The dance photography of Jingzi Zhao kicks off a busy month that also features contemporary, collaborative, experimental and aerial works and the chance to see elite student performers.

As the Oregon dance card fills up for a busy month of movement, a performance space goes away and another springs to life.

Jamuna Chiarini looks back on December and January shows and ahead to February's dance, from BodyVox's "Flights" to Rejoice!'s "Rites of Passage" to OBT's "Peter Pan" and more.

From dancerly Broadway musicals to Éowyn Emerald's return to a Bantu circus, a mystical being from Buenos Aires, Linda Austin's birthday bash and more, 2024 kicks off in grand style.

More nuts than you can crack a whip at, classical Indian dance, contemporary premieres, the return of "ZooZoo," five women choreographers at NW Dance Project – and even a "NOT-Cracker."

As Oregon's dance scene steps into the start of the holiday season, the possibilities of a busy calendar embrace a wide world of movement, style, and sound.

As the fall dance season kicks in, shows ranging from Pilobolus to circus acts, fright nights, Camille A. Brown, and a dance film festival hit the stage.

As the fall performance season approaches, there’s still time to catch some of the best dance summer has to offer, including performances by Linda Austin, NW Dance Project, B. Movement Project, and more.

The heat of summer brings a bounty of dance performances, including new productions and familiar favorites.

It’s the middle of summer and dance performances are just heating up, including several outdoor productions in venues from parks to shipyards.

Jamuna Chiarini takes a deep dive into Indian dance this month with a look at a performance of the epic "Ganga to Kaveri," plus productions from NW Dance Project, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Danielle Ross, and more.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month brings with it a wealth of cultural dance and music, joined by a rich array of performances from across Oregon’s dance community.

The month brings a wealth of new and diverse productions, as well as celebrations of the art of dance itself.

From the Latin themes of Ballet Hispánico’s "Doña Perón” to a bounty of Indian dance performances to world premieres by international women choreographers at NW Dance Project, there is an abundance of dance riches to enjoy in March.

February brings world premieres, creative collaborations, and a fond farewell to a beloved classical dancer.

The new year begins with jubilant productions from Broadway to burlesque and Pink Floyd to folk dance.

Celebrate the triumph of light over darkness with a bevy of seasonal productions, plus new work from some of our region’s most noted choreographers.

This month's performances demonstrate the scope of inspiration and self-expression behind the choreographers and dancers.

From the sublime to the spectacular, the steamy to the spooky, dance takes all forms this month.

Major milestones for White Bird, BodyVox, and TBA, plus a season packed with contemporary, modern, and classical dance performances from across the cultural spectrums.

Make the most of the last month of summer with a diverse array of outdoor cultural celebrations.

As summer rises, dance goes outdoors and site-specific (and sometimes stays inside on theater stages, too).

A busy month ranges from dancing felines to new American ballet, experimental works, Andrea Parson's return, Mexican folklorico and more.

In the spirit of International Dance Day, a busy month in Oregon ranges from Dance Theatre of Harlem to a circus moon shot, steampunk Shakespeare, flamenco, contemporary and more.

From hip-hop to ballet to contemporary to surreal to the African diaspora, Oregon's dance scene springs into action.

In a time of crisis, the art and dance of a vibrant culture find a light. Plus highlights of Oregon's dance calendar.

February highlights: White Bird plans a changing of the guard; a wild rumpus erupts; women choreographers in Eugene; more.

January and early February bring a festival filled with dance, and several co-minglings with other art forms.

From dance on film at the start of the year to a flurry of Nutcrackers at the end, the ups and downs of Oregon's Covid-tinged dance year.

After a long year of mostly virtual performances, the dance world celebrates the season by throwing the doors open to live shows again.

From "Hip Hop Nutcracker" to "Cinderella," Keylock & Bielemeier to Linda Austin's explorations, dance is live and on the move again.

