I’m speaking for everyone on our panel this year when I say we are very excited to be showing Olivia and Celeste Camfield’s new work for dance and film. The kinetic energy, deep roots, and transcendent UFO weirdness of the bits I’ve seen so far put this piece over the top in terms of my own personal anticipation.

Unwinding is a new multimedia performance from Mvskoke sisters Olivia and Celeste Camfield alongside collaborator Woodrow Hunt. Through movement as an offering, live music, and film, the performers explore the relations and abstractions between stories of the Alien, Mvskoke stories of beyond the stars, and themselves as family navigating space.

Olivia Camfield is a multimedia movement artist of the Muscogee Nation, born and raised in the Texas Hill Country. Their work finds connection of dance as body horror, tattooing as protection spells, and farming as Queer Indigenous Futurism. They have performed and choreographed dance for much of their career, their work includes themes of the Alien as kin, time traveling relatives, and Mvskoke lifeways in experimental forms.

Celeste Camfield is a mixed Muskogee artist living on the settled land of the Nʉmʉnʉʉ Sookobitʉ (Comanche), Ndé Kónitsąąíí Gokíyaa (Lipan Apache), Coahuiltecan, Tonkawa, and Jumanos peoples, currently known as Austin, TX. She works in the mediums of movement, film, and food.

Woodrow Hunt is an artist of Klamath, Modoc and Cherokee descent. His experimental work explores the functions and relationship between digital video and memory and the ways digital video can communicate issues related to the Native community.

 

 

 

Olivia Camfield will be performing their piece “UNWINDING” as part of the mainstage event of our 2024 Festival of New Performance – June 21st through 23rd, 7pm each night.

 

 

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Olivia Camfield

 

Celeste Camfield

 

 

Here’s a little peek under the Risk/Reward production hood: we hold off on setting an order for the mainstage show until we’ve seen all the pieces in technical rehearsals. These are new works, y’all – we’ve got to see them before we can craft the program! But when we heard about how the Clown Mystics are planning on ending their one-of-a-kind, magically-insane piece, we figured (99% certainty) that we’d be putting them as the last piece in the program. No spoilers – you’ll just have to come and see!

The Clown Mystics are Given Davis, Urks Io, and Zai Outlaw, and are dedicated to the art of ritual performance through the absurdity and play of the clown. With their application, the Clown Mystics endeared themselves to our panel with their deep knowledge of commedia and clown scholarship – as well as the sheer madness they promised to bring to the stage.

Their performance in the mainstage show will be a part of an on-going work, Seers of the Savant Garde, and is going to involve a festival parade of fools, a wheel of chaotic fortune, and a Chaplin-esque ode to the power of the moon. The stage will be stuffed with musical instruments, traditional clown props, and occult artifacts, and the Tarot itself will guide the performance – it may not be the same from night to night!

Thus, the Clown Mystics are truly the avatar of Risk/Reward, in the best possible way.

 

The Clown Mystics will be performing their piece “SEERS OF THE SAVANT GARDE” as part of the mainstage event of our 2024 Festival of New Performance – June 21st through 23rd, 7pm each night.

 

 

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Paul Susi has been making The Great Minotaur for a long time.

In what he calls “a living digression”, he covers emergency homeless shelters in Portland, the inescapable labyrinth of immigrant identity, and confronting the monstrousness of being. In it, he draws from his whole identity, his work, and his research into Portland’s checkered past.

I first saw Paul perform a one-person show in the old Action-Adventure space, just off the then-new Orange Line MAX tracks. Each time a train came by, the sound of its horn barely muffled by the roll-up garage door of the former auto-mechanics room, Paul stopped in the middle of his line and bellowed back “I’M GETTING TO IT, JUST HOLD ON”. That performance ended with Paul slicing a wineskin open over his head, sacrificing and cleansing and rebirthing himself each night. I am so excited to see where The Great Minotaur will take us.

 

More on Paul:

Paul Susi (he/him) is a theater artist, an educator, a writer, social services professional, and an activist, born and raised in Portland, Oregon. As an actor, he has appeared onstage with the NW Classical Theatre Collaborative, Anon It Moves / String House, Shaking the Tree Studios, Push Leg, The Forgery, Island Stage Left, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Vermont Stage Company, Teatro Solo/Boom Arts, as well as in self-produced, original work. In 2018-2019, Paul toured “An Iliad” to over 30 prisons, community centers, places of worship, and theaters throughout Oregon with NW Classical Theatre Collaborative and singer/songwriter Anna Fritz.

