Hmmmm - how odd!  What exactly is this?  Seems to be 4′x4′ with hinged appendages.  Is that a stage? A coat? A device for moving?  All of the above.  This is little glimpse of the riffing on the standard 4′x4′ Ten Tiny Dance format that will happening this Saturday, Aug. 2nd, at the South Waterfront.  Ten Tiny Dances/South Waterfront - A Performance Walkabout is an opportunity for Portlanders to see some great new works by some of the city’s finest independent dance artists all the while strolling the South Waterfront neighborhood - tram to river - amid live music.  Ten new, site-based movement works are being created for 10 different locations around the district. Participating artists include: Linda Austin, Cydney Wilkes, Tere Mathern, POV Dance, Hand2Mouth Theatre, Sojourn Theatre, Hot Little Hands, Ko & Co., Rhiza A+D, and Ten Tiny Dances founder - Mike Barber.  This particular object is part of the performance work being developed by Rhiza A+D, an architecture and design collective.  Expect a lot more unusual formats for this TTD.  While the 4′x4′ scale remains the common thread, the artists have been invited to challenge the how and the where of that structure.   Presented by the Artist in Residence program and co-curated by Mike and me, this TTD offers audience members the opportunity to curate their own order of viewing, meaning - one can see all 10 performances, or sit and watch one over and over again.  The 10 dances will be performed simultaneously in continual rotation every 15 minutes.  A menacingly loud horn will signal the start of the next dance.  While this format will make for some very tired artists by the end of the day, it also makes for a very playful chance for viewers to have some autonomy over their experience.  I am always a fan of that. .  To be part of this event, bring yourself to the the South Waterfront by 4p. Check in at the information booth on the corner of SW Moody and Curry to get your performance map and cool orange wristband.  First dance begins on the dot at 4:15p, so if you are not walking towards your first site by 4p you may miss one.  Be sure to bring some loose change so you can imbibe in the great treats for sale.  Oh, and in between the dances there will be these groups of performers walking around playing some fantastic music.  Please consider joining us for this free event.  Secure bike parking is available at SW Moody and Curry, as the South Waterfront is an easy, green commute by bike, streetcar, tram or carpool.  

I have wanted to work with the amazing visual artist - Bill Will, for a long time.   He has worked on and off with choreographers for many years, and I have always deeply admired his wit, subtle politics and use of materials.  I considered it a milestone in my own making when  - about 10 years ago, he went out of his way to let me know that he thought my then current project was really exciting.  For me, it was a huge affirmation about how I was working.  So, when it was clear that the Artist in Residence Program was going to go forward, I called him up to see if he wanted to collaborate on a major scale project for the park.  Most often empty and lonely for activity, I wanted to create an event for the South Waterfront Neighborhood Park that would help to dream it into being; tatto it with the life and energy that neighborhood parks should have.   This one will become a formal neighborhood park by June of 2009.  The short story is that Bill said yes, and we began the very daunting process of trying to create a work that could, in scale and energy, inhabit the nearly two city blocks of open space that the park occupies.  Many stunning ideas have lived and died over the last 9 months.  A neighborhood in constant, dramatic physical transformation is a tough place to work.  One turns around one day and the whole thing looks different.  How to create something that can ride the flux, weather changes?  Bill’s installation 20×20 and our shared creation of Promenade are our responses to the land, the history, the natural elements and the spirit of gathering that parks instill.  Working in close collaboration with sound designer Seth Nehil and lighting designer Bill Boese, along with a core group of dancers: Daniel Addy, Noelle Stiles, Tahni Holt, Eric Nordstrom, Kathleen Keogh, Katie Arrants, Rebecca Harrison and Tracy Broyles, we are creating a very singular performance gathering.  We hope you will join us on Saturday, July 19th an hour before sunset. PROMENADE 

•  Saturday, July 19th
• South Waterfront Neighborhood Park, SW Moody@ Curry
• gathering begins an hour before sunset
• Free; picnics and all ages welcome
• Go green with the tram, streetcar, bicycle or a carpool
• Safe, secure and free bicycle parking available at SW Moody and Curry

One-of-a-kind and unrepeatable, Promenade is an episodic dance, sound and light performance event that involves more than 30 performers, bicycles and a rising moon. Coinciding with Bill Will’s July guest artist residency as part of the AiR Program, Promenade will emerge from Will’s installation - 20 x 20, on Saturday evening, July 19th.  Almost two city blocks in scale, 20 x 20 is a site-specific installation using simple materials that calls attention to the land, its simple proportions and subtle topography, as well as emphasizes the movement of the sun and wind throughout the day and the changes evoked by the natural phenomena of sunset, dusk, and moonrise.  Promenade invites the viewer to traverse the installation at one’s leisure - sitting, resting and engaging as desired.  One night only, Promenade references the rural, the urban, the past and the future of this area of the city.  

