[rhizomatica 3 press release]
March 5, 2004
VARIOUS ARTISTS presents Rhizomatica #3: An Occasional Cabaret
Saturday, March 6, 8 PM
Pacific Switchboard
4637 North Albina Street in Portland, OR
Admission: $5
Various Artists invites you to the third installment of Rhizomatica: An Occasional Cabaret—now almost a year old!—revving up on Saturday, March 6 at 8 pm at Pacific Switchboard (4637 North Albina Street). The series will focus on artists from a variety of disciplines in vibrant performative juxtapositions and collaborations——including poet David Abel with composer Matt Marble, Abel is a performer with a mellifluous voice known for his extended conceptual pieces in the vein of Jackson Mac Low, while Marble utilizes natural sounds to compositional effect; drummer Tim DuRoche and poet Lisa Radon explore fluxations of sound+word—this time around the notion of thirst; choreographer-dancer Linda Austin (improvisational dance) of Performance Works NW will debut new solo material to be performed later in the month at Judson Church in NYC; a speculative, pict-acular response to Catherine McKinnon’s “Only Words” from award-winning film-video artist Andrew Blubaugh, (Please Note: Performance will contain graphic adult content, not recommended for anyone under 18), and collective improvisation from vocalist Sitka, bassist Jonathan Blakeslee and bass clarinetist Jonathan Sielaff (music/voice shenanigans).
Expect a succulent blend of celluloid fantasy, curveball cubism, flying reams of paper, inflatable balloon men, careening clarinets, a mobile audience, ferocity, friendliness, vituperative poetry masquerading as a cozy sweater, and galvanized 10-penny nails. The evening features interdisciplinary, sometimes improvisational, sometimes interactive (and other words that begin with the letter "I") performances that leap/straddle/grow from the cracks between movement, music/sound, word, images——The poem might be silent. In fact it might move. The dance might be a sound piece…things might just go boom. Many of the performers are accomplished improvisers who walk that high-wire with aplomb and often breathtaking results— cannonball headfirst into a pool of new experience!
Rhizomatica is an occasional cabaret poised at the intersections of contemporary art practice—showwcasing collaborative spoken word-music performance, sound-based installation art, and conceptual action-events—based in Portland, Oregon.
"But let's think the spirit of the Rhizome, that kind of thought that seeks out relations, often unanticipated, between things not necessarily thought of together, or names the subterranean relations among things we don't typically make explicit. You ambush Habits of response; you break into the predictable flow with something productively incongruous; you cut out samples and remix them, you detour from the path to see what's offroad… you interlineate two different strands to see how they affect each other…" –Robert Siegle
David Abel works as an editor and bookdealer in Portland, after tenures in New York and Albuquerque. Recent performances include "Permanent Red" at the Modern Zoo (with Tim DuRoche), "Dr. Selavy's Dream" in the Richard Foreman mini-festival at Performance Works NW; and appearances with the sound poetry ensemble JJ MAD. For the Pacific Switchboard Seminar's Fluxus evening in May 2003, he performed a four-hour version of "Chutes and Ladders: A Word Event for mARK oWENs and Jackson Mac Low." A preliminary version of "St. Joseph's Book of Acts," a theater piece produced in collaboration with Creative Material Group, was presented at the Lord Leebrick Theatre in Eugene, Oregon, in May 2002. Recently published work includes the poem "Threnos," designed and sewn on a thirty-seven-foot ribbon by the artist Katherine Kuehn, and the long collage text "Conduction," which appeared in "Conduit," an exhibition catalogue devoted to the work of Anna Hepler.
Linda Austin is an Oregon-born choreographer, improviser, performer and teacher.Based in New York City for 22 years after graduating from the Lewis & Clark College Theatre Program, she returned to Portland in 1998. Her work has been presented in New York by the Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, the Kitchen and Movement Research. In the Northwest, she has performed in Seattle at On the Boards ' Northwest New Works, and in Portland at the Echo Theatre, at Conduit, and at her home base at Performance Works NorthWest. She was a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellow in 1992 and a Movement Research Artist-in-Residenc in 1995/96. Her work has also been supported by the US/Mexico Culture Fund for a 1998 residency in Mexico City and the Regional Arts and Culture Council in Portland. Her writing and interviews have appeared in The Movement Research Performance Journal and the Mexican cultural publication Tierra Adentro. Austin is Director of Performance Works NorthWest, which she and lighting designer Jeff Forbes co-founded in 1999. Linda recently completed the run of her solo show The Big Real. The Oregonian’s Catherine Thomas calls Austin, "A strong theater artist who constructs movement scenarios with subtle wit and an eye for the unusual." "Ms. Austin's powers of invention never failed her. . ." Jack Anderson, The New York Times.