For five years, Paul specialized in managing new emergency homeless shelters for Transition Projects, with experience in opening and / or closing 6 different shelter programs during that time. Paul currently serves as a Conversation Project Facilitator for Oregon Humanities, and as a Peer Resource Navigator for Portland Street Medicine. He is working on a project commemorating Chee Gong, a migrant worker wrongfully hanged for a murder he didn’t commit in 1889, and buried in an unmarked grave at the historic Lone Fir Cemetery (this project made possible by the generous support of the Oregon Community Foundation). More info at www.paulsusi.wordpress.com.

 

 

Paul Susi will be performing his piece “THE GREAT MINOTAUR” as part of the mainstage event of our 2024 Festival of New Performance – June 21st through 23rd, 7pm each night.

 

 

GET TICKETS!

 

 

Thanks to Mikey Mann for the rad map of all the separate spaces in this year’s festival!

And we’re doing something special this year for Opening Night. Make sure you stay after the 7p Festival show on Friday for a MYSTERY MUSICAL GUEST, followed by the awesome sounds of Ryan Cross / Dark Reflector!

 

Interested in Volunteering?

We’re looking for ushers and people to help at the bar (no pourer’s license needed). Volunteer shifts are the following times. (You can totally see the shows during these shifts.)

  • Friday the 21st, 6pm to 10p
  • Saturday the 22nd, 3p to 7p
  • Saturday the 22nd, 6:30p to 10:30p
  • Sunday the 23rd, 3p to 7p
  • Sunday the 23rd, 6:30p to 10:30p

Send an email to info@risk-reward.org to get on the schedule and earn our undying gratitude!

My friends!

 

I am BURSTING with excitement to tell you about our 16th Festival, June 21st to 23rd. We’ve got:

The Festival of New Performance
The Late-Night Showcase
Opening Night Party
The 2nd Annual Drag Theatre Workshop
Site-Specific Performances and Installations
And even more!

Scroll down to check it out!

(Or just buy yourself a ticket right here, right now – daily festival passes give you access to everything. Come early, stay late, overdose on the arts with us!)

Look, y’all, here’s the truth: this is Risk/Reward’s biggest Festival of New Performance yet: the most artists, the biggest footprint, and the fullest nights. Portland, it’s time to pARTy.

FESTIVAL OF NEW PERFORMANCE

FRIDAY, JUNE 21st THROUGH SUNDAY, JUNE 23rd: 7pm

Our mainstage event – the Festival of New Performance in PICA’s Annex Theatre. These artists were chosen by our fantastic panel of curators to create 20-minute pieces for the Festival.

Including:

Sarah Finn – “Keynotes from Underground” – a keynote speaker at an annual anthropocene conference presents her latest achievement: her metamorphosis into a mushroom.

Olivia Camfield – “Unwinding” – sisters Olivia and Celeste Camfield use movement, live music, and film to explore the Alien, Mvskoke stories of beyond the stars, and their own selves – as family – navigating through space.

The Clown Mystics – “Seers of the Savant Garde” – an occult, gender-bending ensemble clown performance from Given Davis, Urks Io, and Zai Outlaw that uses the Tarot to play with the hands of fate.

Paul Susi – “The Great Minotaur” – A living digression on emergency homeless shelters in Portland, the inescapable labyrinth of immigrant identity, and confronting the monstrousness of being.

Drama Tops – “DADS” – Elby Brosch and Shane Donohue explore their complex thoughts on getting a daddy and/or turning into a daddy in this sarcastic, inflatables-fueled piece of nightlife and modern dance.

LATE-NIGHT SHOWCASE

SATURDAY, JUNE 22nd AND SUNDAY, JUNE 23rd: 10p

Stay after the Festival for the R’n’R Bar and a selection of music, film, and ritual in PICA’s Warehouse.

Trash Witch Trio – A vocal mantra, a folklore documentary, and a powerful statement on the ecological trashing of sacred lands.

Drama Informed – Live electronic dance music duo; radical queers; old friends and allies: Vera and Miau envision an empowered queer utopia together.

