Joe Kye

Love and Lineage

Blurring History and Identity

Love and Lineage will be a deeply personal multimedia performance by Portland-based musician and storyteller Joe Kye. Using looping violin, vocals, Korean instruments, and spoken word, Joe weaves together the story of his grandfather – a refugee who fled North Korea after the country’s division in 1948 and who later fought in the Korean War – to explore themes of love, survival, and generational trauma. Joe Kye will be joined by Qi You, a visual artist who will be creating live, improvised visuals and collages through-out the piece.

The piece combines traditional Korean rituals with modern music and technology to become both a concert and a healing ritual; Joe blurs the lines between past and present, history and identity, and invites the audience to collectively hold onto and consider the brutality of empire and our intimate place within it.

According to Joe, Love and Lineage pushed Joe to experiment with scripted storytelling and ritual-making – forms he hadn’t fully explored before. This marks an important step for Joe as he moves beyond his work as a musician and leans into a hybrid form of performance art authentic to his multifaceted artistic identity. In that spirit of boundary-pushing art, Risk/Reward is over-joyed to bring Love and Lineage to the stage.

 More about the artists:

Portland-based musician and storyteller Joe Kye discharges worlds of emotion with his lush string loops and eclectic style. Born in Korea and raised in the United States, Joe shares his multifaceted identity with humor and vulnerability. Kye has performed for Carnegie Hall’s Migrations festival, recorded a Tedx Talk, and been featured on PRI’s The World .

His recent project, Love & Lineage, is a deeply felt narrative ritual, a migration through multiple generations and geographies of his Korean family. Looping violin, vocals, and traditional Korean instruments, Joe’s improvisations swirl with stories and deep ancestral connection as he invites the spirit of his grandfather into the performance space. Joe will be joined by Portland visual artist Qi You, who will augment the piece through live altar-building and ritualmaking.

Qi You is an American visual artist, designer, and dreamer based in Portland, Oregon. Qi explores the languages ranging from two-dimensional to time-based media. She uses design as the tool of care and wholeness, breaking down the barriers, to rediscover and reconnect, from herself to the rest of the world around.

Qi holds an MFA in Expanded Media from the School of Art and Design, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and a BFA in Design from China Central Academy of Fine Arts. Qi You’s work has been shown and screened at Anthology Film Archives, New York; Oregon Contemporary, Portland Chinatown Museum and the Lumber Room in Portland, Oregon. Qi is currently working on the future memorial of altar design at Block 14 in Lone Fir Cemetery. https://www.oregonmetro.gov/public-projects/honoring-untold-stories-lone-fir-cemetery

You can catch this piece as part of the 7pm Mainstage show, each night of the Festival – June 20th to 22nd. Tickets available here!

Fox Whitney

NOT TRIO A

Dance-As-Protest

In this performance, Fox and his artistic collaborators will revisit TRIO A WITH FLAGS by Yvonne Rainer – a key moment in the history of dance-as-protest– and shift the lens to queer and trans identities, exploring how the body can be both a site of resistance and of self-expression, and how movement can be a strategy for defiance. The performance will open with a direct reference to Rainer’s photograph that is then infused through movement (both physical and political), dance, music and drag to delve into Fox’s own stories and political identity.

NOT TRIO A is an excerpt from Fox’s full-length project LOOK OUT, that will mix autobiography, experimental drag, and the energy of Seattle’s queer nightlife into something that Fox describes as a “love letter to other trans and queer body-based artists and a slightly autobiographical dance adventure.”

 More about the artists:

FOX WHITNEY [he/him] is a multi-disciplinary artist working at the intersection of dance, music, film+video, theater, writing and visual art. Fox is obsessed with the surreal nature of transformation, how we identify ourselves and how personal and collective identity is an ever shifting and evolving landscape. His projects center his queer and transgender point of view. He founded the interdisciplinary performance project Gender tender in 2012 and the trans-futurist psych band Light Aloud in 2023 The band grew from his ongoing series of performances MELTED RIOT. Inspired by the stonewall Riots of 1969, MELTED RIOT is a surreal protest song, a queer meditation, a psychedelic research project, a punk prayer.

