[current press releases]
for past press releases [click here].
23 May 2004
contact: Lisa Radon | Tim DuRoche, 503.235.0448
lisaradon@variousartists.org
timduroche@variousartists.org
http://www.variousartists.org
Year Anniversary of Various Artists' Performance Series: Rhizomatica, An Occasional Cabaret at Pacific Switchboard
Various Artists celebrates the one-year anniversary of its flagship multidisciplinary performance series Rhizomatica, Saturday, June 12th at 8 PM at Pacific Switchboard (4637 N. Albina Street, Portland, Oregon).Featuring the best in innovative contemporary performance drawn from local talent and beyond, Rhizomatica is noted for its engaging juxtapositions of fresh, risk-taking work from performers representing the full spectrum of the performing arts including improvised music, dance-movement, performance art, poetry, film and video. Interdisciplinary, sometimes improvisational, sometimes interactive (and other words that begin with the letter "I"), these are performances that leap/straddle/grow from the cracks between movement, music/sound, word, images.
Rhizomatica is one of the very few vehicles in Portland truly representing the broadest range of local, regional, and national live performance. Other DIY ventures come and go, or are one-offs. Various Artists is proud to have presented over the last year, new work by more than 20 of the most interesting and dynamic local and visiting artists in a variety of disciplines. The series mandate encourages risk-taking, experimentation, the debut of works-in-progress, working outside field, and collaboration for performers ranging from award-winning filmmakers and emerging and established dancers, to seasoned musicians, poets, and performance artists.
Rhizomatica 4 features:
+ Movement/dance artist and improvisor Kathleen Keogh with a new work entitled “Squab.”
+ Performance by Chris Piuma, (as witty as he is rigorous), one-half of the Minor Thirds, member of the Spare Room poetry collective and editor of the online journal flim.org.
+ Pittsburgh-based poet Terrence Chiusano, graduate of that hothouse of contemporary poetic experimentalism, SUNY-Buffalo.
+ Viewmaster-film artist,Vladimir Solman with her interactive/3-D Vladmaster event, “Lucifagia Thigmotarxis” featuring original soundtrack and narration by Scott Sloan.
+ New work by Portland-based choreographer/dancer, Tracy Broyles|Theory 1.
+ New work by drummer/conceptual artist Tim DuRoche.
Rhizomatica 4 will be June 12th at 8 PM at Pacific Switchboard in North Portland—general admission: $7. Pacific Switchboard is at 4637 N. Albina Street, 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
VARIOUS ARTISTS are performance instigators, conceptual artists, hyphenated makers who thrive at the intersection of various art practices.
VARIOUS ARTISTS curate the performance series Rhizomatica: An Occasional Cabaret, featuring the juxtaposition of poetry-in-performance, dance/movement, video, music, and performance art, frequently featuring cross-genre collaborations. VARIOUS ARTISTS also produce performances of poetry and avant-garde improvised and creatively scored music.
For more information: www.variousartists.org.
"grace to be born and live as variously as possible" -- frank o'hara
PERFORMER’S BIOS
TERRENCE CHIUSANO is a graduate of the University at Buffalo's Poetics Program and holds an undergraduate writing degree from the University of Pittsburgh. His poems have appeared in Basinski: A Zine of the Arts; Can We Have Our Ball Back?; Kenning: A Newsletter of Contemporary Poetry, Poetics, and Nonfiction Writing; Mirage #4/Period(ical); Queen Street Quarterly: Forum for the Contemporary Canadian Arts; Serving_Suggestion; and in the Buffalo Vortex broadside series and $ellsheets e-broadside series. On Generation and Corruption (Handwritten Press, 2003) is his first book. He currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.
TIM DuROCHE is a jazz drummer, conceptual artist, curator, and freelance writer living in Portland, Oregon. Over the last decade he's played all forms of jazz from dixieland and grindhouse to swing, bop and beyond. As comfortable with a pair of brushes and a snare playing jazz standards, as with wind-up toys, gongs, sawblades, water, sand, and other sonic extended techniques—DuRoche has created performances with Beijing Opera musicians, Russian circus clowns, silent film, dance, spoken word, and with installation-performance artists.
KATHLEEN KEOGH is a movement and dance artist primarily concerned with improvisation. She studied dance and performance at Arizona's Prescott College. After moving to Portland in 1999 she became involved in the dance and performance community through groups like Super Unity and outlets such as Performance Works Northwest and the 411 space. She recently performed at the Seattle Improvised Music Festival with five Portland-based musicians. Her work is characterized by subtle, detailed, and authentic movements, often completely devoid of what is called "dance." She is continually searching for and refining her movement and collaborative techniques in solo and group work, contact improvisation, and sound. Currently she is working on a multi-disciplinary improvisational group piece titled Pigeon, which can be experienced in various indoor and outdoor performances throughout the summer and fall.
CHRIS PIUMA has edited the online quasiliterary zine flim
VLADIMIR SOLMAN is an artist who uses the medium of the Viewmaster, shooting scenes on 16mm film, handcutting both the film and the cardboard disks. Her pieces have engaged work ranging from Italo Calvino to Franz Kafka. She premiered her mass Vladmaster performance, “Lucifagia Thigmotarxis,” with 380 Viewmasters for each audience member at the 2004 Portland Documentary and Underground Film (PdX) Festival
Contact: Lisa Radon | Tim DuRoche
503-235-0448