As promised, I got my hair cut by a kid over the weekend at Mammalian Diving Reflex's Haircuts by Children: Ten year old Brittney was quite poised and confident, and did a decent job (I won't be running to Bishops for a re-trim or anything). I realized something while I was sitting in that chair, sweating and petrified and trying to look like I hadn't just heard Brittney quietly say "oops": While this project is ostensibly "for the kids," in a way the whole thing is an elaborate prank on the grownups. "Sure, I'm laid back, I like kids, I like art, I'll get a haircut..." But holy shit! It's really intense and unnerving, sitting there while some little kid snips away at your hair as tons of press and folks with cellphone cameras click away at you. I honestly can't remember the last time I was that uncomfortable. Why was I so uncomfortable? Because I was afraid I was going to look ridiculous; I was afraid the kid was going to fuck it up; I was uncomfortable with the cameras; I was questioning my motives for doing it in the first place. In that sense, it was a really, really effective piece of performance art—I'll remember it long after the haircut has grown out, anyway.

Photos of my haircut after the jump. And check out the further TBA-related adventures of your intrepid Mercury arts team over at our TBA blog.

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One of the more buzzed-about events of TBA:07 is the fascinating Toronto-based performance art group Mammalian Diving Reflex's Haircuts by Children. It is exactly what it sounds like: From 12-4 pm tomorrow at Rudy's Barbershop, Portland students between the ages of 10-12 (who have received some training) will be giving free cuts to intrepid grownups, including yours truly.

The appointments have all been booked, so it's too late to sign up, but it'll certainly be worth checking out, if you're in the neighborhood—the kids'll even be running a lemonade stand.

I have an interview with MDR's artistic director, Darren O'Donnell, plus a bit more explanation of the project here on our TBA blog:

I’m getting my hair cut on Saturday. If I just ask for a trim, am I gonna feel like a square?

No, lots of people ask for trims, and [the kids] will do it really well, they’re really keen on pleasing the client.

I got that impression, looking at pictures from your website. The kids seem to take it really seriously.

It was unanticipated. I was expecting anarchy when I first did it a couple years ago, and hoping for crazy haircuts, but for the most part it has even taken a while for me to convince the kids that when people say “Do whatever you want,” they really can do whatever they want. Most of them would shy away from doing something that was too radical.

Sat-Sun 12-4 pm, Rudy's Barbershop, 212 NW 13th

Last year, TBA kicked off with a performance by David Eckard; last night, the ball got rolling with Rinde Eckert. Coincidence? Only Mark Russell knows for sure…

When I arrived at Pioneer Square for Migration of Excellent Birds at 6:35 pm, “Portland’s living room” was paradoxically packed, unusually quiet, and in full swing. Amidst a swell of audience members, Eckert’s chorus of Portland voices was well into their debut (and final) performance: a choral piece about our winged friends. As we jockeyed for a better view (behind the chorus overlooking the crowd? standing on a table at Starbucks?), Migration felt extremely disappointing. You couldn’t hear the singers well; they were dressed in normal street clothes; the chorus was smaller than anticipated; and I couldn’t help but wish I was witnessing this in a beautiful forest rather than as my “main event” for Thursday night.

I eventually commandeered a proper seat in the amphitheater, and at that point, the piece began to take form and reveal itself. A small orchestra of accordions faced the scrappy choir, who sang (really) beautiful chorale songs about birds. At times, it sounded almost like unused material from a Sufjan Stevens session. As if to punctuate their songs, the chorus would intermittently whistle and chirp like birds; when 100 people do this simultaneously, it creates a really beautiful effect. When they flap their sheet music like so many wings at the same time, it feels like you’re in the middle of a joyous flock. They punctuated the songs with bird-like hand gestures, and by the end, the crowd—myself included—was totally into it, and it created one of those very real moments of beauty and community, as the audience made the “bird head” hand symbol from the production back at the chorus as a respectful applause and show of fraternity.

One gripe—it was pretty great, yes, but it was hardly festive. After the piece concluded around 7:30, there was little to do but head home, and everybody seemed a little confused that there was nothing else going on. No Works show to attend, no afterparty, no surprise March Fourth Marching Band session. I’ve got the rest of the year to be home with my shoes off by 8 pm. When it’s TBA time, I’m ready to go on all cylinders, and tonight was an unusually mellow way to kick things off.

