TBA POST-MORTEM

[September 21st, 2005] The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's third annual Time-Based Art Festival seemed to end with a whimper rather than a bang this year. Unlike with the previous two outings, it was rare to get calls or emails from friends and acquaintances saying, "you must see...." Rather, it was common to hear, "Remember Felix Ruckert...Shelley Hirsch...Akram Khan...?"

Though obviously there was work worth seeking out, too much seemed slapped together or sloppily thought out, as if Portland had become Workshop Central for two weeks. Yet we avidly collected scenes from the fest's last two days.

^Wednesday, Sept. 14

Ivana Müller

"I owe you all an apology," Bill Aitchison began. From behind a modest onstage tech booth, he explained that Ivana Müller couldn't be with us tonight. He wasn't joking. Müller never appeared (not even to take a bow) except on Winningstad Theatre's video projection screen to Aitchison's left. The wry PowerPoint presentation that followed documented Müller's absurd investigation (involving bathroom scales, a trampoline and 10 glasses of straight vodka) of heavy thoughts. Toward the end, the audience emitted a barely perceptible, utterly contented "Mmmm" when one of Müller's interviewees explained how people can't "live in a happy way" without beautiful illusions. Müller-the festival's elusive poster girl-remains the quintessential TBA illusion. (JD)

Wally Cardona Quartet with Ethel

The extraordinary choreographer Cardona cropped up on the Newmark stage with a mind-numbing exercise in ordinariness. But what his dull, repetitive movement lacked in execution was more than compensated for by Cardona's striking set design, Roderick Murray's elemental lighting design, and the Ethel string quartet's accompaniment. Rarely has a technical design been so marred by the human form. (SS)

^Friday, Sept. 16

Lone Twin

The two Brits of Lone Twin conducted singalongs to 21 of the worst songs in the world. Gregg Whelan spun off-kilter tales in seemingly endless cycles, while Gary Winters raised his body temperature by shambling in circles and tearing apart cattails, whose white seeds floated onto the audience members' black clothes and up their noses. It was all in the round at the Corberry Press, where TBA-goers could watch each other squirm, laugh, yawn or walk out. Whelan observed of the show-and of life-that we're all trapped. During an outdoors finale, Winters turned into a cloud of steam when the audience doused his hot skin with cold water. So was the experience brilliant or bloody annoying? Both. Like refugees from a lost Beckett play, Lone Twin creates weirdly poignant moments of connection amid absurdity, chaos and grinding repetition. (TLB)

Antony and the Johnsons

The quavering, delicate, otherworldly Antony and the Johnsons entranced a packed-in crowd at TBA's after-hours compound, the Works, and offered sweet relief to those who thought that far too many of the festival's acts were under-rehearsed, over-conceptualized and generally half-baked. Though Antony himself seemed discomfited by the makeshift venue (win the British Mercury Prize one week, play in a garage the next-ain't showbiz grand?), he delivered a powerfully emotional, eerie set of soaring, wistful pop. Moving, soulful and beautifully crafted, this short burst of loveliness was almost like...real art! (ZD)

Meow Meow and Thomas Lauderdale at Mary's Club

My friends and I raced to this Portland institution, best known for its celebrations of the female form. The reason? A "secret" performance by that TBA minx Meow Meow and her buddy Thomas Lauderdale, immediately following their incendiary act at the Works. Our breathless race proved unnecessary, as a missing sound system and other glitches kept us waiting and waiting, while the earlier straight audience slowly shifted to a bevy of drag queens and a few confused couples. Meow Meow gamely tried to entertain as she was left abandoned, but the bloom was off: Her customary brilliance faded with the rising sun. (Letter from a secret critic)

^Saturday, Sept. 17

Dada Ball

Check out Richard Speer's review of PICA's big party on page 51.

^Sunday, Sept. 18

Sarah Rudinoff

The gray pallor of a post-Dada Ball hangover coated more than a few crowd members' faces as TBA limped to a close with Rudinoff's one-woman explosion. "If you don't like this show, the terrorists have won," she bellowed from the stage like a carnival barker, swaying meaty hips and tossing perma-mussed hair. The pronouncement uncorked an uneven sauce of sweetly ribald showtunes and angst-y memories, from the Seattle-based diva's drunken star turn in an Al-Anon staging of Les Miz to the perils of befriending Dustin Hoffman's daughter. Haphazardly paced, Go There was held together less by script or theme than by the captivating presence of Rudinoff herself-a brassy-voiced dynamo with a penchant for gawd-awful Chorus Line-era dance clichés. Still, as Rudinoff mounted a divan to croon Disney's The Little Mermaid hit "Part of Your World," it became clear that she was a properly cathartic way to cap off this fest: with one big belly-laugh. (KC)