Dance Little about ballet is American. Poised, practiced and, to many, pretentious, it’s antithetical to the unbridled passion of a country built on freedom, manifest destiny and tea parties.     More

News City officials finally produced details last week of a new arts tax that voters passed last November, requiring Portlanders to pay $35 a year to fund arts teachers in the public schools and suppor   More

Cover Story Fall is the snootiest season. In summer, Portlanders drink cheap red wine in the park while watching Top Gun on an inflatable screen or take their kids to...   More

Arts & Books Stories No one is dancing when I arrive at Jones. I’m here to meet Oregon Ballet Theatre dancers Olga Krochik and Lucas Threefoot and their friends, ostensibly for a night on the town. But it’s early    More

Dance Yuka Iino has been feeling a little, well, emotional lately: “I tear up for small little things, not necessarily things that are making me sad,” she confesses via email. “I cry for somethi   More

Arts & Books On Monday, before announcing its 2011-2012 season last night to a crowd of dance lovers at its Southeast Portland studio, Oregon Ballet Theatre heightened the dramatic tension by asking its Facebook fans to guess what might be in store. Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote and Coppelia were top picks (honorable mention goes to the as-yet unballetified Harry and the Hendersons), but no. Instead, the new season, ...   More

News On the last night of Oregon Ballet Theatre's new Holiday Revue, OBT Artistic Director Christopher Stowell made it official: The show was so popular, he announced onstage, that the company was declaring it “a new annual OBT event.” Stowell's gamble—creating and staging an original production in tandem with The Nutcracker, which is a logistical challenge unto itself—seems ...   More

Arts & Books Like Stravinsky and Balanchine or Cunningham and Cage, Tchaikovsky and Petipa created great dance by collaborating closely on steps and score. Their partnership produced some of the classical ballet world's greatest hits, including The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Oregon Ballet Theatre already had the first two in its repertoire; on Saturday, the company opened its 21st season ...   More

News Chairs are more than set dressing to choreographer Nicolo Fonte. They're stilts, barriers and fainting couches. Their legs are extra limbs for busy dancers and their seats new territory to be conquered. Those chairs, three simple black wooden fold-ups, figure largely in the dance-maker's Left Unsaid, a truly wonderful 2003 work for six dancers that Oregon Ballet Theatre presented for the first ...   More