After a long layoff, dance is getting back in performance halls. Celebrate its return – if you've been vaccinated.

Oregon Ballet Theatre unveils two world premieres in its first concert since the pandemic. And there's lots more live performance to cheer on, too.

Oregon dance leaders talk about the long- and short-term future of dance. A little exasperation is involved.

How have dancers and choreographers negotiated the pandemic? Jamuna Chiarini tells her particular story.

Though we long for the Olden Times, when dancers occupied the same rooms we did, we're still counting our blessings: 1) Spring awaits; 2) Dance online.

We are still dancing, but mostly we are watching dance on screens. And we are getting better at it, too.

December dance bustles with a stocking full of Nutcrackers, Christmas Carols, and the odd Happy Hour.

The veteran artists are exemplars of independent dance artists making successful careers in Portland.

Dance starts to heat up after a slow pandemic summer. Jamuna Chiarini collects the fall colors for you.

DanceWatch discovers that dancers are dancing. Still. They're not likely to stop. We have the calendar to prove it!

August is a busy dance month, with festivals galore. It just happens to be online – which has its advantages.

Oregon's dance month marches in like a lion, a tango, ballet, butoh, funk, fish, bootleggers and more.

All you need is love: Oregon's February dance calendar reflects on the many ways humans love.

DanceWatch Monthly is hoping that Marquee TV will fill the void in performing arts on your devices, whatever they may be.

December dance in Portland and the rest of the state gets its holiday on, and we've got the guide to all those Sugar Plum Fairies.

As a new season settles in, Oregon's dance calendar overflows with opportunities.

Dance to haunt the senses and call on spirits, from OBT to White Bird and beyond—way beyond.

This year's Time-Based Art Festival is loaded with dance events. The rest of September's leaping with dance, too.

Native American, east Indian, bachata, bhangra, bellydance, Art in the Dark: It's a month to see and do.

Dance is a global affair this spring, a series of international alliances and cultural collaborations that we can enjoy both in person and from afar. Merce Cunningham centennial celebrations are in full swing all over the world and will continue throughout the summer. (Cunningham’s actual birthday, April 16, saw dancers in London, L.A., and New […]

“And spring arose on the garden fair, Like the spirit of love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on earth’s dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant Welcome to DanceWatch for April. Last year at this time, I was in Japan, and everywhere you […]

Welcome to DanceWatch for March, the month that enters like a lion and retreats like a lamb, or so they say. While it’s still cold and dark outside, you can think of this month’s dance offerings like a warm winter stew: hearty, rich, varied, and soul-soothing. And don’t forget that spring is a mere 22 […]

Happy Lunar New Year and welcome to DanceWatch Monthly! We’ve decided to switch from a weekly to a monthly format for awhile to see if we like it better. (If you have an opinion on weekly vs. monthly, let us know; we’re here to serve you.) We’re still writing about Oregon dance performances and related […]

I recently spent three marvelous hours watching Echo Theater Company members negotiate a system of harnesses, ropes, and pulleys to move a butterfly with gigantic opalescent wings and a mad, spiky hermit crab-like monster around a stage. The atmosphere was electric: it was exciting to watch the collective synapses fire as the company, in an […]

Lately, I’ve become obsessed with castles: their architecture; their scale; their permanence; their connections to history; their construction; their inhabitants. Castles are lasting, tangible creations, unlike dance pieces, which are fleeting. But they share some commonalities. I recently had a conversation with someone about how being a dancemaker is similar to being an architect. I […]

Welcome back, dance lovers, to a brand-new year of dance in Oregon. DanceWatch 2019 opens with two dance-centric productions that promote the visibility of female artists and artists of color. These productions embrace global culture, mark the intersection of art forms, explore universal themes, and feature both inspirational and aspirational qualities. The first production is […]