Be sure to check the Mercury's TBA blog regularly for up to the minute reviews, interviews, gossip, photos and video!

Fun fact about me: I require high levels of stimulation in order to stay awake past 11 pm. Loud music, fast cars, loose women, etc. I don't do well with sitting quietly in dark rooms and staying conscious.

What I'm trying to say is, I slept through most of Mirah and Spectratone International's show last night. The well-mannered crowd's polite applause woke me up at the end of every song, I pried my eyes open long enough to marvel for a few moments at Britta Johnson's incredible little stop-animation bug films, shown on a round screen next to the musicians, then Mirah's sweet voice and the strings and accordian of Spectratone promptly lulled me back to sleep again.

I would've loved to have seen this show in the morning or afternoon, coffee or Bloody Mary in hand—Johnson's films were marvelous, and the 12-song cycle composed by Mirah and Spectratone to accompany films was touching; the musicians brought humor and pathos to their soundtracking of insect life (at least I think they did. The parts I was awake for, I kinda got that). But man, it sure wasn't the dance party I needed after a long day of TBA. Hopefully tonight's Anna Oxygen show will be a little more lively.

If you missed the show last night, or slept through it, here's some YouTubage from Share This Place.

Renowned choreographer Donna Uchizono returns to TBA with a two-part program, State of Heads and Leap to Tall (featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov*).

I abslutely loved State of Heads—the piece is draining, it requires such concentration, but it's a rewarding and absorbing experience. The curtains open to reveal dancer Levi Gonzalez, in a white suit, back to the audience, against a bright white stage—and for a long moment, so long it outgrows "moment" and becomes more of an interval, nothing happens. The audience waits patiently at first, and then starts to fidget, look around, chuckle a bit. It's all very uncomfortable. And finally, Carla Rudiger and Rebecca Serrell scuttle slowly in from the wings and begin a series of disjointed, repetitive movements, informed by a seeming disconnect between the head and the rest of the body (their heads loll to the side, hang heavily, or drag their bodies in unexpected directions). Their movements were synchronized, to an extent; more that one woman's movements influenced the other, gestures passed back and forth via a subtle mimickry. The piece starts at a dead crawl and gains in momentum, building to a frenzied energy by the end. The sound design is absolutely brilliant, aggressive and unnerving, mostly sounds that are vaguely familiar but hard to place taken so out of context (machinery, water dripping, doors creaking?). It was a remarkable piece, both intellectually and viscerally engaging.

Leap to Tall was much more accessible, utilizing actual music, for one thing, and a more familiar range of movement. Baryshnikov shares the stage with Hristoula Harakas and Jodi Melnick, who alternately vie for his attention, and support him through portions of the dance (in the only one of his famous leaps you see here, he's lifted by the two women). I ultimately found Leap to Tall less compelling than the first piece—though Baryshnikov's total mastery of his body and his craft is amazing to watch, evident in how beautiful he can render the mere extension of an arm, say. While it was fun, I didn't find it as challenging as State of Heads—I like a little something to chew on when I'm watching dance, and Leap to Tall just didn't offer much to think about.

State of Heads and Leap to Tall tonight, 8:30 pm, Newmark Theater, 1111 SW Broadway. There don't seem to be any tickets left on TicketWeb, so I guess unless you have a pass you're SOL. Get there early, 'cause I think last night filled up (or at least that's what Mark Russell, who is now sporting a Prince Valiant bob thanks to Haircuts by Children, said in his intro to the show)

(*One of the best exchanges I've overheard so far:
Female Art Booster: We're going to the Donna Uchizono workshop. We want to ask Baryshnikov why he was so mean to Carrie!
Male Art Booster (nodding): We really feel like he just used her.)

If you didn't see Haircuts today, check it out tomorrow. Please. For me?

I got a haircut today from a very nice girl named Britney, I think she was 10, and I have to say, I really, really enjoyed how profoundly... uncomfortable the whole experience was. It was like the first day of school—I didn't quite know what to do or expect, and spent a lot of time trying to play it cool and like I wasn't totally fucking freaked out about what this little kid was doing to my hair. It's about trust, right? Trust in the children. Ignore the fact that she just said "oops." Pretend I really don't care that much about my hair, because it's just, like, dead cells, man. And breathe...

