Dance: Page 9

Consider a trip to Portland this year to see Whitebird Dance

Dance
Israel’s Inbal Pinto comes to Portland’s Whitebird Dance this season

First, an appeal: If you love dance like I do and long to see performances with national and international reach, please use this lull in local performance to consider a trip to Portland this year to see Whitebird Dance.  I’ve recently made the easy commute to see the pioneering Twyla Tharp (review at the EW blog: goo.gl/NqYsd7), Kidd Pivot, Cirque Alfonse (which blew my mind) and La Compagnie Hervé Koubi, whose seminal work, What the Day Owes the Night, left me speechless (read more on Koubi here: goo.gl/v2Wzpf) Continue reading →

Eugene’s own hula school, Na Pua O Hawai’i Nei (The Flowers of Hawai’i), presents its annual ho’ike exhibition

Dance

Eugene’s own hula school, Na Pua O Hawai’i Nei (The Flowers of Hawai’i), presents its annual ho’ike exhibition June 25 at Cascade Middle School auditorium, 1525 Echo Hollow Road. All classes will perform, from preschoolers through kupuna (elders).  It’s all too easy to dismiss this art form. How many tipsy mainland tourists have watched an overpriced hotel hula show and thought, “What’s the big deal? I could do that.”  Continue reading →

Taking the Leap

UO professor Brad Garner premieres Strings! with his new dance company at Oregon Contemporary Theatre

Dance
Brad Garner

For professional dancer and choreographer Brad Garner, inspiration comes directly from community. “I’m inspired by community and the relationships among members of a community,” says Garner, whose dance company GARNERDANCES premieres Strings! An Evening of Dance at Oregon Contemporary Theatre June 17-18.  “I’ve always been intrigued by human behavior — that interaction between people, and how people change in different contexts and group dynamics,” Garner says.  Continue reading →

When it comes to making art, people in the performing arts get a raw deal

Dance
Dancer Jun Tanabe of #instaballet

When it comes to making art, people in the performing arts get a raw deal.  A poet just needs a pen, right? A studio artist just needs a little space and some supplies. (Unless you work in a medium like cars or buses or something. Please don’t flood my inbox with letters of complaint; I’m just trying to make a point.)  Anyway, for dancers, rehearsal time is pretty dear: Rents can be prohibitively high for sprung-wood floors, safe for bare feet and careening bodies. And securing a performance venue? Oy.  Continue reading →

Welcome to the Playhouse

Portland’s athletic BodyVox dance company brings retrospective Urban Meadow to the Hult

Dance
Urban Meadow

Eugene Ballet Company presents a rare treat for Eugene audiences Saturday when Portland-based BodyVox returns to the Hult Center with Urban Meadow, a retrospective of work from its 18 dynamic seasons.  “We wanted to make a show that was repertory,” says BodyVox co-artistic director Jamey Hampton, sitting in the airy lobby of the BodyVox studio and performance space in northwest Portland.   Continue reading →

Kidd Pivot/Electric Company Theatre

Dance

Betroffenheit, the collaboration between Kidd Pivot/Electric Company Theatre, presented by Whitebird Dance at the Newmark Theatre in Portland Saturday night, pushed at odd angles through territory that at times felt dank, or prickly, hot and then cold. The audience was at times arrested, cajoled, invigorated and perhaps browbeaten. This was not namby-pamby dance for its own sake, nor was it theater alone, but a hybridization that, though not consistently successful, whatever that means, was at least doing something new. Continue reading →

Xcape Dance Company presents The Freak Show!

Dance
Work Dance Co.

Xcape Dance Company presents The Freak Show! with a red carpet and pre-show at 7:30 pm and show at 8:30 pm Friday, April 1, at the Hi Fi Music Hall, featuring “Non Stop hip hop, street jazz, tap, music, side shows, tricks, treats, circus acts and show stoppers,” says the group’s artistic director Vanessa Fuller. Tickets xcapedance.com; $10-$13.  Continue reading →