Dance that dares

Linda Austin, doyenne of performance art, came home and started a movement

By Noah Mickens

The Portland Tribune, Jan 3, 2003, Updated Oct 30, 2009

On a Sunday afternoon in a renovated Romanian Orthodox church in Southeast Portland, a crowd watches as a man scrapes a single chopstick across the surface of a cymbal.

The keening drone of the cymbal draws a small woman dressed in coveralls from her hiding place. She skips lightly along the floor on the balls of her feet Ñ in spite of the 20-foot ladder that hangs around her neck.

As the chopstick player moves on to other objects, the tones changing with each new surface, dancer-choreographer Linda Austin lifts the ladder overhead and spins on one foot, propelling herself along the floor with her other foot like a skateboarder. When one end of the ladder hits the floor, Austin climbs to the top and scatters feathers through the air just as the chopstick makes contact with a ceramic planter for a final note.

The standard is for such performances to last about 20 minutes at Austin’s monthly Holy Goats! Sunday improvisation series, where musicians and dancers gather for impromptu performances in a studio called Performance Works Northwest.

Since its inception, the Works has lured an aviary of rare birds from the free jazz and postmodern dance community. From a residency by choreographer Sally Silvers to extemporaneous music and movement performances by Super Unity Group and Cidney Wilkes, the arts scene at Performance Works Northwest is considered by some to be the the freest and most inspired in Portland. Artists such as drummer Obo Addy and the experimental Sojourn Theatre rent rehearsal space here, which goes for a remarkably low $7.50 to $10 an hour.

“Linda’s living the dream,” says the man with the chopstick, Joe Foster, who performs with Austin as part of Cabaret Boris and Natasha. He is one of a trio of male dancers Austin selected to perform as adjunct entertainment during the lively nighttime cabarets she hosts.

“She has a space for her own work and performances, and she’s become quite central to a far-flung group of musicians and artists,” Foster says. “By being so open and approachable she does a service to modern dance, seen by so many as esoteric or confounding.”

Village life’s a draw

At one time, Austin thought she would never return to Portland.

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