Risk/Reward Reveals 15th Anniversary Festival Lineup
Performances run June 23-25, 2023.
By: Stephi Wild May. 05, 2023
The Risk/Reward Festival showcases new works by indie performing artists from across the region. Come celebrate our 15th Anniversary blurring the boundaries of independent theater, music, dance, interactive installation, and performance art in new and surprising ways. In addition to seven incredible PNW artists, we will also be presenting readings of new work by drag artists in Portland on Saturday, June 22, and Sunday, June 23 at 2pm.
The 2023 lineup features:
Hannah Victoria | ...everything that has breath | dance theatre (Eugene, OR)
SLUMBER PARTY | Slumber Party | theatre/ritual (Portland, OR)
EMILY JUNE NEWTON | Fat Cell | physical comedy/clown/interactive (Portland, OR)
Claire Rigsby | POP! | physical theatre/installation (Portland, OR)
SHANNON STEWART | SCREAMING TRAPS | river, river, river | dance/prose (Detroit, MI)
MARISA & MARIBEL PLASENCIA | A Monster and a Metapuzzle | movement theatre/dance (Portland, OR)
JAMES MAPES/FLY PAPER GAMES | Confluence | interactive lobby installation (Portland, OR)
HOW THE FESTIVAL WORKS
We solicit proposals from regional artists for new works that can be performed in 20 minutes or less. A panel of local artists and tastemakers select a lineup and we challenge the artists to run wild - encouraging creative risks, experimentation and bold investigation. No one really knows what to expect until opening night. Six performances are staged back-to-back nightly in a festive environment (the same artists perform in the same order each night). Audiences come to sample a variety of artistic voices and art forms in what the Willamette Week calls "speed dating for contemporary performance." This year, we will also include two interactive lobby installations occurring before, during and after the performances, which accounts for our sixth and seventh artists.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS INFO
ARTIST: Hannah Victoria
TITLE: ...everything that has breath
DESCRIPTION: This work is an ode to the voices heard from praise houses built by enslaved African Americans; a place to meet, sometimes in secret, for prayer and song. It is an exploration of praise as resistance to an oppressive version of Christianity as a way of survival, transformation, and inspiration for old hymns that have inspired us to keep "going on" and "get over" day after day.
ARTIST: SLUMBER PARTY
TITLE: Slumber Party
DESCRIPTION: You've been invited. You've packed a bag with your favorite pjs, snacks, music, and a face mask. You've got your sleeping bag. It'll be a slumber party like no other: the best one, the last one. Light as a feather, stiff as a board.
ARTIST: EMILY JUNE NEWTON
TITLE: Fat Cell
DESCRIPTION: 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?
ARTIST: Claire Rigsby
TITLE: POP!
DESCRIPTION: 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.
ARTIST: SHANNON STEWART / SCREAMING TRAPS
TITLE: river, river, river
DESCRIPTION: A very hard conversation takes place between family members at a Panera Bread and it turns into a dance that turns into an experimental memoir and back into a dance using the structure of Trisha Brown's Set And Reset-or what's been gleaned about the dance's structure from YouTube and rumors.
ARTIST: MARISA & MARIBEL PLASENCIA
TITLE: A Monster and a Metapuzzle
DESCRIPTION: 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?
ARTIST: JAMES MAPES / FLY PAPER GAMES
TITLE: Confluence
DESCRIPTION: In this interactive installation, the audience of Risk/Reward Festival will compete piece-by-piece to build the city of Portland on a giant, digital game board.
PORTLAND DRAG THEATRE FESTIVAL AT RISK/REWARD
What happens when a drag performer writes their first play? The Portland Drag Theatre Workshop, in partnership with Risk/Reward, presents two afternoons of readings + previews of theatrical works by Portland drag performers who are best known for cabaret and nightlife, and who have been given time, support, and mentorship to develop and share something new and all their own. Presenting The View from My Back by Valerie DeVille, The Heist by Henry Felton (Kimber Shade), Campgrounds for Castration: An Emasculative Fantasia on Trans Phallicisms by James Michael Joiner (Loretta Lordchild), and Seasonal Delusions by Baby LeStrange, the Portland Drag Theatre Workshop will pair two previews each day at 2pm before the 15th Annual Risk/Reward Festival of New Performance, and is supported in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
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