White Bird Blogs

There are some very good videos of the making of Wayne McGregor's ENTITY as well as excerpts of the work itself.

Check these out!

Sadler's Wells Excerpts of ENTITY

Wayne McGregor Discusses ENTITY

More excerpts of ENTITY

A lot has been written about Wayne McGregor, whose company Random Dance we're bringing next week to Portland. He is certainly one of the busiest and best choreographers today, creating work for the Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, NDT,  and, coming up, New York City Ballet. Not only is Random a resident company at London's Sadler's Wells, but Wayne is also Resident Choreographer at the Royal Ballet. If you saw the documentary La Danse, he was prominently featured while working with the Paris Opera Ballet dancers on "Genus." He has received numerous awards and honors, including being named Choreographer of the Year by Germany's Ballet-Tanz Magazine.

There is no way that video of dance--and certainly YouTube--can replace the intense experience of watching a live dance performance. However, we think that many people would like a "taste" of the work to determine if they want to buy a ticket.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is performing three works by three of today's most talked-about and significant choreographers. Here are links to excerpts of of the three works on Tuesday's wide-ranging program. Simply click on the names of the works below and you'll be taken to the YouTube site.

Jorma Elo's Bitter Suite

Ohad Naharin's Tabula Rasa

Johan Inger's Walking Mad

These are vibrantly alive works, set to wonderful musical scores by Mendelssohn, Monteverdi, Part, and Ravel. We hope that many of you in Portland and nearby will attend this exciting performance.

There will be a 1/2 price student/senior rush two hours before the 7:30 show at the Schnitzer box office, at SW Broadway and Main.

As our White Bird subscribers know by now, we all were disappointed with the news that Lyon Opera Ballet had to cancel their North American tour--which meant having a sudden hole in our schedule on Feb. 23. We checked on the availability of other companies, and to our enormous relief and delight, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago made itself available to us.  The last time we presented Hubbard Street was in Fall 2005, and we had been planning to bring the company back very soon anyway. So one of our favorite companies--as well as one of our audience's favorite companies--is finally returning, and exactly on the same date as Lyon--Tuesday, Feb. 23.

OtB's 2009-2010 season has included my favorite work from PICA's 2009 TBA Festival( (www.pica.org), Young Jean Lee's "The Shipment" (www.youngjeanlee.org) and just featured Bruno Beltrao's Grupo de Rua, which opened last night at the Bison Building in NE Portland.  Not only do I think OtB has great taste (and a nice blog www.ontheboards.org/blog), but I know that without their partnership, it would be that much more difficult (maybe impossible) to get such great works to Portland.  Thank you OtB! 

And congratulations on the big NYTimes article about www.ontheboards.tv.  I'm very curious to see where that leads and think you couldn't have started with better content! Here's a link to the article, if anyone is interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/arts/dance/24boards.html?partner=rss&e...

“It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” —John Wooden

Angels & Devils in the Details
by Austin Buchholtz

Three new works by well-known Portland choreographers Minh Tran and Tere Mathern created enough buzz to sell out all five of the intimate shows at the World Forestry Center. When I arrive to see them, I hear from insiders that even friends and family of Minh had to jump through hoops to get last-minute tickets.

The dance floor is set in the round, an intimate treat for the viewer but notoriously disorienting for the performer who normally relies on the clear cardinal points of the proscenium stage and the private solace of the wings. The audience is packed and ready.

The reviews are in from The Oregonian, Willamette Week and Portland Monthly.  Did you see the performance?  Let us know if you think these guys are spot on or wide of the mark!

 Marty Hugley for The Oregonian

 Kelly Clarke for Willamette Week

 Lisa Radon for Portland Monthly

A limited number of tickets have come available for the Friday (Feb 5th) and Saturday (Feb 6th) performances of Bruno Beltrao/Grupo de Rua!  To purchase go to https://www.whitebird.org/uncagedtickets

These performances are bound to sell out fast!

Now that we just finished our second Uncaged event, 5 sold out shows of Tere Mathern Dance/Minh Tran & Company, we are already preparing for our third Uncaged company, Bruno Beltrao/Grupo de Rua, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There are two noteworthy aspects to this exciting presentation, happening next week Feb. 3-7.

First, there is the Brazil connection. And second--the hip-hop/capoeira connection.  Mixing these two elements together-- Brazil and hip-hop/capoeira--is a match made in heaven. Bruno's company of nine young men has been receiving raves whereever they have performed-- in Europe, in South America, and now in the midst of a 14-city tour across the United States.

If you've been attending White Bird performances over the last six plus years, you know that some of our most exciting companies come from Brazil. Grupo Corpo, from Bela Horizonte, is Brazil's best-known dance company, and we've presented them 3 times. Vibrant costumes-- intoxicating music-- polyrhythmic movement-- gorgeous dancers-- that's the signature of Grupo Corpo.  We're planning to have them back very soon.

The response to our current shows of Tere Mathern Dance and Minh Tran & Company has been amazing. Paul and I have always felt that Portland has some of the most unique and individual choreographic voices in the country, and certainly Tere and Minh are among them. We have sold out all five performances, and there has been such an outpouring of interest in this Uncaged program that we feel as if we are presenting Mikhail Baryshnikov or Alvin Ailey.

The enthusiastic interest in Tere and MInh is really a testament to the strength of our Portland dance community. Shortly before we started White Bird in 1997, we saw performances by Gregg Bielemeier and Mary Oslund at Conduit, and we knew that there was important work happening here.  At about the same time we saw Portland Opera's "Carmina Burana" and experienced the beginnings of what would become Jamey Hampton''s and Ashley Roland's BodyVox. Eric Skinner and Daniel Kirk danced in both Gregg's work and "Carmina," and during White Bird's first years we admired their growth as gifted dancemakers, in BodyVox and with their own company.