Show Me the Money!

Today, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it will distribute just under $27 million in grants to 1,207 projects. Included in those numbers are 994 projects ($23,828,500) in the “Access to Artistic Excellence” category. According to the NEA press release, 1,697 eligible applications were submitted seeking funds for the creation and presentation of work in a variety of disciplines--a 22 percent increase over the prior year. For those keeping track, that means that just under 59% of the requests were funded (though many may have received a smaller grant than requested).

NEA Chair, Rocco Landesman stated that these grants will support “projects that have great works of art at the heart of them; that work to inspire and transport audiences and visitors; and that create and retain opportunities for artists and arts workers to be a part of this country's real economy."

With ten Oregon arts organizations receiving grants totaling $232,500, that works out to be just about 1 percent of the total. According to population estimates from the U.S. Census (2008), Oregon has 1.2 percent of the nation’s population. Seems to me, we got screwed out of .2 percent of what's due. But let's not quibble over rounding errors. You might note that six of the ten Oregon projects are to theater companies.

Here’s the list of Oregon's awardess, with project descriptions from the NEA. On behalf of Culture Shock, I extend a hearty congratulations to all of them:

Miracle Theatre Company
Category: Theater
$15,000
To support the West Coast premiere of El Quijote by Santiago García, based on the early 17th-century novel Don Quixote by Cervantes. Artistic Director Olga Sanchez will direct the piece.

Oregon Children's Theatre Company
Category: Theater
$20,000
To support the adaptation and premiere of Small Steps by Louis Sachar. The play will be a sequel to Sachar's novel Holes, which also was successfully adapted for the stage.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association
Category: Theater
$50,000
To support the development and world premiere production of American Night, a new piece by the theater ensemble Culture Clash to be directed by Jo Bonney. The project will be the first production in the company's American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, a decade-long public dialogue, commissioning, and production initiative.

Portland Center Stage
Category: Theater
$15,000
To support the 12th annual JAW (Just Add Water): Playwrights Festival. The festival supports playwrights in the development of new works to enhance the repertoire of the American theater.

Third Rail Repertory Theatre
Category: Theater
$10,000
To support a final workshop and world premiere production of The Gray Sisters by Craig Wright. The production will be directed by Producing Artistic Director Slayden Scott Yarbrough and performed by company members.

White Bird
Category: Dance
$25,000
To support the presentation of dance companies in the White Bird Uncaged series. The project will include master classes and lecture-demonstrations.

Portland Art Museum (on behalf of Northwest Film Center)
Category: Media Arts
$35,000
To support the Northwest Film and Video Festival and its tour throughout the Northwest. The festival showcases new work by media artists living in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

Eugene Symphony Association, Inc.
Category: Music
$12,500
To support American Encounters: Steven Stucky. The series will include performances of Stucky's recent compositions, a radio broadcast, and educational activities by the composer.

Artists Repertory Theatre (aka Artists Rep)
Category: Musical Theatre
$20,000
To support the development and production of Gracie and the Atom by Portland playwright and composer Christine McKinley. The production will be promoted through the theater's education and outreach program Actors to Go, which features student matinees, artists in classrooms, and post-show discussions.

Portland Opera Association Inc.
Category: Opera
$20,000
To support new productions of a chamber opera triple-bill comprising Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and Monteverdi's one-act operas Il Ballo Delle Ingrate and Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. The artists will include the Portland Opera Studio Artists (POSA) and the POSA Chamber Opera.

Portland Taiko
Category: Presenting
$10,000
To support the development and presentation of Ten Tiny Taiko Dances. The series of new works will be created in collaboration with invited choreographers, musicians, and performance artists.

Although the organization is based in Vancouver, there’s one more project that touches Oregon:

Confluences (aka The Confluence Project)
Category: Design
$32,000
To support a landscape art installation by artist/architect Maya Lin at Celilo State Park. The installation will be located near The Dalles, Oregon, where one of North America's largest waterfalls was once located.

One final note: This post is an example of the new citizen's journalism that will soon be crushing "legacy media," which is what we're supposed to be calling that old fashioned stuff like newspapers. Frankly, I don't see why we need real reporters anyway. All I had to do was extract text from a press release, pull a list from a website, and do a quick Google search for census data. Any idiot could do it.

We're Back!

Where the hell have I been all this time?

I haven’t posted since October 18th. October was Culture Shock’s leanest month in … well, in months. At 11:55 pm on October 31st, I began a post about my Halloween night tour of Lone Fir Cemetery. I thought I'd finish writing it the next day and it would still appear as an October entry. I never finished it. That's a lie. I never started it. All I did was upload this picture:


By the way, that's not even a picture I took. I found it on the internet.

How embarrassing and pathetic. I hang my head in shame. Here is a pictoral representation of how I feel:

I wish I could tell you that I secured a lucrative publishing deal that prevents me from writing anything for free anymore. Or that my commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions prevents me from turning on the computer. Perhaps you thought I’d accepted Culture Shock’s generous buy-out offer and taken early retirement. Have you been worried that I’ve been stricken by swine flu?

The simple truth is I lost the momentum. The mojo wasn't there. Lassitude. Plus the start of the arts season, which means everything in my life is much busier. I’ll try to do better, but no promises. Now get off my case.