Jonathan Blakeslee (contrabass), a native of New Hampshire, was intitiated into musical through family hootenannies—playing a litany of instruments both big and small. After a smattering of singer-songwriter experiences, Blakeslee began studying bass with local jazz great Andre St. James. Blakeslee has appeared locally with Michael Vlatkovich, Tim DuRoche, David Hirvonen, The Subterranean Beat Revival, Roby Edwards, Lev Liberman, and Geoff Pfeifer among others.
Andrew Blubaugh is self-taught film and video artist from Cleveland, Ohio. His work is often personal and examines the relationship between identity, documentation, and geography. In the last twho years, his films have been shown at the Northwest Film/Video Festival, the Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Fest, Vancouver Underground Film Fest, Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema, and at the esteemed Ann Arbor Film Festival. Blubaugh is the Associate Director of the Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festval and by day masquerades as the Regional Services and Exhibition Coordinator at the Northwest Film Center.
Tim DuRoche is a jazz musician and writer living in Portland. Over the last decade he's appeared with Jon Jang/James Newton and Beijing Opera artists Pan Yong Ling, Li Jin Ping, and Li Hong Mei, Cap'n Jack McDuff, Frank Gratkowski, George Cartwright, and the late performance artist Stuart Sherman, as well as with such venerable left coast artists as Eveline Müller-Graf, John Edwards, Gust Burns, Jack Wright, Wally Shoup, Damon Smith, Jim Knodle, Rob Blakeslee, Michael Vlatkovich, Glen Moore, Doug Theriault, and Torsten Müller to name a few. In 2003 he performed at the 9th Olympia Experimental Music Festival and at San Francisco’s Edgetone New Music Summit; developed conceptual solo and duo projects with poets Lisa Radon and David Abel and choreographer-dancer Linda K. Johnson for Red 76's Ministry of Small Things at PCAC's Modern Zoo; and was involved in the city-wide Core Sample exhibition in Octobe; currently working on pyrophonic sound for a site-specific, multi-part dance work by Cydney Wilkes in Spring 2004.
Matt Marble: “i am 24. i currently reside in portland, OR (originally from Mississippi). i am a sound artist/composer, student of speech and hearing sciences, and co-editor of a monthly journal, FO_A_RM, concerning auditory culture/arts and expirimental poetics. I am interested in sound and listening as a mode of being. i believe the sounds without and within us are of utmost importance in regards to our quality of life and i aspire to proliferate this awareness and our consequent 'responsibilities' amongst those who are hard of hearing, and to probe ever more deeply amongst those already tuned in. I have plans to create a sound museum in the near-distant future and am interested in making Portland a center for acoustic ecology activity. . ..”
Lisa Radon is a poet for whom Sound is King, who loves the taste of words in mouth, tongue on teeth. She's performed at the San Francisco Poetry Festival, Lollapalooza, myriad bars, lounges and laundromats, and has done numerous radio performances on stations like Berkeley's KPFA and the Monterey Bay Area's KUSP. Recently, Radon has performed at Spare Room Collective's Sound Poetry Festival, PerformanceWorks Northwest’s Cabaret Boris & Natasha, 12x12 solo program at 411 Collective, and at Pacific Switchboard.Radon's work has appeared in three anthologies published by Manic D Press, in chapbooks, including It’s All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye and The Super Deluxe with Everything, and the artist's book This Page Left Intentionally Blank. In 1998, Radon received a grant for the writing, development and performance of the interdisciplinary work of a poem cycle for five voices entitled Five Feet High and Rising, which was performed in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California. In winter/spring 2003, Radon executed the sidewalk poem Are You In Or Are You Out at multiple locations in Portland. Lisa is currently neck-deep in collaborative projects with Tim DuRoche, including a sound recording and live performance.
Jonathan Sielaff is a bass clarinetist and performer based in Portland. A frequent contributor to ad hoc improv proceedings, he’s appeared on 411 Collective’s 12 Solo Performances, Performance Works NW’s Richard Foreman Festival, and at Spare Room’s presentation of JJ Mad. Additionally, Sielaff has performed with such improvisers as Joel Taylor, Doug Theriault, and most recently with Moe! Staiano for his epic Death of a Piano.
Contact: Lisa Radon | Tim DuRoche 503-235-0448