Asst. Professor of Performance Art, Fairhaven College Western Washington University.
Learn moreLet’s practice creating dances. By using sensorial, perceptual, anatomical, spatial, formal, behavioral, verbal and imaginative pathways, we will transform our individual movement patterning; play with technical structures, improvisational concepts, and choreographic frameworks; and groove to some sweet jams. We will attempt to abandon ‘neutrality’ and uncover our bodies’ ingrained knowledge and history.
Learn moreJoin dance artists and curators from TBA’s Opening Night event The Beautiful Street for a workshop in Hip Hop Grooves & Popping Technique. We will explore how to integrate these moves into both choreography and improv/freestyle dance. Open to anyone who enjoys moving and having fun!
Learn moreJ-Sette, also known as Bucking, is a performance style popular in the southern United States, practiced widely among majorettes and drill teams at historically Black colleges and universities, and also among teams of primarily queer men who compete in gay clubs and pride festivals. The workshop focuses on bombastic performance energy, complex relationships to rhythm and music, movement precision, group dynamics, and discovering joy in flesh and community. We will explore how the performance of J-Sette creates expectations around attention and accountability to a community, and how it positions leadership. All bodies are encouraged to participate, regardless of previous training or ability.
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 moreThis interactive, multimedia, youth-designed and -led workshop focuses on deconstructing the concept of masculinity by examining societal impacts, pressures, stigmas and notions of masculine identity through the lenses, frameworks, and perspectives of minority, male-identified people of color. A showcase of immersive visual vignettes will be shared expressing individual stories through video and art, coupled with collective analysis and discussion among participants.
Learn moreCreative duo Maya Vivas and Leila Haile will facilitate a participatory discussion surrounding the history of art institutions, gatekeeping, Queer Black art, and their motivations behind opening Ori Gallery, a QTPOC-focused radical art space.
Learn moreThrough interactive discussion, this workshop will center the creation of performative works that unapologetically explore the the realizing of one’s Black identity, including in White consumer based structures. We will share stories, tips, and tricks and form solidarity lists to keep participants strong in the face of adversity while being Black and vulnerable.
Learn moreHow might moving, listening, and being together as distinctly orientated bodies in everyday social and political spheres, further heighten our capacity to see what is hidden, erased, marginalized, forced underground? how might active, embodied investigations of place and purpose catalyze perspective?
Learn moreLearn from last year's Critical Mascara Vogue winner and local vogue instructor Daniel Girón (aka Carbon Electra) as he breaks down the five (5) fundamentals of Vogue Femme: Hand Performance, Cat Walk, Duck Walk, Floor Work, and Spin Dip. This class is open to all levels of vogue enthusiasts who wish to take their fundamentals to the next level by adding the element of performance.
Learn moreAs part of our free and ongoing program, join PICA and Guest Facilitator Candace Kita for a small-group experience exploring the social, political, cultural, and aesthetic influences in Field GuideTakahiro Yamamoto’s Direct Path to Detour, in which the artist, as a queer Japanese immigrant to the US, examines the physical and emotional effects of clashing cultural values in a globalized society. Through pre- and post-show conversation and participation, we’ll discover key themes and ideas in the work while sharing our own thoughts and perspectives on the performance. All are welcome—no prior contemporary dance or performance experience required! Light refreshments will be served.
Learn moreTaught by performers from Alessandro Sciarroni's UNTITLED_I will be there when you die workshop is for anyone who wishes to learn and practice fundamental juggling techniques and apply them to individual and group composition and sequence.
Learn moreEXPERIMENTAL WRITING: In this writing workshop we will in the dark automatic what is already cut the extra for our purposes the language image through a series of prompts, some poetic, some physical, some remembering, some riding. Instead of writing say knife, instead of writing say table bottom, instead of writing say record and transcribe. Gently together now. Open to anyone! If you think this workshop is probably not for you because you are not a writer then it is probably for you.
Learn moreDANCE/MOVEMENT: What would it be like to move from your blind spot? To not think of a future. To dismantle rote kinetic pathways. To facilitate immersion in the awkward and half-welcomed. To draw the invisible out from the hyper-visible. To suspend what's familiar. To challenge emergent assumptions. Engage with these ideas through choreographic structures pulled from New Faithful Disco performer Marbles Jumbo Radio's longstanding work with Simone Forti as well as their current research.
Learn moreDANCE/MOVEMENT: Taught by Roberto Martinez of Christian Rizzo's d’aprés une histoire vraie, this workshop will revisit some extracts of the piece that test the body's various substances and qualities. We will take time to investigate, interrogate, and appropriate them using a variety of compositional devices as well as collaborative writing. Participants will not only discover how to navigate the material from the performance's choreography, but individually interpret, play, and improvise with it.
Learn moreCreators of Portland's very own House of Aquarius - William Ylvisaker, Grace Eucker, and Akela Jaffi - bring you a Saturday morning dance workshop for connecting with your own personal movement. Beginning with a guided meditation focused on waking and moving the body's individual pieces, the class will provide a blueprint for the freedom to move the way that best suits you. The intention of this class is to create the same freedom and confidence in learning choreography as with improvisational movement. There will be space to learn, share, play, interact, and heal.
Learn moreDANCE/MOVEMENT: Get warmed up for Critical Mascara's "A Post-Realness Extravaganza" with legendary Father Stephaun Blahnik. In this workshop, we will cover voguing basics, then apply those skills to progressively challenging drills and battles. Ideal as an introduction to voguing or for those wishing to improve techniques and stamina. Come ready to sweat! Will you ring the alarm, or throw in the towel!?
Learn moreStrut out your powerful Runway, Waacking, goddess realness! This 90 min "pumps optional" adventure through dance will leave you feeling physically empowered with a new sense of self confidence. Learn exciting Heels & Waacking foundation paired with sexy beats and exciting exercises to get you ready for the Waacking battle at Critical Mascara, or just acquire some new moves to impress friends at the club! With favorite local artists and performer, Isaiah Tillman, and renowned Waacking dancer, choreographer, and artist Kumari Suraj.
Learn moreDan Seward, also known as Bunnybrains, is a musician, curator and promoter in Hudson, New York, where he runs the celebrated (and somewhat nomadic) record store, John Doe Records. This exhibition focuses on Bunnybrains thirty plus years as a transgressive, mutable, collaborative, performative project and what it means to illustrate the life of a true muse. From live broadcasts of Bunnybrains radio show Battlefield Earth, participatory workshops, rotating guest exhibitions, spontaneous happenings and performances, the artist shares their space with you in an effort to vivify "Bunnybrains is all".
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 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 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 moreWe will focus on the performer’s presence in space when light (natural or artificial) designs or denies vision. A series of reflections will be initiated around the body and its relationship to memory. We will discuss the problem of translating the performer’s inner experience during research and development into something readable to the outside.
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