Happy holidays, happy solstice, happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas, and happy New Year. I’m saying all that now because THIS DanceWatch Weekly will be the last one of 2018. I know, I’m sad too, but don’t worry: DanceWatch will return again in 2019 with a look at the musical The Lion King, featuring choreography by […]

Good news: the Oregon dance scene is thriving, as evidenced by the 12 performances you’ll find in this week’s column. And here’s another positive development: after an exhaustive national search, Portland’s Regional Arts & Culture Council has appointed a new executive director: Madison Cario, whose career was inspired in part by a contemporary dance performance. […]

I had a magical moment this week while I was walking my dog: I suddenly found myself in a world of yellow. You see, my dog likes to smell the wet ground around the bases of trees and it was in one of these dozy, idle moments that I snapped awake and realized that I […]

Dance takes some unexpected twists and turns this week. It bounces off the wall at Night Lights: Windows 11, a meta multimedia experience.  It pairs ballet stars with Hollywood royalty in Disney’s phantasmagorical new vision of The Nutcracker, and Shakespeare with the Harlem Renaissance in A Midsummer Night at the Savoy. You can walk around it, […]

It’s almost Halloween, which means it’s time to dress up like a zombie and join Thrill the World, in which thousands of people gather in cities worldwide to dance the choreography from Michael Jackson’s famous 1983 music video Thriller. Thrill The World was created by Canadian Ines Markeljevic in 2005 with the goal to unite […]

It’s all about shoes this week. Dance shoes to be exact, and tons of them, too. Tap shoes, jazz shoes, pointe shoes, and stilettos. It’s a busy week in Oregon dance. But I’m particularly excited by a pair of sneakers inspired by the work of Portland-based dancer, choreographer, and performance artist Linda Austin. Portland interdisciplinary […]

What’s happening this week in Portland dance? Two Halloween-themed productions: BloodyVox: Deadline October by BodyVox, and A Spine Tingling Soiree by Wild Rumpus Jazz Co. Both are fun, campy takes on a campy holiday. Look for dance-infused circus performances, too. Australia’s Circa, presented by White Bird, stages Humans, and The Circus Project, a Portland-based company, […]

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably feeling exhausted from the insanity overload that is America right now. But don’t worry: Oregon dance can revive you. This week’s concerts offer grit, tenacity, and comic relief; creative problem-solving ideas, and suggestions on how to reimagine our relationships with each other and the space around us. They […]

This is a really big week for NW Dance Project. The company, directed by Sarah Slipper, celebrates its 15th season; premieres Slipper’s new work, Room 4; remounts the dark, quirky Carmen by resident choreographer Ihsan Rustem; says goodbye to four longtime company dancers, and welcomes two new ones. Room 4, which I saw in rehearsal […]

Since Donald Trump took office, I have been watching and admiring artists all around the world react to his words and policies and have been wondering how I should respond myself. Last October, I began seriously studying the dance form of Odissi with Yashaswini Raghuram, an Odissi dancer and teacher in Portland and a disciple […]

I LOVE watching freestyle street dancers perform/improvise. It’s like all of their pent-up emotional stuff is forcing its way out of their bodies and they are fighting to control it, to redirect it, and shape it into something beautiful and meaningful. I love the risk, the tension, the mystery, the physicality, and the explosive, full-out, […]

Welcome, to a shiny, glittery, brand new season of dance! Listed below are 85 dance performances that will take place throughout Oregon from now through June 2019. The list will grow of course as new performances pop up, so check back often. Spend time with the list, ogle its greatness, click the links, and research […]

Maybe this isn’t common knowledge, but warm weather is best for dancers. It cuts down on the time we have to warm up to dance and makes our muscles ooey gooey and stretchy, which is perfect for dancing. I love warm weather so much that I chose to major in dance at Florida State University […]

Saturday, July 28, is National Dance Day. Shouldn’t it also be a national holiday? Don’t we need a holiday to dance? “So You Think You Can Dance” judge Nigel Lythgoe invented National Dance Day to promote dance education and physical fitness. Lythgoe also co-founded the Dizzy Feet Foundation, and the foundation and I agree “that […]

