T.B.A. PDX 2007

YEAH YEAH!! I GOT MY T.B.A. PASS TODAY!!

I am SOOO excited for T.B.A. I went last year for the first time and really loved the intensity of the festival. I am really looking forward to seeing Nature Theater of Oklahoma again. Last year we got into the final performance and had to sit on the floor in the front row. A little bit about Nature Theater of Oklahoma pulled from the TBA booklet: "Nature Theater of Oklahoma is a New York-based performance group under the direction of Pavol Liska and Kelly Cooper. The ensemble strives to create an unsettling live situation that demands total presence from everyone in the room. Using ready made materials, found space, overheard speech, and observed gesture, and through extreme formal manipulation and superhuman effort, they seek to effect a shift in the perception of everyday reality that extends beyond the site of performance and into the world in which we live." AMAZING...right? The performance is 4 hours long and you get a soda and a sandwich...talk about bang for you buck! (www.oktheater.org)

The next group I'm so excited about is Elevator Repair Service. I haven't seen this group before by they are reading The Great Gatsby out loud. From the T.B.A. handbook: "Six hours long and with a cast of 13, Gatz is by far ERS' most ambitious endeavor yet. Not a stage adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel but a verbatim reading of the entire book, accomplished by the staff of a small office in the midst of their increasingly bewildered business operations." (www.elevator.org)

Other things I am looking forward to:

Mammalian Diving Reflex: Haircuts by Children (Toronto-bases performance company, who will ask you to trust children to cut your hair. ) www.mammalian.ca

Zoe Scofield & Juniper Shuey: The devil you know is better than the devil you don't (their performance explores adolescent group dynamics) www.zoeandjuniper.com

Kassys: KOMMER (Amsterdam-based theater company focusing on displaying the beauty of humane success and failure)

tEEth: Norman and Happy (Portland-based company...yeah P-Town! dance group who are exploring division between one's conscious and subconscious) www.rubberteeth.com

Charlotte Vanden Eynde & Kurt Vandendriessche: Map Me (naked Belgians using their bodies like a canvas and exploring the hidden physical and emotional aspects) www.wpzimmer.be

Taylor Mac: The BE(A)ST of Taylor Mac (He has sequins on his face and creates solo performances borrowing from different perfromative art forms) www.taylormac.net

The Suicide Kings: In spite of Everything (hip-hop theater...enough said) www.suicidekingsspokenword.com

And ALL of the events at The Works looks amazing (seriously just go to them all because it's always a fun time) and so do the Art exhibits. But being a theater person, the devised and performance based groups are what interest me most.

Check out more at: www.pica.org