 Last July, when I received confirmation that the Artist in Residence Program had received a green light to go forward, I began making lists of artists - artists whose work I admired, artists whose work consistently seemed to address site and place, and artists who welcomed transparency and community interaction in their work.  It came as no surprise to me to find my long time colleague - visual artist Linda Wysong, on all of these lists. I have known Linda for 20 years and created my first two large-scale site-relevant works in collaboration with her.  We met when I was trying to teach myself about stillness in movement by modeling for visual art classes at PNCA.  She was the teacher and we just got to talking between sittings.  Turns out that we had some very parallel interests and embarked on a collaboration.   Over the years we have worked together on several pivotal projects - Intersection, Finding the Forest and PipeDreams to suggest a few.  Linda’s work is absolutely singular in this community and I have been deeply grateful to have her as a peer and often a kind of mentor.  She makes work that is genre-bending - and has, long before it became so popular to do so.  So, one can imagine my excitement when she was interested in being a guest in the AiR program.  True to her style, she has been preparing for this month for months, carefully researching and forming relationships to support her project - Backyard Conversations.  Comprised of a series of performance tours and video portraits, Linda’s project actively seeks to raise questions and provoke dialogue about how and why we build what we build.  Combining history, science, engineering and the anecdotal, each of the three tour opportunities  - Water: The Machine and the Garden, Constructing Community and Footprints Along the River, invite attendees to experience the South Waterfront district from singular points of view.  The project culminates on Saturday evening, June 28th, with the screening of a series of video portraits representing residents, construction workers and other individuals who work or interact with the neighborhood.  To sign up for a tour, please go to here.

In the last several years, our country’s cultural historians have slowly begun to tell the story of the early Chinese immigrant experience in the U.S.  Denied the opportunity to own land, gain citizenship or transport their families to our mainland, these almost exclusively male Chinese laborers suffered deep hardship, all the while clearing much of the land that is now most prized in our great cities located along the entire stretch of the west coast - Vancouver, B.C. to Los Angeles.  For his May project, AiR guest artist, Horatio Hung-Yan Law -  a native of Hong Kong but New Yorker since the age of 16, will explore how our cities might look and feel differently had the Chinese had more opportunity to assert themselves on the cities that they so painstakingly transformed on behalf of others.  In a three-part installation that traverses both the AiR studio and the South Waterfront neighborhood, Horatio will use common materials that we associate with either a Chinese or Asian lineage - rice, bamboo, chopsticks, t’ai chi - to play with how the South Waterfront district might be different today had the Chinese laborers been able to establish a presence there.  Please join Horatio for his opening reception on Saturday, May 3rd from 11a-2p in the AiR studio, and for the free t’ai chi workshops that accompany his residency in preparation for the T’ai Chi for 1,000 gathering on Saturday, May 31st.  In addition to the workshop on May 3rd during the reception, workshop times include:  May 14th, 10a-noon; May 21st, 6-8p; May 28th, 6-8p. To sign-up, please contact Horatio at: horatiolaw@gmail.com 

For those of you who didn’t make it down to Adam Kuby’s end-of-month exhibit in March, he has posted the fruits of his residency at his website.  You can click here to see them. The points and the issues they address were informed largely by the input of many, many participants over the month.  Thank you to those of you who participated. The project will continue to evolve, so please let Adam know of other places and other issues you think could be included.  Adam can be contacted at: adam@adamkuby.com.

   I have long admired the artistic activities of visual artists Maria T.D. Inocencio - a 2x Pollock-Krasner recipient, and Mark R. Smith, represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery.  While partners on the domestic side of life, their individual work - while often installation-based, has taken them each down very separate paths that have not crossed since their very early years in school at Cooper Union in NYC.  Until now!  I am thrilled and honored that they have chosen to collaborate on a project for the South Waterfront.  Each with a history of inviting community participation in the realization of their work, the AiR program offered them an opportunity to explore how a new community comes to know itself - together!  COMPASS, their April project, officially begins on Saturday, April 5th in the AiR studio with a series of workshops that invite hands-on participation with the artists.  COMPASS posits Portland as the center of the world and seeks to “map” the individuals in the community through the collection of a few simple coordinates - height, birth place, gender and the spelling (or re-spelling, in this case) of one’s name.  The resulting object of this data will be the creation of a simple flag for each individual that will be placed outside in the context of the larger installation - a 20′x40′ oval that is literally a map of the world with the South Waterfront neighborhood at its center.   While allowing for anonimity, COMPASS seeks to map who we are and from where we came.   Very family-friendly, all ages and Portlanders are invited to participate in this project.  The workshop is from 11a-2p and repeats again on April 12th, 11a-2p.  The final exhibition of this work will occur on Saturday, April 26th, from 11a-1p.