“Honestly, the real reason for this production is because I wanted to get Shannon Stewart here (in Portland) again,” said Portland choreographer Tahni Holt when we met for coffee last week at Posies Bakery & Cafe in NE Portland. “She’s just a power house. She’s an amazing choreographer, and teacher, and a very dear colleague […]

“I mean that’s not really the title: I don’t really like that that gets used as the title, but the title is actually the ‘color’ lavender.” This is the Portland dance artist keyon gaskin speaking about the title of his new work, [A Swatch of Lavender]: A Self Portrait over coffee last week at Bushel […]

At the core of it all, life is really one big improvisation. I’m thinking dance improvisation, of course. Every day, in this funny, wonderful, and truly bizarre world we live in, we are presented with a variety of people and events to interact with, and how we bump into them, or embrace them, or avoid […]

Twenty-one years ago, two stay-at-home moms, Kathleen Fish and Mona Hayes, created the World Beat Festival in response to growing racial intolerance in Salem, Oregon. Today, the festival, which opens Friday evening, June 29, has grown dramatically and involves more than 1,000 volunteers. The festival spans three days, takes over Salem’s entire Riverfront Park, comprises […]

I have a lot of questions these days about dance. What is it really? What does it mean? What is its purpose? What is its value? Is one expression of dance more valuable than another? As a dancer myself, how do I feel about leaving behind the traditional, mainstream, American value systems in dance? How […]

It’s a feel-good, easy breezy weekend of dance here in Portland. The air is sweet, the sun is out, and the roses are in bloom. A welcome respite considering… everything. This weekend I give you permission to step away from your electronic devices and join the living in celebration of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit […]

Oregon’s dance season just won’t quit and I’m really glad, of course. Every week when I sit down to write DanceWatch, I get a little verklempt thinking about how much the dance scene has grown in Oregon since I moved here eight years ago. And, has it ever! This week’s dance offerings are a continued […]

This week Oregon Ballet Theatre closes out its 2017-2018 season with “Closer,” an intimate showing at BodyVox Dance Center of new works choreographed by OBT rehearsal director Lisa Kipp, OBT company dancers Katherine Monogue, Makino Hayashi, and Peter Franc, alongside Helen Simoneau’s Departures. Simoneau’s ballet was commissioned by OBT in 2017 as part of OBT’s […]

“Why did you decide to choreograph Crane in the round?” I asked choreographer Amy Leona Havin on Monday morning over coffee, after watching a run-through of her work. “I was tired of feeling like I had to work back and forth and frontally,” Havin answered. “I wanted to do something that had more depth, and […]

The sun, the sun, I’m in love with the sun. Its warmth, its brightness and the immediate joy it brings me and hopefully you, too. Don’t you think everything looks different when the sun comes out? I’ve forgotten about my body under the layers and layers of thick dark fabrics these winter months and especially […]

I’ve been trying to write DanceWatch for about five days now without much success, until now of course. I seem to function best under great pressure, kind of like how a diamond is made. Take Jamuna, apply an intense amount of heat, and pressure, and voilà DanceWatch is written! A kind of stressful and undesirable […]

Choreographer Erik Kaiel and his dance company Arch8, now based in the Netherlands, will be performing in his hometown of Portland for the first time since Kaiel graduated from Jefferson High School’s dance program in 1990. After leaving Jeff, he spent a decade in New York City making dances in subway stations, sculpture gardens, empty […]

There are nine dance performances this week beginning with the Original Bad Unkl Sistas (a performing duo made up of Anastazia Aranaga and Mizu Desierto, at the Headwaters Theatre) and ending with Degenerate Art Ensemble (from Seattle next Wednesday, also appearing at the Headwaters). Both are part of the Butoh College Performance Series: The Future […]

