The clock is running out on PICA’s Time-Based Art (TBA)
Festival—the annual celebration of all things arty and temporal
expires on Sunday, September 13. Here are the Mercury‘s
performance picks for the final weekend of the festival, and don’t
forget to check out TBA’s visual art installations at Washington High
School!
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
AMYO/TINYRAGE—After 10 years of successful
collaboration with dance collective locust, Amy O’Neal decided to
strike out with her own creative projects. Too features O’Neal
and Ellie Sandstrom moving through a series of encounters with 50 other
dancers, never actually interacting with each other. Shot over two and
a half years in the US and Japan, Too highlights the
increasingly fragmented ways in which humans interact—it takes
the dancers through coffee shops, karaoke bars, Japanese love motels,
and darkened streets. WR
The Works, Washington High School, 531 SE 14th, Thurs Sept 10-Sat
Sept 12, 6:30 pm, $15-20, tinyrage.com
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
ERIK FRIEDLANDER—New York cellist Erik Friedlander has
dipped his toes in countless bodies of artistic
water—orchestrating and conducting pieces, backing avant-garde
icon John Zorn, lending his skills to the pop world of Hole and Kelly
Clarkson—yet his most recent work, Block Ice &
Propane, strives for something more. It’s a multimedia piece that
includes original music, an array of vintage photographs from the 1960s
and ’70s snapped by his father (famed photographer Lee Friedlander),
and a haunting and personal narrative. EAC
Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, Thurs Sept 10-Sat Sept 12,
8:30 pm, $15-20, erikfriedlander.com
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
BOLÉRO VARIATIONS—Maurice Ravel’s
orchestral piece Boléro repeats a melody over and over,
slowly crescendoing from quietude to bombast in its repetition.
Choreographer Raimund Hoghe’s Boléro Variations is
similarly singular, but the minimalist dance performance keeps things
at a low volume, with precise motions within a tight framework. Hoghe’s
unusual physicality is a focal point; the choreographer’s short stature
and severe scoliosis confront the audience’s expectations of a dancer’s
traditional appearance. NL
Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, Fri Sept 11-Sat Sept 12, 8:30
pm, $20-25, raimundhoghe.com
QUASI—What’s a hard-rockin’ band like Quasi doing
playing a hoity-toity arts festival? Well, if all you’ve gotten out of
the legendary Portland band is some heavy riffs and crashing drums, you
haven’t been paying close enough attention. Their music has always had
a touch of the unusual, with progressive-rock messiness and avant-garde
noise touching the corners of their pop melodies. NL
w/Bugskull; The Works, Washington High School, 531 SE 14th, 10:30
pm, $8-10
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
ERASED JAMES FRANCO—Multimedia artist Carter’s
film Erased James Franco takes its title from a 1953
Rauschenberg work, “Erased de Kooning,” and features the actor, alone,
reenacting several scenes from his past performances, as well as a
scene or two in which he reenacts scenes from other actors’
performances (including Julianne Moore’s from Todd Haynes’
Safe). EH
Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park,
Thurs Sept 10, 8:30 pm, Sun Sept 13, 4:30 pm, $6-7