Sarah Turner – Cam girl priestess, glitch_bitch, takes the hotties to the fat ASStral plane through a guided sonic meditation over house beats.

SITE-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

TAHNI HOLT + EMMA LUTZ-HIGGINS 
SATURDAY, JUNE 22nd and SUNDAY, JUNE 23rd at 6p

Tahni Holt and Emma Lutz-Higgins dance through the space of the PICA Warehouse; twinning, twining, and rocking into ways of seeking, dispersing, and disappearing.

BUT IT’S EVEN BIGGER!

OPENING NIGHT PARTY
Friday, JUNE 21st, 10p

Join us in opening our 16th year of the Festival with the installation Once in a Lifetime: Dead People’s Sheets, which stitches together linens from estate sales into a massive structure of history and reflection. Stay after the Festival of New Performance for Ryan Cross’s new deep-groove music project, Dark Reflector!

2nd ANNUAL DRAG THEATRE WORKSHOP

Svetlana Trantastic – SATURDAY, JUNE 22nd, 4p

Sonnei Verbena and Alex Hartman of The Pansy Agenda – SUNDAY, JUNE 23rd, 4p

Anthony Hudson and Pepper Pepper return to host a new set of readings from local drag artists The Pansy Agenda (left) and Svetlana Trantastic (right).

TICKETS ON-SALE NOW

Each ticket is good for every event on a given day! Our tickets are always and will always be pay-what-you-will.

Come early,

stay late,

pARTy!

A huge thank you to our selection panel for making the tough decisions to choose between a huge number of amazing artists!

Erin Boberg Doughton

Subashini Ganesan

Molly Gardner

Jennifer Lin

Milton Lim

Paige Rodriguez

Katie Watkins

And thank you to absolutely everyone who applied this year. Thank you, thank you!

Cheers!
James

Slumber Party (Portland, OR): Slumber Party (2023)

Theatre/Ritual

Photo of a ghost and sleeping bags

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

This 20 minute piece deepens from our past explorations of slumber parties as sites of play, risk, and resistance, to explore death—the death of individual human beings and the mass death of climate collapse. The slumber parties of our youth were opportunities to encounter the mystery of oncoming adolescence and changes in our bodies/minds, and practice empowered responses through prank calls, seances, dress up, emotional catharsis, and feats of strength (staying up all night, playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board”). Now, we are asking how these rituals can create supportive connections as we (in middle-age) are caretaking loved ones approaching the end of life, raising children amidst climate chaos, and confronting our own enmeshment in modernity.

BIO

Slumber Party is an ongoing, long-term project of Lucille Dawson, Liz Hayden, Erin Leddy, Jen Mitas, and Maesie Speer, initiated in 2018. Slumber Party began as a group of women taking the night to interrogate our relationship to patriarchy, white supremacy, and the often exploitative and coercive culture of theatre in the US. Slumber Party has become an exploration of ritual and the creative expression of friendship, care, and intention, shared with others. As artists and producers, we have collaborated on over 25 original performances and events since 2006.

CREDIT

Performer/Creators
Lucille Dawson
Liz Hayden
Erin Leddy
Jen Mitas
Maesie Speer

Costume & Scenic Design
The ensemble

Music
Erin Leddy

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Shannon Stewart | Screaming Traps (Detroit, MI): river, river, river
Movement / Theatre / Dance / Performance art

Photo by Ian Douglas

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

River, River, River addresses bodily, personal, historical, and ecological content, including her
parent’s migration across the United States to clean up nuclear waste and the circuitous way
this weaves into her experience of being a dancer.

BIO
Shannon Stewart was born in the South and came of age as an artist in the Pacific Northwest. A
2023 USA Artist nominee, she/they make work for stage, screen, and galleries that has been
presented throughout the US and Europe, including Tulane University and DOCK 11 Berlin, and
was slated to appear in 2020 at the Kennedy Center.

CREDITS

Writer/Performer: Shannon Stewart
Dramaturg: Iris McCloughan
Movement and Outside Eye: Jody Kuehner
Editor: Amy Lawless

VISIT SHANNON STEWART’S WEBSITE

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Marisa Plasencia & Maribel Plasencia (Portland, OR): A Monster and a Metapuzzle
Movement / Theatre / Dance / Performance art

via https://www.marisa-maribel-plasencia.com/a-monster-and-a-metapuzzle-1

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

In A Monster and a Metapuzzle a character named Elle dreams of seeing a primrose. Will Elle’s
dreams, threatened by an ominous force, come true?

