PSU Magazine Spring 1999

Understand it? You'll never forget it! By Lisa Loving K, class, here's a pop quiz on the Portland International Performance Festival-PIP Fest for short. Identify the following: Butoh. (A post~World War II Japanae dance form inooWing wildly contorted performers who dance in white bod, paint) Poetry slam. (A modem art form int'OWing spontaneous poetry recital in a rock 'n roll club-sey~ atmosphere) lmagistic theater. (Um, it's, uh ... I gi4Je upl) Indeed, when it comes to PIP Fest, the uninitiated can be forgiven for 4 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 1999 asking: "Am I going to I understand th . 1'' 15. The answer is an emphatic yes-– learning new ideas is what it's all about. Think of PIP Fest as a summer· time college seminar for adventurous theatergoe~y. because you can either choose to go and have fun with· out the rigmarole of formal admission, or you can obtain official course credit. Coordinated by the PSU School of Extended Studies in collaboration with the School of Fine and Performing Arts, the 1999 festival features the touring show of a top butoh dancer from japan, a fantastical physical theater troupe from Canada, and new work by two of the hottest African Theatre Gargantua will perform " Raging Dreams," which explores violence in our culture, ironically, using the tools of Circus. American spoken word artists in the nation-one a storyteller, one a poet. There are also films, lectures, and special events planned for July 15-30. The program was initiated in 1991, when local theater director Michael Griggs convened an ad hoc committee of the theater community to explore the idea of an international perfor– mance festival. Griggs had already worked for years directing small alter· native theater companies here and elsewhere, and two things struck him about the Portland scene. "Most productions were realistic or naturalis· tic in genre rather than experimental, and many lacked an intercultural perspective," Griggs says.