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Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Theater / Artsy Back to Back Theatre at TBA Fest

Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 3:39 PM

It's not too early to start thinking about PICA's annual TBA Fest—the Central Box Office opened today, in fact, at 224 NW 13th. If you haven't started looking into the lineup, I recommend that you do so ASAP—there are some super intriguing artists and performances this year. Take Back to Back Theatre, a company driven by artists with intellectual disabilities that has been operating in Australia for over 20 years.

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Describing themselves as "seeking to provide leadership to others in the disability arts field," one gets the distinct vibe that this is no How's Your News? joy-fest. The subject matter sounds heavy. A piece called Food Court is explained as "the story of one woman’s humiliation," and a section on the Artistic Rationale page addresses artists with disabilities thusly:

Without making gross generalisations of people with disabilities, it is safe to say that within Australian society people with disabilities continue to be placed within the category of ‘the other’. Driven by a core ensemble of artists with intellectual disabilities, Back to Back is uniquely placed to comment on the social, cultural, ethical and value-based structures that define the institution known as ‘the majority’. Family, career, sex, politics, religion, education, academia and culture are all subject to a lateral analysis from an artistic team whose defining characteristic is separation from the spectacle of their subject matter.

If that's not enough to get your head swimming with curiosity (I've yet to complete the list of interview questions I plan to lob at the Executive Producer, Alice Nash), the Bessie Award-winning Small Metal Objects that's slated to run during TBA might do so in its own right. A spin on public performance, the piece is performed in crowded places—malls, transit centers, etc—with the audience seated unsubtly on temporary risers. It's done in entirety with the traffic of unknowing passersby in full effect, many of whom peer curiously at the audience, who are all equipped with headphones. The actors, meanwhile, are embedded in the crowd. The audience hears their voices without knowing at first who the players are, watching actors and accidental participants alike, who the actors will occasionally interact with over the course of the drama. Watching you watching me, etc. Here's a clip from a past run:

So far, the Portland location is TBD (Lloyd Center? Pioneer Square?), but you can peep performance times and ticket prices here.

 

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