The Art Gym Preview Reception

April 03, 2011

Sunday, 3 to 6 pm
The Art Gym BP John Admin Bldg.
Curator: Terri Hopkins
Free and open to the public.

Preview REception

Main Gallery: Dance: before, after, during
Gallery 2: Past Moves
The Art Gym

Dance: before, after, during
Dance: before, after, during opens in the gallery’s main space and presents preparatory materials, documentation and performances by four Portland-based choreographers — Linda Austin, Susan Banyas, Tahni Holt and Linda K. Johnson. The exhibition will include those materials and documentation of performance.

All four choreographers are creating new work for the exhibition.

Performance Schedule:

April 3

Linda K. Johnson - Walking to Know-Satellite, at 3:15 p.m.
She integrates the acts of walking, collecting and creating dance. For Satellite, Johnson mailed more than 150 paper bags to friends and colleagues with an invitation to take a walk somewhere and send back pieces of that experience such as a thought, an object, a drawing or photograph. Johnson will use these pieces of experience as the score for creating this new work.
Linda Austin - A head of time, at 4 p.m.
In the performance, the "before" is suggested by displaying 12 months of Austin’s video movement diary — a type of dancer’s sketchbook — on television monitors. The "before" is also a stack of 250 to 300 blankets, afghans, throws and quilts, which will be used in the performance. As A head of time draws to a close, the blankets will be re-stacked. This residue of materials combined with video documentation of the performance will form the "after" of Austin’s work for the exhibition.
Tahni Holt - SUNSHINE a work in progress, 4:45 p.m.
The basic elements are two dancers, the space and a huge pile of cardboard boxes. Holt’s intent is to expose the inner sanctuary of the rehearsal process and to leave visual remnants and artifacts from the performance behind. A video of the performance will be will be included in the exhibition.

April 30 and May 14

Susan Banyas - It’s Been a Busy Week Ensemble, 2 p.m.
Using Banyas’s image cards, photographs and notebook pages, the ensemble will offer performance experiments that illustrate the fragments from a busy week that expose what lies below the surface of our "busi-ness." At the conclusion of the performance, the cards and photographs will remain, ready for future use.

Past Moves
Past Moves: Selected Archival Footage of Dance Performance in the 1970s and 1980s, focuses on documentation of the work of the Portland Dance Theater and the companies that grew out of it. Portland State University Dance Professor Judy Patton was a member of Portland Dance Theater and subsequent companies. Patton is digitizing a selection of the video documentation of works by Portland Dance Theater members Jann McCauley Dryer, Bonnie Merrill, Greg Bielemeier, Cathy Evleshin and herself.