Throw in cameras and spectators everywhere, and my comfort zone was pretty much shot to shit. Which is, you know, the point, as an aspect of Mammalian Diving Reflex's philosophy hinges on the idea that adults don't necessarily have the right to feel "comfortable" at all times; that there are far, far worse things that can happen than embarrassment.

Some PICA blogger was distracting my kid with questions while she was cutting my hair, so I was fully prepared to blame them if things went wrong, but in fact I got a perfectly servicable trim that goes nicely with the home dye job. I can't find a camera cord but once I do I'll throw some photos from today up (or if anyone wants to e-mail me some at ahallett@portlandmercury.com that would be excellent).

Check out Mammalian Diving Reflex's Haircuts by Children, tomorrow from noon-4 pm at Rudy's Barbershop, 212 NW 13th

Last night kicked off the Works with a set from local hiphop stalwarts the Lifesavas. I'd never seen them before, and after last night I'm still kind of ambivalent. I like 'em in theory—they're undeniably competent, their stage banter was engaging as hell, and I can appreciate the fact that Jumbo is a hottie even while wearing a totally ridiculous oversized granny necklace, but I wasn't feeling that kinetic audience/performer mind meld that characterizes really good hiphop shows. The crowd seemed into it, though, so maybe I was just in the wrong headspace.

As for the Works itself: The Wonder was maybe 3/4 full, lots of happy dancing drunks, lots of schmoozing, lots of familiar art world faces. The beer garden plan didn't really seem to catch on—I left before the Lifesavas wrapped up, but at least while I was there, there was never more than a handful of folks braving the chill to hang out in the parking lot. And while the space certainly got a facelift, it still feels a lot like the Wonder Ballroom, so folks expecting the dislocation of years past might be disappointed. My major gripe: During the show, stills from the TBA catalogue were projected on two screens to either side of the stage. Distracting, tacky, unnecessary.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the fun to be had at the Works.

After some thought, I've settled on the phrase "adorably provocative" to describe the Mammalian Diving Reflex's Haircuts by Children. The Toronto-based performance art group, helmed by Darren O'Donnell, advocates for the enfranchisement of children by asking grownups to trust a kid to cut their hair. Simple (and cute as hell) on the surface, but begging the question: Doesn't acknowledging that children are sentient, trustworthy beings demand a change in the way society generally treats them? It also begs the question, how big a sense of humor do you have about your hair.

I spoke with O'Donnell this morning; he's been in town for a week, working with elementary schoolers to prepare them for the event, which goes down this weekend at Rudy's barbershop (all of the free appointments have been booked, so it's too late to sign up for a haircut of your own, but the fun happens Sat-Sun from 12-4, if you're interested in gawking at the sure-to-be fascinating scene. Plus there's gonna be a lemonade stand! How cute is that shit. )

So you’re already working with the kids now?

There’s 20 kids from two classes that are getting trained [to cut hair] after school, then during school I work with the entirety of the two classes, about 50 kids. I’m giving them a workshop in conceptual, art, performance art, social practice art.

How do you approach those themes with children? Do you bring in reference materials?

I bring in stuff. Francis Alys, who’s a Belgium-born artist based in Mexico, does a lot of interesting stuff that’s also really simple and obvious. He makes this dog out of magnetic materials that he wheels behind him as he walks through the streets, and the dog picks up whatever objects are there that are magnetized. For one of his better-known pieces, there was this big mountain (or large hill) made mostly of sand, somewhere in Mexico, and he just got [a group of volunteers] to move it over one by foot… The kids understand that kind of stuff. We also do little exercises where, for example, I get them to write instructions for each other and then perform the instructions, and then we glue the instructions on a piece of paper and hang the paper on the wall, just to give them the idea that art can be more than just a pretty painting. I get them to question where the art is happening, who the artists are. Is it the person who writes the instructions, is it the person who performs the instructions, is it the person who organizes all the documentation and sticks it on the wall, things like that.

I’m getting my hair cut on Saturday. If I just ask for a trim, am I gonna feel like a square?

No, lots of people ask for trims, and [the kids] will do it really well, they’re really keen on pleasing the client.

I got that impression, looking at pictures from your website. The kids seem to take it really seriously.

It was unanticipated. I was expecting anarchy when I first did it a couple years ago, and hoping for crazy haircuts, but for the most part it has even taken a while for me to convince the kids that when people say “Do whatever you want,” they really can do whatever they want. Most of them would shy away from doing something that was too radical.

