We arrived in beautiful downtown Portland for our 10:30 a.m. meeting with Victoria Frey, executive director of PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art). Their offices are housed free of rent, in a beautiful building that is home to an advertising agency, Wieden and Kennedy. But as to where the art is produced, they have an interesting approach. Dedicated to the development of contemporary art, they aid artists in multiple disciplines to produce, develop, and share their art with audiences in a wide variety of spaces all over the city. What is wonderful about this approach is that all resources go directly to the art, and the possibilities are seemingly endless.
The bulk of the company's resources go into the production of their annual TBA festival which occurs over a 10-day span in September. The festival is a cross-pollination of dance, music, visual art and theatre with programming that ranges from discussion groups to interactive performance art. It has been a great success in the past and continues to grow in community support due largely to the fact that the festival is so inclusive and accessible. What's great about PICA is that they seek to be "instigators" of new work and interesting dialogues rather than claiming to be "experts". Their ability to continually ask questions is one of the many keys to their success. Thank you Victoria for sharing with us your experience, insights, and fabulous work!!!
After our meeting with PICA we had a couple hours before our next meeting, so we were able to walk around Portland... a few of us bought great books at Powell's Books, a really neat bookstore (used & new) downtown, check it out.
Next we headed over to Portland Center Stage to meet with Greg Phillips (Executive Director) and Creon Thorne (General Manager). Portland Center Stage (PCS) is a thriving theatre in the heart of Portland. In 2006, the company moved from it's former space to the Armory Theater downtown and has since seen remarkable growth. During the last couple of years where many theaters have had major difficulties in finding audiences, PCS has seen it's audiences expand substantially.
We had a wonderful talk with Greg and Creon where we learned a lot about the theater's successes and challenges. Several companies during our travels have mentioned their buildings as being their biggest burden, so it was very interesting for us to hear about how PCS's space is one of their biggest assets. They realized early on that people love spending time in The Armory Theatre space, so they made it their goal to open up the space as much as possible to the community. They credit a lot of their recent success and growth to the efforts they've made in opening their doors to the community in as many ways as possible.
The Armory Theatre is remarkable in itself. In addition to being on the National Historic Register, the building holds the distinction of being the first performing arts venue to achieve a LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Platinum Rating. As we are very interested in the idea of an environmentally conscious theatre (check out our Eco-Show from our project in Baja, Mexico), it was fantastic visiting a theatre where the environment was a consideration and a priority.
We were very inspired by our meeting, and as we were finishing up Greg and Creon gave us the opportunity to see their production of "The Chosen". We were astounded with the life and vitality of the audience at the show. The Armory was thriving with people, the show was practically sold out, and we all walked out from the night in the theater with tears in our eyes. It was quite a magical experience for us, if you're ever in Portland check them out, it's a special place!
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