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TBA
Posted inTBA

TBA Review: Drag Clown Carla Rossi Clowns Harder

Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water is a like a Jim Henson apocalpyse cult Greek tragedy.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

Before Carla Rossi woke up, stranded on a mostly submerged rock in the middle of the ocean, a “frazzled arts administrator” delivered a land acknowledgement. It wasn’t your typical acknowledgement: of land stolen from Indigenous people. The half-panicked voice started, forgot, circled back, warned that the show would include “murder, extinction, Liza Minnelli, and the […]

Posted inTBA

Four Hilarious Things That Happened at Takahiro Yamamoto’s NOTHINGBEING

Consideration of pace and comfort on the Time Based Art Festival’s second night.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

“Oh, the performance has started,” Allie Hankins said, interrupting our conversation. She didn’t point, gesture, or treat the situation with immediacy, so I turned my head to find Takahiro Yamamoto in the crowd. NOTHINGBEING‘s choreographer / “instigator” stood in a throng of masked, golden hour-lit TBA festival attendees. They chatted in little clumps, in the […]

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San Cha Opens TBA with a Sold Out Show

The Los Angeles-based singer wowed with a slow baked layer cake set of emotion and drama.
Avatar photo Martha Daghlian

San Cha has done it again. For many Portland art fans, her name is synonymous with longing—as her 2019 performance memorably packed Pearl District gallery, the lumber room, to capacity—creating a line of would-be audience members that snaked around the block. Even at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA)’s larger, warehouse-like headquarters, the show […]

Posted inFall Arts 2022

Start Your Time-Based Art Engines

PICA’s 2022 TBA festival schedule reveals themes of personal journeys, communal healing, cosmic connections, and sensory immersion.
Avatar photo Martha Daghlian

Every September, the Time Based Art Festival (TBA) kicks off what I think of as “art season” in Portland. The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) brings artists from around the world (and local favorites, too) to their headquarters and various other locations around town to present work that is often beautiful, sometimes challenging, and […]

Posted inTBA

Arts Festival TBA Ends This Sunday—Don’t Miss These Two Stand-Out Experiences

Avatar photo Ashley Gifford

The Drift is a virtual reality experience and publication is described as “a visual archive of the future.” GARRICK IMATANI WITH TRAVIS STEWART AND THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF GRAND RONDE. This year’s Time-Based Art Festival (TBA) featured numerous virtual offerings—from video performances to artists’ talks and panels, most of which are available to stream online […]

Posted inTBA

Photo Essay: Striking Scenes From PICA’s Time-Based Art Festival

Avatar photo Andrew Jankowski

Andrew Jankowski Editor’s note: The following are photos from three exhibits at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival (TBA), running now through October 3. Find more of the Mercury’s TBA coverage here and here. A participant in vanessa german’s THE BLUE WALK responds to the poet-artist’s call for rage in an empty […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Read the Story That Inspired Thin Skin—Screening Saturday at TBA:20

Avatar photo Ahamefule J. Oluo

<img src="https://media2.fdncms.com/portmerc/imager/u/original/28818137/1599845758-1599773083-screen_shot_2020-09-10_at_2.22.58_pm.png" alt="Ahamefule J. Oluo stars in Thin Skin, directed and co-written by Charles Mudede.” title=”Ahamefule J. Oluo stars in Thin Skin, directed and co-written by Charles Mudede.”> Ahamefule J. Oluo stars in Thin Skin, directed and co-written by Charles Mudede. Thin Skin Back in 2011, Seattle jazz musician and comedian Ahamefule J. Oluo wrote […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

TBA:20 Begins This Weekend to Make Note of a Time We’ll Never Forget

Avatar photo Suzette Smith

Complete Works, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forced Entertainment, Courtesy of Portland Insitute for Contemporary Art [UPDATE: Two in-person, outdoor events from this festival that the Mercury recommended have been postponed, due to hazardous wildfire air. Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.’s Grandmother(s)’s Kitchen Presents: Bring Your Own Blanket Free Community Picnic, scheduled for Sunday, September 13th, and […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Ahamefule J. Oluo’s SUSAN at TBA 2019: Wonderful Music, Not Enough SUSAN

Avatar photo Suzette Smith

Photo by Maria DiRosa Were I a native of Seattle, I would be more familiar with Ahamefule J. Oluo, the comedian and musician behind SUSAN: a part stand-up, part memoir, part live music performance which appeared as an in-process work at this year’s Time-Based Art Festival (TBA). In 2015, Oluo received widespread acclaim for Now […]

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