Man/Woman, Oregon Ballet Theatre’s program of five ballets that juxtapose all-female ballets and all-male ballets to explore gender stereotypes, opens tonight. The program includes The Dying Swan, a solo for a female dancer by Michel Fokine; a new commissioned work called Fluidity Of Steel by Brooklyn-based Darrell Grand Moultrie for all men; Left Unsaid by […]

I have just returned from a week in Japan, and I am in an elated, exhausted, jet lagged, watery, impermanent state of being neither here nor there. My mind is still navigating Japan, but I am physically back in the beautiful, blossoming spring of Portland. In Japan it’s also spring, and everywhere you look there […]

Today is the first day of spring. It’s bright and sunny but cold, and I am meditating on the movement style and choreography of dance artist and BodyVox artist-in-residence Katie Scherman. Scherman’s company, Katie Scherman + Artists, an all female cast collected from Portland, Seattle, New York City, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco, will […]

It’s all about liars these days. Recognizing them, calling them out, keeping them in check. It’s the new reality. What truth is, has shifted for some, but truth is fact, it doesn’t shift. Only the shifty shift. And, this week’s two premieres from NW Dance Project dig deep into liar psychology. The first is Hedda […]

Two White Bird shows—New York-based Jessica Lang Dance Company and Compañia Jesús Carmona from Barcelona—bookend this week’s performance schedule. Both choreographers defy categorization, and their hybrid choreographies draw heavily on lighting and visual elements to craft their story. Jessica Lang, artistic director of Jessica Lang Dance, decided six months into dancing for Twyla Tharp that […]

This week I am excited to introduce you to Hair and Other Stories, a new collaborative work by Brooklyn-based Urban Bush Women (UBW). The piece blends dance, theatre, voice, and visual elements, focusing on hair and specifically African American women’s hair, and Urban Bush Women use it as a platform to discuss race, gender, identity, […]

It’s down the rabbit hole and into the land of the Beatles with Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Alice (in wonderland) and Mark Morris’s Pepperland (respectively), and oh, so muchly much more in between. Fifteen performances to be exact. Fifteen, completely different dance shows to choose from in Oregon from now until…next week. Considering the breadth of dance […]

Because it’s Valentine’s day/week, and love is in the air, I thought I would reflect on loving relationships in regards to dance, more specifically my evolving relationship with dance, with our bodies, why I think we should all dance, and how I think dancing can change the world. I have big ideas, I know. Remember […]

Since Saturday night, I have been riding on a blissful cloud of happy after seeing 17 Indian dance groups from the Northwest and beyond perform as part of Nritsovava, a fundraiser for Kalakendra. The Portland-based organization founded in 1987, that promotes the performing arts from across the Indian subcontinent through classical dance and music performances. […]

I have ALWAYS been interested in the intersection and cross-pollination of cultures. As someone who grew up in Berkeley, California, in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s (hippie to hip hop), and within the Hare Krishna movement (a Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu religious organization), I live at this intersection. I am the embodiment of that idea. I […]

Welcome to the “meet your neighbor” edition of DanceWatch. Yup, that’s right, you are surrounded by a sea of amazing, talented artists, and they all seem to be popping up THIS weekend. And, the “neighborhood” may be much bigger than you think—at least it was for me. Opening Thursday, at Portland State Universities’ Lincoln Performance […]

I LOVE coffee, and I equally love coffee descriptions. They are full of wonderfully descriptive adjectives like dark, rich, smooth, and robust (to name a few), and describe hints of additional/other flavors that you might taste or smell in the coffee like citrus, chocolate, toffee, or vanilla (also to name a few), and whisk you […]

Welcome back dance lovers, and welcome to a brand new year of dance in Oregon. Let’s begin the new year with exciting dance news. Dance Wire, Portland’s dance service organization, founded and directed by Emily Running, has just received a Miller Foundation grant to fund a new, part-time position, dedicated to patron and member services. […]