BIO
Marisa Plasencia is currently a Visiting Professor in Dance at Reed College where she teaches
classes in contemporary dance and Dance History. She holds a PhD from the Department of
Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Her research examines
discreet forms of protest at the intersection of postmodern dance, visual art, and black social
dance traditions.

Maribel Plasencia is currently based in Houston, Texas, where she teaches dance and leads a
creativity-based book club at Lydia Hance’s Frame Dance studio. Maribel earned a PhD in
clinical psychology from Rutgers University. During her time in the Northeast, Maribel was able
to present two choreographic works at Flux Factory in Queens, NY. Maribel plays drums, and
continually seeks to incorporate these elements into her dancetheatre-making practices.
Marisa and Maribel are currently working on a series of dance pieces that move across artistic
disciplines and explore the complex boundaries between twin bodies. Their work has been
shown in California, New York, New Jersey, and Texas.

CREDITS

Choreographers: Marisa Plasencia & Maribel Plasencia

Performers: Marisa Plasencia & Maribel Plasencia

Musicians: Maribel Plasencia & James Lavery

Composers: Maribel Plasencia & James Lavery

VISIT MARISA & MARIBEL’S WEBSITE

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Claire Rigsby (Portland, OR): POP!
Contemporary Jazz/Modern/Hip Hop

Physical Theater / Clown / Art Installation / Interactive

Photo of Claire Rigsby performing POP!

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

A plexiglass box, a bunch of balloons, a mysterious creature….and you. POP!
explores trust, how we wall ourselves off, how we expand and contract, and how close we all
are to…bursting.

BIO

Claire Rigsby is a performer, mover, maker & shaker originally from Atlanta, GA. She is a graduate of Emory University and the Institute for Contemporary Performance with additional training with the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts, Dr. Sarah Maines, Jacob Jonas The Company, and more. Creating her own performance has been one of the most rewarding experiences of her life, and while she’d probably still do it without anyone watching, she’s really glad you’re here!

CREDITS

Creator: Claire Rigsby

Performer: Claire Rigsby

Installation/set design: Claire Rigsby

Lighting/costume design: Claire Rigsby

Balloon blower-upper: Claire Rigsby

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Emily June Newton (Portland, OR): Fat Cell
Physical Comedy / Clown / Interactive Performance Art

Photo of Emily June Newton in Fat Cell costume

Photo by Emily June Newton

PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

Literally and figuratively, we live within our own fat cells – physically, mentally, societally. Let’s take a moment to tighten the lens, zoom in, and ask a Fat Cell how they feel about all this publicity and attention. What will be their response to our obsession with all things FAT?

BIO

Emily June Newton is an international multi-skilled comedic performer and visual artist. Originating from Australia, she now resides in Portland, Oregon. Emily has performed both nationally and internationally with companies including Terrapin Puppet Theater (AUS), Oregon Children’s Theater (OR, USA), CoHo Productions (OR, USA), The Children’s Art Theater of China (Shanghai, CHN) and Dell’Arte International (CA, USA). Newton is interested in creating and performing eccentric, fully embodied characters that live in direct contact with an audience. Both her performance work and visual art reflects an ongoing interest in exploring the boundaries between performer and audience. Emily is best known for her characters ‘Frank’ (the world’s most entertaining entertainer), ‘Pat McKensie’ (Australia’s Cultural Ambassador for Australia, self appointed), ‘Maurice Lombardo’ and ‘The Moon’. Recently, Emily collaborated with Portland based visual artist, Mike Bennett, to create an original comedic character that lived within his immersive art experience: Wonderwood. She has been described as ‘comedic gold’ by Broadway World and a ‘standout clown’ by The Mercury PDX. Emily holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Ensemble-Based Physical Theater from Dell’Arte International CA, and is a member of the CoHo Clown Cohort in Portland, Oregon.

CREDITS

Sound Design: Emily June Newton

Costumes: Emily June Newton

Set: Emily June Newton

Devising: Emily June Newton

Performer: Emily June Newton

VISIT EMILY JUNE NEWTON’S WEBSITE

FOLLOW EMILY JUNE NEWTON ON INSTAGRAM

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