EXCITEMENT AROUND the Portland Institute for Contemporary
Art’s annual Time-Based Art (TBA) Festival is unusually fevered this
year, and there are a few very good reasons why.
After a couple of years of less-than-successful venues for the
Works, TBA’s late-night performance venue and exhibition space, this
year TBA struck gold with their choice of locations: Southeast
Portland’s Washington High School [see “Washington High School’s
Haunted Halls“], a rambling old building that’s been sitting
spookily unused for years. Two floors of Washington High will be
dedicated to TBA’s visual arts programming, with installations in
classrooms, offices, and even the old school library. Throw in a
long-abandoned auditorium—modified to include a dance
floor—for late-night performances, a beer garden, and a huge lawn
for picnicking [see “The Fruits (and Vegetables!) of Our Labor“], and it’s hard to see how the Works could go wrong. Another, not
insignificant factor is that in past years, TBA has overlapped with
Musicfest NW, forcing audiences to choose between two of the most
popular festivals in Portland—this year, there’s a brief but
crucial window between them.
Even more important than timing and location, though, is that this
year sees the implementation of TBA’s most crucial safety valve: the
introduction of a new artistic director. Guest directors rotate through
TBA every few years, ensuring fresh ideas and new performers. Wondering
why this year’s festival places less emphasis on chilly French
performance art, and more on cutting-edge contemporary dance? That’s
because new Guest Artistic Director Cathy Edwards spent 10 years at New
York’s Dance Theater Workshop and is, as she explains it, “very
committed to creating more points of entry to contemporary dance.”
Additionally, and in a marked change from years past, Edwards’
programming is refreshingly accessible.
“For the TBA Festival,” Edwards says, “I’ve been looking for work
that is interesting both because of its structure, and because the
content is visceral, bracing, and very much speaks about contemporary
life. In terms of approaching the festival thematically, a few central
ideas definitely run through the festival. One of them is a very active
current of anxiety about contemporary life—for example about race
in America, [or] about private lives being played out in public.”
All of this adds up to one of the most promising TBA lineups in
years. Our complete listings for TBA events can be found here, and as always, the Mercury‘s intrepid arts team will be
blogging the action on our website
(tba.portlandmercury.com). Stop by
and tell us what you think.