Past
S1 is an artist-run project space in Northeast Portland. Since the summer of 2014, S1’s dedicated staff works closely with local, national, and international artists to organize visual art exhibitions, performances, and late-night dance parties. For one night, S1 pulls its diverse artists and projects out of the basement for S1 Presents at THE WORKS. S1 Presents will feature DJ sets, live performances, installations, and interactive video art. Celebrated avant-pop explorer Zola Jesus performs a rare DJ set, Coast2C displays her voracious enthusiasm for worldly electronic music with an expansive dance journey, and US Hard / Contemporary performs live, taking command of his machines to summon focused experiments in minimal beat music. Visual artists from around the globe—selected by S1’s curatorial staff—will be featured on and off stage for an immersive experience.
Learn moreA solo creation at the intersection of theater, dance, and visual art installation, Bronx Gothic gives palpable force to the charged relationship between two girls on the verge of adolescence in the 1980s—where Newports are bought in singles at corner bodegas, and sex saturated notes are passed in class.
Learn moreTyondai Braxton is known for experimenting with music in a way that feels like a game of coloring outside the lines—tracing patterns that unexpectedly jet sideways. Braxton brings to TBA:15 a solo performance featuring modular synthesizer and samples. Braxton will be performing pieces from HIVE1 his first album in six years and his Nonesuch Records debut.
Learn moreHolcombe Waller sheds light on the development of Requiem Mass: LGBT / Working Title, including aesthetic constructs, conceptual underpinnings, public engagement, and partnership experiences across faith-based and queer communities. With community choir participants. With Roya Amirsoleymani, Community Engagement Manager, PICA.
Learn moreInterdisciplinary performance artist Lars Jan shares insight into his TBA performance, The Institute of Memory (TIMe), including inventive uses of technology and the personal and political histories inspiring the piece. With Robert Quillen Camp, Visiting Professor of Theatre, Lewis & Clark College.
Learn moreLos Angeles-based choreographer Milka Djordjevich asks us to abandon ‘neutrality’ and uncover our bodies’ ingrained knowledge and history. By using sensorial, perceptual, anatomical, spatial, behavioral and imaginative pathways, we will transform our individual movement patterning; play with technical structures, improvisational concepts, and choreographic frameworks; and rock out to some sweet jams. Movement; All Levels.
Learn moreCritical Mascara: A Post-Realness Drag Extravaganza is a competition celebrating community and creativity. Inspired by the legacy of vogue balls, house culture, and irreverent activism, Critical Mascara is an expression of the new wave of queer liberation aesthetics. Hosted by Pepper Pepper, Critical Mascara is a showcase of regional talent, a competition engaging local artists, and one hell of a party, Critical Mascara is glamour in action.
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 Sampada Aranke, Assistant Professor, History & Theory of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Art Institute, in exploring artist keyon gaskin's performance it's not a thing. Online artist interviews and media supplement learning and engagement. Anyone curious about contemporary art welcome. Bring a friend!
Learn moreTwo men hunt each other as a kinetic light sculpture hovers and cuts through the air, signaling keystrokes from a hacked ’50s typewriter. Featuring archival wire-tap transcriptions, the missives of communist spies, and MRI brain scans, The Institute of Memory (TIMe) conjures a portrait of director Lars Jan’s enigmatic father — a Cold War operative whose story exhibits how the future of privacy looks dangerously like the darkest era of its past. Jan packs TIMe with a brilliant set of collaborators that include Pablo N. Molina, Nathan Ruyle, Chris Kuhl, Sonny Valicenti, composer and vocalist Mariana Sadovska, and Obie-winner Andrew Schneider, among others.
Learn moreNothing 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 more