excellent birds

Hey Beautiful People! Well, I managed to make it out to a few of the events associated with PICA's annual TBA Festival, one of the best art gatherings Portland puts on. Last night was the opening ceremony--a live performance in Pioneer Square called "On the Great Migration of Excellent Birds" written by Rinde Eckert. He has been to Portland many times, courtesy of PICA, and I kept hearing the plea for singers to perform this piece. I would have loved to do it, but my workload before the Chicago trip prevented me from making any of the rehearsals. I thought it was a beautiful idea for the TBA festival to open with a chorus of hundreds of Portlanders--it's the kind of creative energy and support that's so symbolic of this small city for me.

The piece lasted over 30 minutes - a performance that included song, spoken word, and movement. I took a few short films to give you a taste of what it was like, along with some of the text from the libretto they passed out.

I saw the excellent birds gather in the shallows of the river
Even in sleep the murmuring of the excellent birds

What? What?
Where? Where?
Now? When? Us? Yes? Now? What?
Where? That? Us? Now? Yes? Now? Now?
Now?

Red, blue, green, blue green, yellow, purple, yellow orange, white, teal blue, black, nut brown, sea green, scarlet, pale gray, rose

The sky, the river, the trees, the sky, the mud, the sky above the river, the river by the trees, the trees below the sky, the mud of the river, the sky and the trees, the seed in the field, the insects, the insects in the mud, in the dead wood in the mud, the bank of the river, by the trees, the sky above the river.

I loved the way everyone had their own book, kind of like hymnals - and I recognized many of the covers, such as David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day." There were many things that unified the chorus, like sunglasses, or when they all made birdlike actions with their books or papers. When the performance ended, everyone walked offstage next to where I was sitting and it was a little secret treat to see what books everyone had with them.

Aside from the voices of the chorus, there was a group of four accordion players behind the conductor. I knew two of them. Does that make me a big geek that I happen to know a bunch of accordion players? Of course not, silly! Accordion players are the bomb! One of them was my friend Deb Stoner, who looked so beautiful!

Also present in the accordion ensemble was Bill Flood, who not only is a big player in the TBA festival behind-the-scenes operations, but co-officiated with me at Deb Stoner's wedding!!! Check out that bow tie he's sporting! Now that's a thrift store find! The gal next to him in the picture is Carla Mann, a wonderful person and dancer. She'll be performing with tEEth, a dance company based in Portland. This piece is called "Normal and Happy" and will run three nights early next week. Click here to read all about it!

A special thank you to Carla, who graciously lent me her sweater last night. I left the house a little underdressed and was trying to figure out if I should buy a cheap sweatshirt at Nordstrom Rack to tide me over rather than going all the way home. Thank you Carla!

Today my work was progressing so nicely that I snuck out to see a lecture by Jeffry Mitchell, whose work I blogged about last spring when he was in the biennial in Tacoma. He has a show right now at Pulliam Deffenbaugh that 's pretty great. I was so glad to hear him talk about his work. TJ Norris and I went to the show yesterday and are planning to perform an online chat that we'll both publish in our blogs next week. So I'll save my other comments about the show for then. Here's an image of Mitchell's work to get you all excited about that.

I will say one last thing--there are plenty of free events that are part of the TBA festival. I had a pass a few years ago when I was having a good year moneywise, and that's definitely the way to go. This is an event you want to immerse yourself in. PICA brings in some of the most amazing performers from around the city and country and world and I was so incredibly inspired when I had the freedom to attend one or two events a night during this 10 day festival. This year I'll have to pick and choose one or two. But there are plenty of talks and art shows that are absolutely free, so I encourage you Portlanders to take advantage of this awesome annual event where the world comes to us for a change!