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REJOICE IN OBT
I read with interest the Willamette Week article regarding Oregon Ballet Theater (OBT) and its school and would like to answer Willamette Week's question (June 3, 1998), "Would You Trust This Man with Your Daughter?" For more than eight years my daughter was a devoted participant and student of the teachers and directors of OBT school. She learned from Canfield, as a cast member in The Nutcracker and other ballets, the meaning of discipline, excellence, courage and devotion to something bigger than oneself. This has helped her to grow into the simply incredible young woman that she is today. Canfield, Haydée Gutiérrez and others at OBT were not only stewards but authors of the possible, in an art form that demands everything a person has inside of them to excel in. My next-youngest child, a son, was also at OBT school for a number of years, enjoyed a good friendship with Canfield and has gone on to college, the Navy (where he is now a medical corpsman) and is seeking to qualify for the Navy Medical Scholarship. While many experiences helped to shape him, dance taught him single-minded devotion to a great task, and his only teachers at OBT were Canfield and Fred Locke (who was quoted in the Willamette Week article). As first a parent, then OBT board member, vice president, president and chief executive officer, time after time I saw Canfield step up to the plate and risk everything for the good of the order. And while I consider all of the people that were quoted in the Willamette Week article as friends and colleagues in this city, I must take exception with what I consider to be half-truths and negative journalism. With Canfield as artistic director of OBT: * Thousands of school children in this city were treated to art in a form they would never experience otherwise, at no cost, through OBT's community outreach programs. * Millions of dollars have flowed into this community in the form of revenues, taxes, wages and public trust ventures. * Hundreds upon hundreds of people's lives have been changed and enhanced for the better. * Oregon Ballet Theater, which commenced its life in splintered pieces, is now a thriving business enterprise that has excelled at putting first things first and has flourished in spite of heavy odds against it. Sure he's tough; he has to be. He and general manager Johann Jacobs head up a diverse organization in an often heavy political climate. Morning can find him negotiating with bankers, afternoon can find him teaching company class; evenings can find him out fund raising. What business leader can say the same? Few people know how much he sacrificed to put OBT and this city on the artistic map. Few people know of the permanent legacy he's left to Portland in the form of his artistic repertoire that will endow the city and OBT long after he's gone. I know because I worked with him and the board long and hard to negotiate his contract with OBT. As to board oversight--or lack thereof--hogwash. A nonprofit board had better concern itself with two things and two things only: 1) setting policy and 2) raising money. I am well aware of the same old exhausted accusations that certain parents brought up. I dealt with them directly as an officer of the board of OBT (but as a parent first) and I am still surprised that some of the same people, whose children left the school years ago, have not been able to get past it or get on with their lives. Apparently, even repeated board-level investigations were not enough to placate these folks. For the record: there was never any substantiated evidence to support these accusations. Lastly, while it is true that I am no longer involved with OBT as an officer or member of its board and that my children have gone on to further their education, I watch James, Johann, Haydée and the OBT staff and artists from afar with awe and respect. Some of my fondest memories revolve around my involvement with OBT. And while Canfield's focus points were not always my own, that was never a requirement to have a good working relationship--only shared vision was. To my knowledge that vision for Canfield, OBT school, Oregon Ballet Theater and its board is still very much alive. Rejoice in it, citizens of Portland--it's part of the fabric of your lives. C. Wesley Rhodes Jr.
