This content was published: April 7, 2000. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Art Beat 2000: Creative Culture Club for the Masses
Photos and story by James Hill
It happens only once a year, but when it does people can interact with the creative world of art. Portland Community College’s Art Beat 2000 will take over the district May 8-12 in a myriad of performances and presentations lasting all day, every day. The best part is that Art Beat 2000 is free to the public! This is the 14th consecutive year of the festival, which features local, regional and national artists and a potpourri of visual art, dance, music, theater and literary arts to help expose the community to unique artistic visions.
Mark Andres, who is a PCC visual arts instructor, created the featured painting titled “Happy New Year” on this year’s official poster. “The Art Beat poster commission is a great honor for me,” Andres said. “I chose this image for the Art Beat poster because I think it is a very positive and upbeat image of Portland and because it is very beautiful. I wanted an emblem of the city which would celebrate the industrial landscape, which is so much of the Portland skyline but which is frequently viewed as an eyesore and whose great beauty is overlooked.”
Andres, also an instructor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, will bring his visual demonstrations to the Sylvania, Cascade and Rock Creek campuses in the form of a slide-lecture series.
Other events that will highlight this year’s festival include History of the Tango – music and dance performance on the evolution of the tango. The presentation will be at noon on Tuesday, May 9 at the Rock Creek Campus and on Thursday, May 11 at the Cascade Campus Student Center. There will be another performance at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center at the Sylvania Campus on Wednesday, May 10.
Dolores Churchill, Evelyn and Carrie Vanderhoop will give hands-on demonstrations on basket weaving, Tail and Chilkat techniques in the Three Generations of Northwest Coast Weavers at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. on Monday, May 8, and 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9 at the Sylvania Campus. The Native American weavers are part of an educational outreach for a totem pole construction project at Sylvania. Also, writer Andrew Pham will read from his book, “Catfish and Mandala,” chronicling solo bicycle trips through Vietnam, at 11 a.m. on the Rock Creek Campus and at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 10 at the Cascade Campus. He will also have a reading at 2 p.m. on
Tuesday, May 9 reading on the Sylvania Campus. For the young at heart, there will be the Tears of Joy Theatre puppet drama performance. Tears of Joy will perform, “The Secret of Singbonga,” in two installments, once at 1 p.m. on Monday, May 8 in the Performing Arts Center on the Sylvania Campus and again at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9 in Terrell Hall 122.
The community can explore the rhythms and movements of Japanese and African dance through DrumsSouls – an interactive dance workshop. The unique presentation will be held at noon on Wednesday, May 10 in Building 3 at the Rock Creek Campus, and at 1 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center as well as at 2:15 p.m. on Friday, May 12 in room 101 of the HT Building at the Sylvania Campus. Finally, Norman Sylvester will bring his Louisiana hootchie-cootchie band to Art Beat 2000. He will have three noon performances starting in the Performing Arts Center on the Sylvania Campus on Tuesday, May 9, the Student Center of the Cascade Campus on Wednesday, May 10 and in Building 3 of the Rock Creek Campus on Friday, May 12. If that doesn’t whet your appetite, then check out M.J. Anderson’s sculpture demonstrations, Richey Bellinger’s pottery wheel, Spoonman, Bennett Battaile’s glass sculpting, Mark Azure’s Native American storytelling, the International Food Fair, comic and poetry jams, triangle productions! and much, much more! In all, there will be 70 different performances and demonstrations at Art Beat 2000, featuring almost 60 unique artists.
“Art Beat allows our community to recognize how important art is in our lives, how intricately intertwined art is with every other aspect of our lives,” said Doris Werkman, Art Beat 2000 committee chair. “As the saying goes, ‘there is no society without art.’ We have the opportunity to allow our students and the community to become the artist, to see themselves as someone who is part of art.”
Please consult the Art Beat schedule of events following this release for days, times, locations and descriptions of the activities planned for this year’s event. The Cascade Campus is located at 705 N. Killingsworth in North Portland. The Rock Creek Campus is situated at 17705 N.W. Springville Road between Hillsboro and Beaverton, and the Sylvania Campus located in southwest Portland at 12000 S.W. 49th Ave. For more information on Art Beat 2000, call the Art Beat information line at 503-977-4270, or contact Doris Werkman at 503-977-4854. You can view the Art Beat 2000 schedule on the Internet at artbeat.pcc.edu.
Please call 503-977-4421 or 503-977-4376 if you would like artwork with this news release.
About James Hill
James G. Hill, an award-winning journalist and public relations writer, is the Director of Public Relations at Portland Community College. A graduate of Portland State University, James has worked as a section editor for the Newberg Graphic... more »