Wasn’t there some talk of the project not happening at all, due to licensing issues?

The woman at Rudy’s is kind of a by the book kind of person… I have a suspicion that if anyone [had questioned the legality of the project] in any of the other places we’ve done it, we would’ve gotten the same answer, but she was the first person who thought to ask, and The licensing people said it wasn’t possible. But then it was just a matter of going up the chain, I guess somebody finally talked to somebody at the state level and they were just like, yeah, whatever, as long as there’s a supervising stylist there it’s not problem.

So… why kids?

That idea first occurred a bunch of years ago. I was in Chicago at this youth conference… I was stuck working in the kitchen, and there was a kid there with a pair of scissors. I tried to get him to cut my hair and he refused, and I was a little surprised that he would be frightened by that idea. I thought about how people are frightened when they’re offered the opportunity for more responsibility, more power, how there’s a tendency to balk when offered that, so I just thought that would be an interesting thing to make en masse, where kids could feel comfortable [assuming responsibility].
Around the same time, I’d written an essay about my belief that people should be allowed to vote any time they want to... like as soon as you can form the will to vote, you should be able too. And so it dovetailed with that. And the success of [Haircuts] has meant that suddenly I’m the kid guy. It’s pretty crazy.

I was doing these somewhat erotic performances before, I was organizing mass games of spin the bottle, and all these kissing games in different forms, and people were starting t ask me to do all these performances, and I just got sick of that. So another part of the rationale was just to do something totally 180.

Did you run into issues going from doing overtly erotic performance art to working with kids?

Not because of that… people have really bad memories. Really, like the last thing you do is anything anyone remembers. But I do have problems with being a single man working with kids. It certainly generates suspicions. Usually not with the people I’m working with, but it’ll be something like, for example I just did this project in Toronto where it was during the summer and we had this space at the school that we were working at… and there was one night where I was waiting with a couple of the girls, they were both about twelve years old, waiting for their mothers to come and pick them up. A woman was really, really scrutinizing me hard, and as soon as the parents came and picked up the kids, she came over and demanded to know what I was doing there hanging out with twelve year olds. Which, you know… my first response was ”none of your business,” but I knew that would only antagonize her, so I was really open and transparent and gave her my website… but for whatever reason, she wanted to de-legitimize me. It was like it was more exciting or more satisfying for her to see me as a bad person than as a nice guy who was working with kids.

They held the house until the last possible minute before the performance of Map Me. Passholders, ticketholders, and standby fliers all grew a little restless waiting to get in—but once we filtered into the theater at the IFCC, we understood. There, lying naked in the middle of the bare black stage, lit only by the blue-white frame of a video projector, were performers Charlotte Vanden Eyne and Kurt Vandendriessche. It became clear that we were in for some serious shit.
As the show begins, the performers’ backs create a projection surface on which we see almost imperceptibly shifting images of their bodies. The texture of skin, a fingerprint, a nipple, parted lips. In this protracted moment, we are seeing all of the parts that make the whole, decontextualized (until you remember that you’re seeing them projected onto their very vessel of context).
The contours of their pale bodies pick up the video images so differently from a standard screen: the images take on the contours of the body and shimmer with the unexpectedly vibrant color of flesh superimposed on flesh. They shift positions and Vandendriessche is seated with his back to the audience; Vanden Eynde lies upstage, legs open around him. A projected image of her hands emerges at his neck and slinks down his back. Her fingernails etch the surface of his skin and leave sharp, clear lines which build and then are rubbed away. Her fingers dig into his back, pushing and pulling and your rational brain realizes that it’s a video projection, that she’s working with clay, that this is a part of the art. And even so, the trenches drawn by firm fingers are disturbingly visceral and intimate.
Continuing, subtitled vignettes explore small corners of intimacy and relationships. Vanden Eynde becomes a chest of drawers. Vandendriessche is a broken structure reconstructed. The video projections on their bodies are disturbing, enthralling, absolutely unnerving and engaging.
Mid-way through, the video filter is abandoned and the artists manipulate each other directly. Until now, they have been gently pushing at the walls around us and with the segment called “Join Me,” they knock a few down and insist on continuing. He ties strings to her nipples; she ties strings to his cock and balls. They each hold the strings and manipulate them, working up into a cat’s cradle mess and weaving their way out again.
“Join Me Again” takes the audience from “My, wasn’t that European” to “What the fuck” almost instantaneously, as the pair wrap their heads in plastic bags and packing tape to seal off their vision and bind their heads together in a disturbing wasp-nest-like creation that forces them to move together in order to move at all. Here, the performance’s only music comes on abruptly—a tarantella during which they reach for and away from each other.
The metaphors here are of course the difficulty of finding and maintaining “self” when you have also found an “other” who shapes your self while you also shape theirs, simply by the very fact of walking down a path together.
Stark, unnerving, and occasionally really fucking creepy, Map Me charts the contours of human relationships in an utterly unique, absolutely riveting way. The hush of the audience as we filed out spoke volumes about the fact that this piece is one that will resonate in ways we can’t know or expect...but that we’ll feel and remember as we go about the work of our daily lives. Much like the business of forging identity itself.

