push/FOLD presents the inagural production of the Union PDX - Festival of Contemporary Dance!
Commissioned Portland choreographers Amy Leona Havin and Carlyn Hudson join Artistic Director Samuel Hobbs at the renowned Hampton Opera Center (Portland Opera). Showcasing three world-premiere works, Union PDX highlights the breadth of contemporary dance in Portland with three of our cities talented emerging artists.
Festival:19 features four public evening performances, one outreach performance for young dancers, three professional-level workshops led by our respective choreographers (Havin, Hudson, and Hobbs), and three Artist-Talks, open to the public (September 26, 27, 28).
Join us our on final evening, September 29, at the Union Soirée to celebrate the recipients of the first-ever Portland Dance Community Awards (PDCA). PDCA Recipients are Portland-based artists and key members of our dance community who are devoted to the success of Portland dance, selected by a panel of our peers from across our Portland dance community.
Union PDX - Festival:19 will be performed by the dancers of push/FOLD: Liane Burns, Briley Jozwiak, Ashley Morton, and Holly Shaw. The dancers will be joined by choreographer Carlyn Hudson for her work.
** Facilitated artist-talks and Q&A follow the September 26-28 performances. **
We invite Portland-Vancouver-Metro area dance students to preview Union PDX - Festival:19 during our invited dress rehearsal September 25 @ 8pm.
Interested schools and program coordinators, please contact us at contact@pushfold.org to learn more and register your students.
Join us on September 29th to celebrate the first-ever Portland Dance Community Awards (PDCA).
Fusing athletic form and the foundations of dance technique, we introduce internal fluid dynamics to the application of power in movement. Through athletic phrase-work and partnering, dancers learn the articulations required for the persistence of momentum and the translation into momentum-based choreography and dynamic partnering.
Dancers should expect floor-work, mid to high level movement, and working with partners of varied genders and sizes.
From grounding in ballet fundamentals and technical barre into a contemporary center and repertoire, Carlyn Hudson builds dancers into the utility of their extremities emanating from the core through use of the cranium and thorax. Through her athletic bend of contemporary ballet, participants work with detailed and focused precision to level up performance quality and establish clear intention in movement.
Dancers should bring form fitting clothing, and ballet shoes without rosin or socks.
Grown from her training in various Israeli movement languages, dancers move into the expansive world of stamina and exploration through the use of imagery and metaphor, tapping into the natural power and fluidity of the body. Dancers dedicate themselves to finding openness within their body’s existing knowledge of classical and codified techniques, and push past perceived boundaries of movement. To explore delight within the effort of dancing, this class consists of gravity work, balance investigation, guided movement exploration, technique deconstruction, and cardiovascular conditioning.
The Portland Dance Community Awards (PDCA) are a community acknowledgement to those devoted to the success of Portland dance through their service to our community. The goal of the PDCAs is to raise visibility and awareness of the heroes of Portland dance and the organizations they represent, and help expand the reach of their voices to different audiences.
Through a comprehensive nomination and selection process, a panel of ten community members from ten different organizations from across Portland selected this year's PDCA recipients.