Let me ask you a question. What was the last TBA Festival event that had one (and only one) idea in its head: to entertain the masses with frenzied song-and-dance enthusiasm, and send you home with a mile-wide grin? None in recent memory come to mind, which makes Pink Martini and friends’ Saturday night performance […]
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Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People Redesign Dean
Eric McNatt When Hollywood legends die, they leave behind a body of work that’s almost more important to those left behind than the legend’s actual life story. The movies of Garbo, or Monroe, or whomever are almost like a magic trunk of forgotten costumes. They can be pulled out, dusted off, and inhabited for a […]
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Janet Pants & Explode Into Colors
I didn’t stay late enough at the Works on Thursday night to have to face the crushing crowds, so I missed Gang Gang Dance. But if you exhausted yourself then and opted to rest up last night, you missed out on a fantastic collaboration between Janet Pants (AKA Jane Paik, who, incidentally, was my Pilates […]
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REVIEW: Young Jean Lee, The Shipment
Paula Cort I was admittedly tepid about playwright Young Jean Lee’s 2007 TBA offering, Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, a show that seemed as though it was trying to push buttons I don’t actually have. Her new show the The Shipment, in which the Korean American Lee set out to examine the African […]
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Tonight: Oregon! Oregon! at the Zoo
Adam Levy Yep, it’s raining. Yep, the sold-out show will go on. From Stephen Marc Beaudoin’s preview: You know the story, right? Globetrotting explorers happen upon a witch in the great Oregon Territory and wish Oregon from mere territory into mighty statehood; the witch “uncorks” Oregon statehood from the bottle where it’s kept, but threatens […]
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REVIEW: Meg Stuart + Philip Gehmacher, Fri Sept 4 @ PCPA Newmark Theatre
There are moments in Meg Stuart and Philip Gehmacher’s “Maybe Forever” that you may never forget. The slow spread of Gehmacher’s arms, sunward, as a soft guitar crescendoes. A wrenchingly expressive duet between the dancers that bubbles with a darkly sexual subtext. Then there’s the other 80 impenetrable minutes of this show. The question is […]
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The Works: Opening Night at Washington High
Wayne Bund Washington High School circa 10 pm last night, packed with dance culture kids waiting for Gang Gang Dance to take the stage at TBA’s Works: “I’m so fucked up” she tells her friend, sprawled out in the center of the room, staring off into the ceiling, running her fingers through her friend’s hair. […]
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Time-Based Anxiety Attack
Image courtesy Gordon Wilson at PICA’s press corps I have nothing to say about the opening of TBA last night, or Gang Gang Dance, because last night the halls of Washington High school turned into some circle of hell—whichever one is the fashionable one—and I couldn’t hang. Also, I think I might have developed an […]
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Time-Based Anxiety Attack
Image courtesy Gordon Wilson at PICA’s press corps I have nothing to say about the Works, or Gang Gang Dance, because last night the halls of Washington High school turned into some circle of hell—whichever one is the fashionable one—and I couldn’t hang. Also, I think I might have developed an eating disorder, and I’m […]
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Opening Night + Photo Contest
Wayne Bund At last night’s opening ceremony, the Works was fucking bananas. Before I even got through the front doors I saw—up close and personal—a dick waving in the wind and a girl’s naked peeing ass. (Really, you’re going to use the chain link fence as a wall to piss against? OK. Suit yourselves.) It […]
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TBA Starts Tonight!
Patrick Leonard Just a friendly reminder to check out the Mercury’s TBA blog, where today you’ll find a comprehensive guide to dining around TBA, an irate screed in response to an Oregonian article, info about tonight’s free opening night celebration, and more! And don’t forget to check back tomorrow, when our festival coverage begins in […]
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TBA and the “Civic Realm”
DK Row has an uncharacteristically muddled article in today’s Oregonian, about TBA’s failure to resonate with the general public. Row writes that TBA is “a festival that’s about giving artists and performers the widest latitude no matter what, even if that excludes a wider audience.” He goes on to compare the ten-day attendance at TBA […]