Fox’s work has been commissioned and produced by the Henry Art Gallery; On the Boards; Velocity Dance Center; Seattle International Dance Festival; Yellow Fish Epic Durational Performance Festival and was selected for the inaugural season of Seattle’s Gay City Arts. Light Aloud has played at Trans Pride Seattle, Capitol Hill Block Party and the Seattle Art Fair. He has performed in work by Meg Foley, Will Rawls, keyon gaskin, Morgan Thorson, Andrew Schneider, CommonForm Dance Project, Malic Amalya and Gabrielle Civil. He got his MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has exhibited his short films and visual art nationally. Fox is also a yoga and meditation teacher, movement teaching artist and arts journalist. He was the Artistic Director of Velocity Dance Center from 2020-2022. www.foxwhitney.com

WILL COURTNEY [all pronouns] is a multifaceted transgender artist, Light Aloud band member and Gender Tender performance project all-star. She was the first performer Fox invited to dance with him for Gender Tender research and development when it all started in 2012. Will has been a lead performer for many GT projects and after the first few years of performing began to expand his role in GT working with Fox as an artistic consultant, rehearsal director and producer. As a performance duo, Fox and Will gleefully mine the blurry line separating their longstanding friendship and their very queer performance chemistry.

VLADA KREMONOVIĆ (she/her), aka Sasha Sobbing, is a trans, immigrant artist working in performance, video, nightlife/drag, and arts administration. Originally from Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vlada has been making works in Seattle since 2017. Descending from a long lineage of Bosnian peasants, Vlada’s art rejects the elitism of post-modernism while embracing its capacity for performer/audience autonomy, freedom from colonialist/classicist ideals, and creating containers for radical empathy. She’s presented physical and virtual performances locally and inter/nationally in Oregon, California, British Columbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia. Vlada has collaborated/performed with Fox Whitney since 2020 as part of his Gender Tender and Light Aloud projects. She was a 2023 Seattle City Artist, and was awarded funding from 4Culture, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and more.
@vlada_kremenovic | @sasha_sobbing

MOONFLOWER (He/They) is a Queer Two-Spirit Transmasculine Mescalero Apache Latinx and Chinese performing artist, actor, and Draglesque performer. He is an advocate for erotic embodiment, queer trans joy, and pleasure expansion. Kink, art, and performance are an integral part of of their life, as they are practices that help them abolish and break free from oppressive, colonial, and societal disciplines. He is passionate about creating and contributing to radical containers of play that allow himself and others to go to a place of deep transformation, exploration, and healing. You may have recently seen him onstage with Seattle Rep, Village Theatre, ArtsWest, VALTESSE, The Dirty Darlings, and AZNGLO / RICEGLO. When not onstage you’ll find him in the kitchen cookin, in the mountains, or in the nearest body of water!

SHANN THOMAS (they/them) aka shannimal planet is a mixed media visual and performance artist from Seattle, WA.  Cacaw!

You can catch this piece as part of the 7pm Mainstage show, each night of the Festival – June 20th to 22nd. Tickets available here!

The Bonnies

Picklehole

Simply, a piece about pickles… right?

Picklehole is inspired by a scene in the Czech new wave film Daisies where the two main characters feed each other pickles in bed – but both the scene and the Bonnies’ new piece uses briny cucumbers to get at deeper themes about sexuality (and the awkwardness that comes with it), rebellion, and even joy.

That said, the Bonnies chose the name Picklehole first and foremost because it made them laugh. Still, it manages to subtly point toward the ways femme-bodied people are often made to feel within relationships and society at large. The pickle, then, serves as a multilayered symbol—goofy, grotesquely phallic, and yet oh-so-beautifully capable of transformation and preservation (just like art! (And life!)) 

In developing the piece, Kaitlin and Jenny have followed a single compass: joy– joy in goofiness, in, fantasy, in beauty. “We hope that if we do what resonates with us, it will resonate with other people too,” Kaitlin says. Their shared history as collaborators making strange performance works since 2013 has allowed for them to explore all desires, impulses, and wishes. Kaitlin describes the rehearsal space as one with plenty of dialogue, intimacy and several trials and errors involving DIY silicone mold-making. 