While we’re on the blogging beat, I have a few items to report:

Barry Johnson, friend of Culture Shock and one of this town’s most astute cultural observers and pontificators, has announced that he will be leaving the Oregonian next month. Sadly, our local daily rag continues to shed talent. Barry has opted for the paper's latest buy-out offer and plans to seek a new path in cultural journalism. We look forward to reading his insights in whatever form he chooses to share them. For our Facebooking friends, you can sign up to join “Oregonians for More Barry Johnson.” As for the Oregonian, we hope it finds a way out of its death spiral.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be attending Portland Opera’s opening night of the Philip Glass opera, Orphée. Unfortunately I won't be there as a member of the bloggercorps the Opera has recruited to generate on-the-spot commentary. That crew includes such weighty thinkers as Bob Hicks (of Art Scatter), Storm Large (of the Eight-Mile Wide Larges), Byron Beck (Portland’s Rona Barrett), and Cynthia Fuhrman (who?). Since I will be attending as a civilian, I’ll miss out on the drinking games (down a shot each time a musical phrase repeats). It also means I missed out on schmoozing with Philip Glass the other day, and I won’t get the backstage tour. Does it sound like I’m pouting?

The advantage is that I won’t be pressured to write anything interesting or informative. I suggest that you read what Bob Hicks has already written about Orphée (the man is doing his homework), then pretend that you read it here.

Fall.ART.Live ... Beer.DONUTS.Barbeque

This Saturday, Oregon Ballet Theatre (OBT) is hosting a free arts shindig “Fall-ART-Live” in its studio and out in the parking lot of its home base at 818 SE Sixth Avenue (between Belmont and Morrison).

The event will include short performances and studio workshops for both kids and adults. Most of the performances will be dance oriented (OBT, Polaris Dance, Linda Austin Dance, Josie Mosely Dance and Northwest Dance Project), though the Portland Opera is also on the roster. The workshops cover dance and theater. Do Jump! is in the mix, as is one of my favorites, Philip Cuomo (Portland Actors Conservatory and Third Rail) teaching “Body Imagination: An Intro to Physical Theatre.”

OBT has offered space and tables for other arts organizations to promote themselves and answer questions. Look for some of Culture Shock’s friends from Miracle Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Cultural Trust., Live Wire!, Mississippi Studios, White Bird and others. If you drop by in the afternoon between 2-3:30, I’ll be pulling a shift at the Oregon Children’s Theatre table. And if that’s not enough, you’ll find a beer garden (Bridgeport) and food from purveyors such as Bunk Sandwiches, Koi Fusion BBQ and the ubiquitous Voodoo Donuts.

OBT threw the event together quickly in the aftermath of its wildly successful Gala fundraiser and emergency appeal earlier this summer. The event is inspired by the organization’s new-found commitment to engaging the community, and is also intended to partially fill the gap created when it cancelled this year’s “OBT Exposed” which has been putting a rehearsal stage smack-dab in the middle of Portland’s Park Blocks for the past decade or more.

Over at the Mercury’s Blogtown site, Stephen Marc Beaudoin posted a jaded take on the event. Under the classy headline, “Fall.Art.(Dead?),” Mr. Beaudoin yawns and smirks at the whole thing. He seems to have gotten the impression that the OBT-initiated event is supposed to be a “new city-wide arts fest.” While OBT does call Fall-ART-Live a “festival,” nobody is seriously pretending that it’s anything more than a day-long arts fair and it's unfair to prejudge it as anything else.

In a follow-up comment Mr. Beaudoin points out that “many of the organizations hawking tickets at the event opted out of providing performers.” (In his post, these organizations are there to “pimp their wares”). Makes those organizations sound kind of sleazy and cheap, doesn’t it? Where do they get off not performing anyway?

How about if we try phrasing it this way: “Many of the organizations that were unable to perform are happy to have a chance to distribute information, meet the public and advocate for the arts.”

Dear readers, there’s a fine line between good-natured acerbic wit and just plain dickishness. Do me a favor and remind me when I step over that line. Which I will. Except that I'll claim it's just my world-weariness showing.

I'm Not Going But You Should

Culture Jock recently decided to discontinue his Friday feature,"Last Call," which highlighted performing arts events that were on the verge of closing. Instead, he's promised to promote arts events earlier in their runs to discourage procrastination.

It's a great idea, but I think we need another approach as well--one that says, "Here's a show I'd like to see but, honestly, I don't think I'm gonna make it." This is not the same as saying, "I am SO not going!" That would be reserved for productions to be avoided at all costs.

Each posting under the new "I'm Not Going" feature will start with the words, "I have other plans, but ..." So here goes the first installment:

I have other plans, but the Opera Theatre Oregon’s (OTO) shows at the Clinton Theatre this weekend sound like a blast. Past OTO productions have caused audiences and critics to rave and froth, so this one ought to be good.

Tonight at 8:00 pm (21+) and Sunday at 3:00 pm (all ages) and 8:00 pm (21+), OTO will be presenting “Opera Cinema Dada” and encouraging audiences to “embrace the absurd: give Dada a hug.” The performances are described this way:

Nuns in rubber play accordions, cats howl on key, children dodge a woman throwing knives, and angels sing mockingly as boxes of sin try to pass through Heaven's kitchen door. This Father's Day Weekend, Opera Theater Oregon's Opera Cinema: Dada aspires to make no sense to viewers. In the anti-tradition of Dada ("onlY NothINg is tRUtH!"), Opera Cinema: Dada collages together surreal film shorts with live opera singers, chorus, cabaret band, and sound effects. The live soundtrack features the exquisite melodies of Verdi, Puccini, Faure and others.

OTO’s conceit of presenting a classical art form in a non-classical setting while saying, “relax, this isn’t going to hurt” strikes me as a sensible approach to keeping said form relevant and alive. OTO has a smashing motto-- “Making Opera Safe for America.” Its mission is "to introduce opera to new audiences, and offer a new angle on the art form for confirmed opera lovers. We perform at a bar (our home venue, Someday Lounge), usually in English and rarely for longer than the average Stephen Seagal movie. Our productions are cast with brilliant local operatic and orchestral talent."

Here’s their promo video for this weekend’s shows:

Go. Have fun. You'll feel better about yourself.