Free, but seating is very limited and advance RSVP is required by emailing Taylor Hoblitzell, taylor@diverseworks.org.
This February, DiverseWorks will welcome Portland, Oregon-based choreographer Takahiro Yamamoto and his collaborator sidony o’neal. While in residence, they will present a work-in-progress showing of Direct Path to Detour, a new collaborative dance performance. The final iteration of this new work, co-commissioned by PICA, DiverseWorks, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, and the National Performance Network, will be presented in Houston in October 2017, following its world premiere in Portland this May.
In today's culturally diverse, globalized society, one is inevitably exposed to multiple aesthetics, ethics, and ideologies. Through this project and from his perspective as a queer, Japanese immigrant, Yamamoto investigates the physical and emotional effects that result when multiple sets of cultural values and expectations crash, negotiate, reconcile and/or float around each other in contemporary society.
This work-in-progress showing will be followed by a casual conversation with Yamamoto and o'neal.
About Takahiro Yamamoto
Originally from Shizuoka Japan, Takahiro Yamamoto works in performance, sculpture, and photography in Portland, Oregon. He has shown his original works nationally and internationally at Links Hall (Chicago), GoDown Arts Centre (Nairobi), Bedlam Lowertown (St.Paul), Fresh Festival (San Francisco), Center on Contemporary Arts (Seattle), Rowan Gallery (Los Angeles), and Disjecta (Portland). He has performed with Morgan Thorson, Xavier Le Roy, Opiyo Okach, Mårten Spångberg, Keith Hennessy, Jmy James Kidd, Perseverance Theatre Company, and many others. He holds an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland. He was selected for PICA’s 2015 Creative Exchange Lab and 2012 danceWEB scholarship in Vienna, Austria. Additionally, he co-directs the performance company madhause with Ben Evans, and is part of the Portland-based group Physical Education with Allie Hankins, keyon gaskin, and Lucy Lee Yim.
About sidony o'neal
sidony o’neal is a writer and artist based in Portland, OR. They have performed as a member of performance projects DEAD THOROUGHBRED, DELICTO, and FUTUREDEATHAGENCY. Their writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, BATHHOUSE, SPOOK magazine, FUTURE CONCRETE, Women & Performance, and VARVVARV. They are the translator of Prognosis: Descarga Poetica Decolonial (Quilomboarte 2014) and author of f a c e b o w l (THE MINI CHAPBOOK PRESS 2013). sidony has held a Literary In(ter)ventions residency at the Banff Centre (Canada), a Creative Exchange Lab Residency with the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (US), and a residency at Arteles Center (Finland). They are a long-term artist-in-residence in the Synth Library at S1 gallery (Portland).
