Shannon Stewart – Come. Get. To. This.

Shannon made Portland her home for a short time in 2011-12 while working with local dance group tEEth. We also got to see her own choreography at Conduit as part of their Sea/Port series during that time. Shannon is a rigorous artist, dedicated to her craft with incredible intensity and drive. She is a frequent collaborator with many other artists in Seattle and we’re happy to finally be able to work with her for this year’s Risk/Reward Festival!

BIO

Shannon Stewart (choreographer) is a dance artist with a proclivity for the enigmatic, dark, nuanced, delicate, comedic, architectural, durational and highly physical elements of dance. She veers towards the inherently unresolvable in an attempt to make performance that feels constructed but not heady; that peels away artifice.

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

Come.Get.To.This is an exploration of permeability in performing, viewing and participating.  it is an ensemble that is embedded in a solo.  It lacks production value and costumes.  It was made while thinking about community, the economy, virtuosity, and moshing.

WATCH A VIDEO WORK SAMPLE OF COME.GET.TO.THIS

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the Satori Group (Seattle, WA) – The Land is Always Known

The Satori Group are one of the most energetic and consistent theater ensembles in the Northwest. They always bring serious production values to the table, with strong visual style and a variety of creation methods to suit the material they’re tackling. Add in the Bengsons, a soulful folk duo from San Francisco to create an original musical?         BRING. IT. ON.

BIO

The Satori Group is a regionally recognized and critically acclaimed theatre ensemble, dedicated to the creation and production of new work and collaborative exchange. We create and present theatrical events, host interdisciplinary forums, and share evolving methods of training and workshop. The twelve Company Members and five Associate Artists invest themselves fully in creating and supporting innovative theatre.

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

A theatrical collaboration between the Satori Group and musical duo The Bengsons, The Land is Always Known is a rollicking musical attempt to create a new American mythology and help reconfigure our troubled DNA. What if we consider ourselves first generation non-violent? We are refugees from a culture of violence. Our new heroine is the dam- a bridge between our violent past and present- what may happen when we let her speak?

VIEW A SAMPLE OF A PAST SATORI PRODUCTION

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LanceLife (Portland, OR) – We’re not Here to Play Games

The LanceLife crew are more well-known in the comedy circuit than the contemporary art world, which is what made us so excited to receive their application for the Risk/Reward Festival. We’re expecting some whip-smart insights into the realm of personal empowerment and a subversive glance at our culture of winning at all costs.  Following in the footsteps of past festival favorites who often perform in clubs (like Janet Pants, Joe Von Appen and Angela Fair), LanceLife is a real wildcard in this year’s lineup – which is exactly what we love to see. Here’s some more info on LanceLife to whet your appetite…

BIO

Wallace Fessler and Joshua David Fisher have spent over a decade exploring the nexus between comedy and semi-realist performance art. Our evolution can be tracked from Portland’s first fake, but not fake, not televised, but then televised late night talk show (The Famous Mysterious Actor Show), through absurdist sketch comedy (The Portland Oregon Them), and on to our current project, an examination into the nature of ‘homage’, The LanceLife Comprehensive Total Life System.

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

Created by internal power mentor and global inspiration pioneer Lance Banks, The LanceLife Comprehensive Total Life System changes lives for the best though the positive of power thinking.

LanceLife will show you how to stop being a pawn by doubling down and swinging for the fences until your life hits the jackpot in the presentation of “We’re not Here to Play Games”.

VIEW A VIDEO SAMPLE OF A PAST LANCELIFE PERFORMANCE

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AJA (Seattle, WA) – slugs do it real slow and pretty

AJA (the A’s are silent) are an exciting new group from Seattle. These artists have worked together in the past, but never under their own moniker and artistic endeavor. We can’t wait to see what they create for the Risk/Reward Fest.

BIO

AJA is a new collaboration between Anh Nguyen, Jessica Robinson and Alice Gosti. Anh and Alice met in college at the University of Washington and have been working together since 2007 – first under the acronym of DAKA then in the Spaghetti CO. project. Jessica re-meet Alice and Anh in the Spring of 2012. Quickly inspired by their frustration the three have decided to join forces in the creation of a new live performance piece under the working title of Snails do it real slow and pretty.

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

Drawing from the games of our adolescence and the dynamics between the sexual relationships we have had throughout our lifetimes, AJA presents slugs do it real slow and pretty, a theater/dance/performance/experimental/multi-sensorial experience that lets you fall back into exciting first kisses, the heaviness of losing love, and the thrills of flirting and one-night stands.

VIEW A SNIPPET OF A PAST WORK BY ALICE AND ANH

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WAYNE BUND (PORTLAND, OR) – SASS MANIFESTO

Portland art-lovers have been dropping us all sorts of comments about how excited they are to see what Wayne does at this year’s Risk/Reward Festival. Here’s a little background on Wayne and the piece he’s working on.

BIO

Wayne Bund was born in Portland and raised on a farm in Boring, Oregon. He holds an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art, an MS in Teaching from Pace University, and a BA in Theater from University of Oregon. He comes from a background in theater, and worked as a kindergarten teacher for two years through Teach For America and as a PE teacher at Oregon Episcopal School. He is a 1999 Ford Family Scholar and is an adjunct Assistant Professor at PNCA. Bund has performed at the Ludlow Festival in the U.K. and in Portland with PICAʼs TBA: 09 and TBA:11 festivals. He has exhibited in San Francisco at SOMarts and in Portland at the Q-Center, PNCA’s 2011 Faculty Biennial, PLACE, Cock Gallery, Disjecta, and the East End.

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

Sass Manifesto is a high energy tour-de-force of pop culture, radical feminism, and queer theory. Part Tina Turner Proud Mary, part Judith Butler Gender Trouble, the drag persona Feyonce tackles self-doubt, optimism, and feminist lineage, questioning the very nature of the creative process and originality.

VIEW A WORK SAMPLE OF SASS MANIFESTO

READ WAYNE’S BLOG

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JOSH MARTIN / 605 COLLECTIVE (Vancouver, BC) – Leftovers (Solo)  

We’re thrilled to have Josh join us for the 2013 Risk/Reward Festival! Here’s a bit of information about him and Leftovers (Solo), the project he’s bringing to Portland June 21-23.

BIO

Originally from Alberta, Josh Martin is a diversely trained dance artist who’s career-to-date has lead him across North America and Europe, studying and performing in many genres along the way. With an eclectic dance background, he has performed in theatres, clubs, on stages, streets, for film and television and with, recording artists’ music videos and tours. Josh has worked with many contemporary dance companies and independent choreographers such as Amber Funk Barton (the response.), Martha Carter (MMHop), Day Helesic (MovEnt), Gail Lotenberg (LINK), Karen Jamieson, Dana Gingras, and as a past company member of Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa under the direction of Peter Boneham. Now based in Vancouver, he is Co-Artistic director of the 605 Collective and performs for Wen Wei Dance, most recently contributing to a new shared creation with the Beijing Modern Dance Company. Off the stage, Josh serves as Vice-Chair of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists – BC Chapter.

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS – Leftovers (Solo)

605 Collective’s Co-Artistic Director, Josh Martin, performs a solitary dance exploring an idea that the body holds its own separate memory bank; muscle tissue, bones, tendons and organs all storing their own accounts of past events, action and trauma, with this collected information not readily shared or accessed by the mind.

VIEW A WORK SAMPLE OF LEFTOVERS (SOLO)

LINK TO THE 605 COLLECTIVE WEBSITE

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