Biking into downtown for TBA 2007’s inaugural night of performances, I was detoured by the closure of the accursed Burnside Bridge. Sweaty, panicky, in my PICA-approved navy-blue-sweater-‘n’-collar combo (with optional mushroom safety helmet!), I bounced and turned illegally over sidewalks and curbs, finally heading against traffic over the steel bridge (not an entirely recommended endeavor) to pull up at the Armory just as the teeming line of ticket-holders was streaming into the Gerding Theater for Marc Bamuthi Joseph.

The line was intimidating, but inside the spacious theater, there were open seats all over the place. I procured one smack in the middle, about six rows back; a choice view as evidenced by the photographer who had set up directly next to me. The whirring and winding of his digital camera was actually quite loud, and he took at least 700 photos throughout the hour-long performance.

I’m way out of the loop these days, but this was actually my first time inside the revamped Armory. I wasn’t too impressed. The Gerding seemed a perfectly functional, reasonably comfortable performance space that had all the pizzazz and intriguing design elements of a well-done college auditorium. I’m sure its technical elements are unsurpassed and so forth, but in terms of aesthetics, I could have been anywhere.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, however, was impressive. Delivering the break/s, which was billed as a “work in progress,” he traversed the stage with sweaty, relentless energy, using fluid choreography as a physical manifestation of his equally stellar verbal acuity. At one point, Joseph alluded that he considers himself primarily a poet (in a very funny and moving story about traveling to rural Africa to assist a white woman working against female circumcision rituals), but I consider him to be more of a storyteller, with elements of poetry worked in. In fact, the more “poetic” segments of break/s weren’t nearly as effective as the moments when Joseph simply cut through the flow and delivered straight-up prose narrative. At the show’s outset, he launched into a growling, skulking personification of (if I remember right) the notion of intolerance (or some comparable concept with a negative connotation). He proceeded to discuss the notion’s “family tree,” saying how racism had a baby with something else, and he was born, and then he met up with capitalism, and it all was just too heavy-handed and even kind of uninspired—though Bamuthi’s intense body language and vocal presence made even this part at least interesting.

The show feels like a work in progress. It’s very short and its separate parts never really form into a cohesive whole. Joseph tells stories about becoming a father for the first time, about visiting a happenin’ club in Japan and finding that nobody there cared about his status as a true representative of American hiphop, and about growing up in New York. A college-educated black man, he seems to be searching for his place in an art form he loves, but feels slightly outside of, set apart by the perspective of scholarship. The break/s feels like the performative equivalent of a man thinking out loud; he doesn’t know where he’s going or why he’s even trying to get there, but it’s fun watching him try to figure it out.

The technical aspects of this production also feel very unpolished. Joseph has a couple turntables set up, which is promising, but doesn’t use them very much. He executes a nifty bit of spontaneous beat-making at one point, using a looping device and multi-track recorder, but the point of the exercise is elusive beyond the fact that it’s kind of cool to watch. Later, he spins about 10 seconds of a Michael Jackson song along with a few other tracks, and that’s it for the turntables. Supposedly, the finished piece will have much more sophisticated multimedia elements, including video clips that will be manipulated by “veejays” in an improvised fashion, changing from night to night. For now, it feels tacked on and unnecessary, distracting from Joseph’s ample abilities with his body and voice. Until he works out the bells and whistles, and finds a compelling reason to include them at all, he should stick with just telling good stories, and moving fluidly and poetically through different states of being. Turntables or no, he is a riveting and immensely appealing performer.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph performs at the Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th, tonight and tomorrow, Sept 9, at 8:30 pm. Buy tickets.