Performing Arts: Page 61

The Good Witches

Girl Circus brings its dizzying act to the Wildish

Performing Arts
Girl Circus at Oregon Country Fair 2014. Lisa Dee Photography.

Darcy DuRuz and her all-women circus are up to some powerful magic. They’ve had a heady mix of enchantment and empowerment bubbling for some time, and plan to unleash the magic of Girl Circus’ Witches at the Wildish Theater Oct. 4-5. Girl Circus is a thoughtful blend of professional circus arts performers and novice apprentices. The circus was born in 2001 when DuRuz noticed a lack of female performers at the Oregon Country Fair (OCF).  Continue reading →

Artistic License to Wed

Performance artist Ryan Conarro explores marriage in the 21st century

Theater

The frontline of the fight for civil rights isn’t only in the courtroom or marching down the street, but on stage from Alaska to New York City to Eugene. Interdisciplinary performance artist Ryan Conarro visits the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art this week to perform his latest work, this hour forward, a multi-media production reflecting the changing state of marriage rights.  “It’s a piece exploring family, love, marriage, identity and the gay rights movement,” Conarro tells EW. Continue reading →

The Making of a Quagmire

Steve Lyons’ play The Ghosts of Tonkin, about Wayne Morse and Vietnam, hits Eugene for one-night engagement

Theater
Greg Monahan as Sen. Wayne Morse and Gray Eubank as President Lyndon Johnson in The Ghosts of Tonkin

The Ghosts of Tonkin, a dramatic work about the Vietnam War by Bellingham, Washington-based playwright Steve Lyons, will show Sunday, Sept. 28, at Wildish Theatre. Lyon’s play is a behind-closed-doors investigation of the political maneuvering that led to the conflict, focusing on such historical figures as Robert McNamara, Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson and Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, one of only two U.S. senators to vote against the war. I’ll start by playing devil’s advocate. Why do we need another dramatic work about Vietnam? Continue reading →

The Spin

Dance

While you’ve been getting ahead of that bumper crop of zucchinis, local dance-makers have been busy building new pieces to perform this month. Check out Dance in Dialogue (D.i.D.), a “salon-style community performance series” initiated by choreographers Margo Van Ummersen, Shannon Mockli and Carolina Cabellero that invites the audience to provide precious feedback to artists on new and emerging works. A thoughtful approach to two problems facing any performing artist — securing a venue and finding an audience — D.i.D. Continue reading →

Happy Days Are Here Again

Red Cane makes Much Ado about the red, white and blue

Theater
David Angier and Lizz Torrecillas in Much Ado About Nothing. Photo courtesy of Red Cane Theatre

The plays of Shakespeare are infinitely flexible, capable of being transported across time to various historic eras and transplanted into soils that are vastly different than those originally intended. Some adaptations work splendidly, others not so much: I’ve seen the Bard by turns relocated to late-20th-century Venice Beach, wedged wickedly into Nazi Germany and, not too long ago, given the hipster goose of modern Manhattan. Continue reading →