(On Risk/Reward’s side, it’s not the only piece involving silicone molds of objects that definitely aren’t genitalia – make sure you stop by Silas Borgstrom Ruesler’s Touch Tank installation before seeing Picklehole in the 7pm mainstage.) 

Musically, Jenny has been deconstructing and manipulating the soundtrack of the John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut porn film. “I love working with already-existing cultural references,” she says. “They carry so many layers of meaning. Plus—it’s just funny.”

Once Risk/Reward’s festival is over, Kaitlin and Jenny will dive into creating their evening-length work I’m on Fire, You’re on Fire, We’re on Fire, set to premiere as part of Velocity’s 2026 spring season. The piece is a hugely ambitious endeavor, with Jenny composing and recording the sound score and Kaitlin designing and building the visual elements. Some material from Picklehole will likely be transformed and absorbed into this larger work. The duo has a couple of developmental residencies lined up over the summer to explore and refine their ideas, and they anticipate that their experience performing at Risk/Reward will play a key role in shaping the direction of the new piece. Audiences can look forward to seeing it in early March in Seattle!

 More about the artists:

Kaitlin McCarthy and Jenny Peterson have been making strange performance works together in Seattle, WA since 2013. Often performing as “The Bonnies,” they gravitate to the grotesque/off-kilter/marvelous like moths to the flame. They have performed at WET’s Six-Pack Series, Velocity’s NextFest, OTB’s Open Studio, Boost Dance Festival, NEPO 5k, Seattle Intl Dance Festival, High F@ggotry, and other underground art salons and nightlife performance venues. In 2024 they premiered their first evening-length work, DRIVE WOLVES MAD, and toured it to Portland, OR and San Diego, CA.

One of us is tall, one is short, both are Type A weirdos. Jenny is a Seattle artist working in dance, photography, and music/sound. She grew up a competitive gymnast in the Chicago suburbs and has never recovered. Jenny boasts 17 years of performing professionally in Seattle, including with the Pat Graney Company since 2008. She holds a B.A. in Dance and Visual Arts from UC Irvine and is a licensed massage therapist. Kaitlin is a Seattle-based dance artist, teacher, and journalist. She has performed with countless choreographers since 2010, including as a core member of Alice Gosti’s company MALACARNE. A prominent dance writer about town, she edits the publication SeattleDances and has a decade of experience specializing in teaching adult beginning dance

You can catch this piece as part of the 7pm Mainstage show, each night of the Festival – June 20th to 22nd. Tickets available here!

What’s better than starting off with a bang?

For our 16th and biggest year yet, we wanted to kick things off properly.

Joining us again is Ryan Cross with his new musical project, Dark Reflector. Ryan has played Risk/Reward after-parties before, and is an old friend from long, long ago, when hand2mouth theatre shared an old, crumbling, soon-to-be-condemned building in Old Town with Fever Theatre. When Ryan reached out about sharing his deep-groove music with the festival, we jumped at the chance.

And joining Risk/Reward for the first time is Portland-favorite Jet Black Pearl!

We have personally seen Jet Black Pearl perform in warehouses and in the dusty, Oregon desert, but she’s also performed in big tops, prisons, living rooms, tunnels, gardens sheds, barges and ruins all over the world. She spent many years in France, and just when the French started to give her several French songwriter awards (Mais oui!), she moved to Portland, Oregon. Now she sings in French and English, but always with a Dutch accent. Get a ticket for Friday night and STICK AROUND – it’s gonna be good!

The Opening Night Party will start right after the conclusion of Friday’s Mainstage show, most likely around 9:15p, with Jet Black Pearl’s fantastic music. Dark Reflector will follow up and perform around 10p!

We knew when we decided to go into PICA that we needed to fill some literal, physical space in their massive warehouse, so we turned to the first real Production Manager Risk/Reward has ever had. Back in 2010, Lyndsay was the Production and Event Manager at BodyVox, and ran the entire third year of the Risk/Reward Festival to a T. In the meantime, she’s turned to making art instead of managing art. She’s a member of the AFRU Collective, where she curated 2021’s Specimens show, as well as a Resident Artist with the Zymoglyphic Museum.

