September 10
Church of Craft @ Doug Fir Lounge
The monthly church of craft is in session 11AM-4PM.
September 11
The New Economy of Chamber Music @ PNCA
How did classical music so effectively maneuver itself into near extinction? Brede Rørstad explores its potential for its repopulation in a free seminar "The New Economy of Chamber Music". At one time, classical music was pop music. Critics assailed Chopin: " The wildness in both the melody and harmony is for the most part excessive... We cannot imagine any musician, who has not acquired an unhealthy taste for noise, and scrambling, and dissonance, to feel otherwise than dissatisfied with the effect..." as perhaps electroacoustic, noise or microtonal music today! Hear and participate with Rørstad in plotting musics' path forward. 9:30AM-11 PNCA http://www.pnca.edu Free
Filmmaker on September 11 @ Audio Cinema/PICA TBA
September 11 is a day replete. Portland filmmaker Vanessa Renwick connects some of that with a film showing this evening:
"On September 11, the Oregon Department of Kick Ass presents an evening of films assembled by Vanessa Renwick which cast a meditative gaze on death in many forms. In Renwick's intense personal documentary work, edgy and grim poetry informs a deliberate and steady stare at extreme states of existence. Humans and other animals are forced to take decisive action. Everything is a matter of life and death.
Daniel Menche’s thundering live soundtrack propels her latest wildlife epic Hope and Prey. 9 is a Secret ponders mystical visitations from crows and ravens after Renwick changes her name. The found footage gem, Britton, S. Dakota is constructed solely of haunting portraits of children filmed standing in the street of a desolate town in depression era America. Also screening: two Vietnam era artifacts—Travis Wilkerson’s harrowing and hopeless National Archive, v. 1 and Bill Daniel’s Selective Service System Story, which revisits a filmmaker who shot himself in the foot on film to make a statement against the Vietnam War and to get out of the draft. The evening commences with Wilkerson’s Superior Elegy, a portrait of a 25 hour-long improvisational concert held in Duluth, Minnesota in honor of a murdered friend. Despite being scheduled for the weekend following September 11, 2001, the event’s organizers chose to perform as planned. In so doing, the event acquired an unintended poignancy. The resulting film reads almost like a prayer: quiet, formal, and full of inexplicable power."
8-9PM at Audio Cinema as part of TBA
226 SE Madison
8 PICA Members, 12 General, Free pass holders...
September 13
Mexican Butoh
Butoh is a strange and delicate thing. It is a modern dance form from Japan unlike any other movement art you have seen. It is improvised, sometimes based on images from nature. The site http://www.butoh.net, though outdated, is valuable. First created in 1959 amidst the post WW2 Japanese nationalist cultural movement, of which author Mishima was a leader, butoh was wild. Now it is unknown by many Japanese, while taking root worldwide. Diego Pinion is its Mexican instance. Pinion is known for his intense workshops in which psychodrama is the entry point for creating new movement. If you are a movement artist, or curious, if you can leave aside narrative and judgement and enter a dream state of pure body imagination, this will be a worthwhile performance. If you desire more, consider seeing Sanki Juku in Seattle November 21 - they are a sublime performance group and one of the preeminent butoh performance groups in the world.
7-midnight Someday Lounge (Backspace) 125 NW 5th $10
September 14
Art @ Local.35 Store
Clothing store Local.35 shows "Seneca" - work by Erik Railton, Molly Quon and Justin Hawkins. 7-9pm.
Music by DJ Entropy.
Local35
3556 SE Hawthorne Blv
www.local35.com
www.myspace.com/local35
September 16
Surreal Dog Walk @ NW Portland
Whether dividing the world is useful, I've my doubts. It can be argued though that there are dog people and cat people. I fall on the dog side. I'm more interested in the medium to larger size, but I've many friends who prefer medium to small. One breed falling into this category is the west highland terrier. Yearly Portland westie guardians mount a surealistic visual conspiracy and walk their dogs en masse. The sight of a few hundred identical dogs at walk is not an hallucination. They wander NW Portland in pack - details at http://dovelewis.org/events/Westie_Walk.aspx. Begins 10AM at NW 20th and Raliegh. Free to watch
Sustainable Building Tour @ Portland
Portland's Office of Sustainable Development (that combination of words is so beautiful and sensible) sponsors "Build it Green" a tour of 19 homes, a high rise and three communiy buildings selected for their innovation in construction, materials, habitat restoration and neogemutlichkeit. The cost is $15, but $10 for people who use public transport or bikes for the tour. Details at http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=129526. 11AM-5PM. See the link for the solar homes tour and sustainable materials information fair which is free.
Art Crimes of Ron English @ Missing Link
Ron English is an agitprop artist. I find clowns disturbing and he does not. His work is internationally known, the subject of a documentary, we are lucky to see the work in situ. I think the value is where his career arc meets his psyche - who among our friends have the same potential?
I am not damning with faint praise here. This is solid lowbrow work. The Missing Link openings are an undiscovered great thing, bring your friends, go!
The Missing Link 3314 SE Belmont 7PM free
Indian Music @ Lewis and Clark College
We are surrounded by music. Sometimes it is deeper into a genre that we desire to explore and sometimes it is broader. Tonight you may hear North Indian classical music should you desire on sarod, a stringed instrument, and the saxophone, accompanied by tabla. The concert is sponsored by Kalakendra at Lewis and Clark College in the Evans Auditorium. $15 advance/20 door, or consider a season ticket. 7:30PM Details at http://www.kalakendra.org/flyer.html and http://www.kalakendra.org/
Fetish Butoh Performance @ Someday Lounge
Butoh, the modern dance form, is not by nature dark. Often it is sublime and beautiful. Improvised, it is inspired by images. One of the founding artists, now 99 years of age, is working entirely with images of his mother, birth, and flowers.
In Portland though, the dark disturbing branch of butoh has drawn adherents. Tonight you may see a butoh fetish hybrid. Societas Insomnia performs a nightmare in which a child dreams the terror of an evil circuis master, fire performers, ritual suspension by flesh hooks and much writhing. Interestingly some of the performers embrace the dark side, and some are the sweetest people you could meet. The chorus is the butoh, the fetish performers, just themselves.
Performers include Soriah, Mizu Desierto, Malice Munz, Balance Suspension, The Fireninja, Ivizia Dakini, Cherry, Peach, Noah Mickens, Micah Perry, Synchronicity Frequency, Llewyn Máire, Lisa Newman, Germany, Pandora, Lana Guerra, Fredrick Zahl, Edifice Flesh, Yoshi Ironskin, Domina Betka Schpitz.
You may say echt, but if you are interested in today's boundaries of performance, this one may be worth your experience. Do not judge all butoh by this one though.
http://www.somedaylounge.com/performers/societas_insomnia/
Someday Lounge (Backspace) 125 NW 5th
10PM-Midnight $13