Southwest Columbia Street CANFIELD PUSHES THE ENVELOPE
I am writing in response to your article about the Oregon Ballet Theater ["Would You Trust This Man with Your Daughter," WW, June 3, 1998]. I do not know James Canfield nor have I ever seen any of his latest ballet performances. I did see a matinee of The Nutcracker some years ago. I am an artist in this city though and I have to say I find this controversy somewhat ridiculous, offensive, and at times, well especially the headline on your Rag, extremely homophobic. Is the Willamette Week a scandal sheet focused on trashing people and putting such pedophilic notions on the cover for simple shock value? Perhaps you should start selling tickets. I have my own opinions of ballet in general--I've known many women who have suffered from dance training, but I do think it's highly ludicrous to single out a particular art form and a controversial choreographer for things that go on with young people in nearly every aspect of our society. Does anyone find the concept of having adolescent girls jump around in very short skirts and cheer on sporting events offensive? Would there be a football coach left in any educational system in this entire city if the same scrutiny was being practiced? In fact, there probably wouldn't be one program left. Why is Portland so afraid to fund a director who has raised attendance and membership consistently in the years he has been at OBT. Just even looking at the title again while I write this "Would You Trust This Man with Your Daughter" makes my blood boil. Leave the man and his company alone. Let him do his work. Perhaps Portland is just too conservative to support an art form that is pushing the envelope on sexuality and sex in general. Our society thrives on the sexuality of its children, very few would be willing to admit it though. Check out a glamour mag, a MTV video, a high school sporting event--the list goes on and on. Perhaps someone who is honest in making commentary on the subject of sexual freedom is just too much for the Portland elite to handle and therefore support. It is unfortunate that I have not seen any of his work except The Nutcracker, which was not something that pushed the envelope--it appeased the masses--it was fun, cheerful, redundant, and yawn conventional the year I saw it. As a performer in Portland existing for years in virtual obscurity, I give kudos to anyone who has the guts to bring a little gusto into Portland's lame conventional run o'the mill--who can afford a ticket in this low-wage city anyway! I love ya Portland. I plan on stickin' around for awhile longer but if you're going to present yerself as a tolerant diverse city--let's start acting like one. Lynn Ann Kister
Northeast 25th Avenue IN THE DARK
I would be the first to admit that I lead a less than edge lifestyle. I am an accounting auditor, homeowner, and on the far side of thirtysomething. I vote, recycle, serve jury duty, and in short do those things that signal my alternatively cultured days are a dim recollection. So it was with some surprise that I learned in Ms. DeNisco's article ("Summer in the Dark Ages," WW, June 10, 1998) that I am also a member of an organization where, in her words, "swinging is a sanctioned part of Middle Ages reenactment" and where the "joys of coed tents" are waiting for the initiated. I seemed to have somehow missed that facet of the Society for Creative Anachronism in the 12 years I have been attending events. Ms. DeNisco has obviously not gotten past her previous close-mindedness enough to investigate what the SCA truly is. If she had, she would have found a group of people, largely families, that have been involved in not only the re-creation of history, but in the education of themselves and others in the art, music and craft of a fascinating era. Our members cover the range of all professions and have for the 33 years of the Society's existence. The one common denominator is a love of history and learning in a fun social atmosphere. To reduce this populace to the level of costumed role-playing gamers is not only erroneous but shows that the research that went into this piece was sadly lacking. No member of any local Portland area branch was contacted prior to the publication of this piece, including the person whose private phone number was presented as a contact person. Any of the persons listed in our publication The Plume would have been greatly pleased to answer questions or provide information. To grab member information and photos out of context from a Web site does not constitute research, and for Willamette Week to publish such indicates a severe lack of journalistic ethic. I had hoped for more. M.C. Murphy
Southeast 15th Avenue THE SOFT SPINES ARE OURS
The article in the most recent WW ["Soft Money, Soft Spines," 500 Words, June 10, 1998] properly condemned the sleaze of the upcoming soft-money cabal here in Portland, but failed to identify the real culprits. We are. The voters. The electorate. In 1996 we knowingly and overwhelmingly re-elected the terminally venal to the highest political office in the land. Any discussion, any legislation, any structural change is irrelevant as long as we continue to do so. The Bill Clintons of the world will always find some way to sell their private office for public gain. Barrett MacDougall
Southeast Spokane Street A MINDLESS MARKETING VOID
C'mon--are we all supposed to be as surprised as Marty Cruz [sic] that the charming Jim Goad beats 21-year-olds, his dog or anything else ["Goad Rage," WW, June 17, 1998]? Willamette Week and O'Hagan perpetuate yet another lazy myth about Portland--that you have to be smart to work at Powell's. Does your reporter cite Cruz because she kinda thinks we all felt as he did--that Goad was just a cutting-edge artist working out abstract conceits as they relate to the First Amendment? How insulting. When Jim Goad came to Portland a few years ago, he made its aging journalists look like the desperate fools they are as they held him up out of some sorry, misguided need to maintain their own (long since flabby) "edge." Eager to push someone to the forefront willing to say things they never would, gutless journalists in leather jackets used this guy to prove to themselves that their publications, and their city, still had an edge, was still punk rock! Goad should been laughed back to L.A., like a lot of other things, but instead the likes of Jim Redden ate of his hand--probably even shared cheap beer with him in--gasp, tough bars, maybe he and William Abernathy talked guns--what fun! Such self-congratulating independent thinkers for not accepting the feel-good mantras of the Left and hanging out with Jim Goad!! I happended to be working at Simon & Schuster when they published Goad's book, The Redneck Manifesto, and I can say it was published, like most books these days, in a mindless marketing void which lasted seconds. Nobody in the Sales Department had any idea who he was, had barely ever heard of Portland, Oregon, except to say absently "oh, it's supposed to be pretty there." Yeah, pretty gullible. Michaela Lowthian
Brooklyn, NY |
