Performing Arts: Page 43

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 →

Regret, Regret, Regret

Theater

Chekov updated for a post-Prozac world in OCT’s uneven production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike As with writers David Mamet or Aaron Sorkin, to properly experience playwright Christopher Durang you first have to commit to the musical rhythms of his language. Durang’s humor, dark and cynical as it is, lies within that rhythm. Continue reading →

Medieval Malarkey

Very Little Theatre’s current production of Spamalot

Theater

The irreverent postmodern humor of Monty Python — a stew of bawdy iconoclasm, parodic schmaltz and geek-boy cheekery — achieved perhaps its finest expression in the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This cult classic contains so many insider touchstones (the Knights Who Say Ni, Frenchmen who fart in your general direction, a homicidal rabbit) that, by now, it requires its own cultural thesaurus. Continue reading →

Forget the Fourth Wall

Magical Moombah brings fun, frolic and the American songbook to kids

Theater
Scotty Perey and Judith Roberts

Now celebrating its 14th season, The Shedd’s Magical Moombah serves up vaudevillian romps for kids as well as kids-at-heart.  I chased down two of Moombah’s illustrious founders, Judith “Sparky” Roberts and Scotty Perey, to see what makes Moombah tick.  “The main idea is to share songs — American standards — from the popular awareness,” Roberts says.  In a Moombah show, those songs are packaged in a way that’s kid-centered and fun.  Continue reading →

Channeling Chekov

The upper classes get poked in OCT’s production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Theater
Storm Kennedy and Josh Francis in OCT’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Premiering this weekend at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, winner of the 2013 Tony Award for best play, represents a kind of second act for playwright Christopher Durang. “Durang is known for his outrageous comedy, and rightfully so,” OCT director Tara Wibrew says. “But I particularly appreciate that his characters are lovable. In many of Durang’s pieces, there isn’t a villain against a hero — just good people taking opposing routes in an attempt to make life better.”  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 →