She’s currently working on a series of interactive installations and performances called Once in a Lifetime that explore how each of us would like to be remembered after we die, and how our answer to that question changes as we age. Dead People’s Sheets is the first installment in that series.

Constructed out of materials sourced directly from estate sales, Dead People’s Sheets will be a striking physical and emotional presence in the Warehouse space of the Festival. Without spoiling anything, the truth is that secrets and memories await in the out-of-time artifacts of the installation – and both interactive and performative aspects.

Once in a Lifetime: Dead People’s Sheets will be up for viewing through-out the Festival, and has a special performative element during the Friday night showing of the Festival Mainstage (starting at 7p).

Photo by Adrian Hutapea

We are twinning (across two decades of age), sometime twining, and rocking into ways of seeking, dispersing and disappearing. We commit to residing here, inside the devotional rigour of dancing together.

Risk/Reward’s shift to PICA’s warehouse and annex theatre this year means we have the space and time to do some unconventional pieces, and we’re ecstatic that Tahni Holt and Emma Lutz-Higgins are going to be one of those. Pairing the rawness of the warehouse with “conventional” theatrical fixtures like a red curtain and lighting instruments, Twin Mash Rock will be a great bridge between the Drag Theatre Workshop and the Mainstage.

Intentionally constructed into sections, the audience is invited to stay for just one part or all of the piece. Maybe you’ll catch the first section on your way out to the nearby food carts, then see how it’s developed as you return, sated, for the evening? Maybe you stick around for the full time and marinate in the full evolution. Or maybe you catch a mere glimpse as you show up for the 7p show on Saturday and find it interesting enough that you stay after the Drag Theatre workshop on Sunday to see the full thing!

​​Emma Lutz-Higgins is a performer, choreographer and teacher residing in Portland, OR. Emma is interested in translation – how “The Dance,” an ever-present phenomena where dance is always happening, can be collected and shaped into an organized performance through research into the interiority of her dancers. It is through this concept that she begins every process. Tahni Holt was born and raised in what is now known as Portland, OR. Tahni has spent her adult life in service to dance, through performance, teachings, community gathering, on-going collaborations, somatic studies and building organizations. For Tahni, dance making is a way to imagine and question and reside in the liminal space, where unraveling is not a marker of failure but one of great power and intrigue.

Tahni and Emma will be performing their piece “TWIN MASH ROCK” in a special Site-Specific performance in the PICA warehouse. Catch it only twice:  June 22nd and 23rd, 6pm each evening (between the 2nd Annual Drag Workshop and the Festival Mainstage).

Drama Informed are two old friends and allies, Miau and Vera, creating space for themselves and others to further discover themselves.

Drama Informed are a live electronic dance music duo from Portland, Oregon.

Drama Informed are two radical queers envisioning an empowered queer utopia together using an immersive sensory experience.

Vera (Krista Catwood) is a longtime Portland burlesque dancer, drag artist, stage performer, costume artist, and lead singer for PDX band, Ancient Heat. Miau (Amoxtli Reyes) is a transdisciplinary artist and musician with an MFA from Portland State. Returning Risk/Reward audiences may recognize Amo from ATOLE – we presented their performance of CANELA last August in Portland Center Stage’s studio theater. It’s awesome to be able to bring Vera and Miau in to finish out our Late Night Showcase!

Photos by Mason Rose and Drama Informed.

Vera and Miau will be performing their piece “Drama Informed” as part of the Late Night Showcase event of our 2024 Festival of New Performance – June 22nd and 23rd, 10pm each night.

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Sarah Turner will be performing their piece “Fantasy Download” as part of the Late Night Showcase event of our 2024 Festival of New Performance – June 22nd and 23rd, 10pm each night.

Trash Witch Trio will be performing their piece “Brujas de Basura” as part of the Late Night Showcase event of our 2024 Festival of New Performance – June 22nd and 23rd, 10pm each night. (For the FULL experience, come to the 7pm mainstage event and stick around after!)

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