A full night of performance from Pacific Northwest contemporary artists, plus a world you explore before and after. Arrive early. Stay late.
Each night centers on a shared mainstage program—five short performances presented back-to-back in The Annex (Fri-Sun).
Around that, the festival expands:
You don’t have to choose between pieces—you experience the night as a whole.
You may not love everything.
The next piece might be the one.
Risk/Reward presents new work in a condensed format: five performances, each under 20 minutes, staged back-to-back in a single evening, determined by a panel of PNW artists. The lineup brings together artists working across performance, dance, theater, sound, and installation.
Audiences experience the entire program together, moving quickly between radically different artistic worlds.
Installation work from additional Pacific Northwest artists extends the experience beyond the theater, activating the warehouse before the show, during intermission, and after.
Thursday
Sarah K. Finn / In Spite Collective (full-length solo performance)
Opening Night S’Mores Party
Friday
Mainstage
Installations
Saturday
Mainstage
Installations
Sunday
Matinee (Sarah K. Finn / In Spite Collective)
Mainstage
Installations
Vlada Kremenović — Medusa
A sensuous, absurdist interpretation of the jellyfish life cycle, blending dance, immersive media, and original music.
Marisa Conroy & Olivia Bratko — Bird, I am
A live phone-switchboard performance blurring human, animal, and machine in a recursive search for connection.
KG Galbreath — Q’essápi kәsϚác’әc’ snk’әl’íp
Electronic sound and natural materials intersect to uncover hidden histories rooted in Salish folklore.
Kye Grant Kauffman — TIMES SQUARE LAS VEGAS
A maximalist performance collapsing spectacle and identity into an ever-expanding world.
Sky Poole / Strange Enough Dance — BOY
An exploration of gender expression through experimental pointe work.
Sarah K. Finn / In Spite Collective — The Right Thing To Be Doing
A full-length solo performance on Thursday and Sunday. A lecture-performance and fungal fantasy where an ecology conference derails into a shapeshifting exploration of climate, complicity, and interconnection.
Installations
Site-specific works activate the warehouse before the show, during intermission, and after.
Risk/Reward is built on a simple idea: artists take risks, and audiences share in the reward.
You may not love everything, but you could discover your new favorite artist.
You only have three opportunities to get in on the ground floor. Get your tickets ASAP.
We want the room full of curious people.
Tickets:
Everybody Access — $10
Standard — $25
Subsidizer — $50
Super-Supporter! — $100
If you have the resources, choosing a higher-priced ticket helps make the lowest price possible for others.
Financial assistance and Arts for All tickets are available.
Contact info@risk-reward.org, or show up at the door.
No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
The Annex + the warehouse at PICA
15 NE Hancock St, Portland, OR 97212
An Unfortunate Update:
Due to forces outside their control, the brilliant minds behind the Portland Drag Theatre Workshop are regrouping for another time, and we’ve been forced to postpone their planned shows at Festival. We’ll let you know where and when that is when the time comes. The rest of the Festival of New Performance is still on, with Sarah K. Finn, the Mainstage, and all of our Installations.
If you have any questions, please reach out to info@risk-reward.org.