From “Wayne’s World” to “UHF,” public access television often seems to serve more as a satirical punching bag than a respected media form. But that’s about to change. Portland Community Media is renovating its building and rebranding itself as Open Signal, a media arts center where you can learn not only TV, but storytelling, podcasting, coding, mixed reality, and other forms of digital media. They’re celebrating the transformation with an open house on Feb. 25. “The fact that the city has this ...
Feb 21, 2017•8 min
This week on "State of Wonder," the Blazer talks about his side-gig as a rapper, Portland's indie remix pioneer brings home the win, Portland Community Media gets an update and more. Eugene Opera Hits the Pause Button - 1:25 This week the Eugene Opera faced the music with a public meeting about its finances. Taking into account staff and office costs, the Eugene Opera needs $230,000 to stay alive through the end of the fiscal year this summer and has suspended the rest of its season. Trail Blaze...
Feb 18, 2017•52 min
Ten years ago, two silvery orbs began floating 3,000 feet between Marquam Hill and South Waterfront over the roofs and backyards of one of Portland’s oldest neighborhoods. Millions of rides later, Portland’s aerial tram can now be seen as one of the city’s most transformational projects ever, leading to the dramatic waterfront expansion of OHSU and the creation of a new neighborhood, and paving the way to the successful $500-million Knight Challenge that is positioning the university as a global...
Feb 12, 2017•9 min
The man who re-imagined John Shaft, Night Hawk, and Power Man talks to us about the new Luke Cage standalone series he's writing, starting in May, what he thought of the Netflix series, and why Black Mariah has to be the smartest person in the room.
Feb 11, 2017•22 min
Grab your rain coat and take a ride on the aerial tram, head out to the International Film Festival, support your art-loving neighborhood watering hole, or stay in and listen to Shy Girl's bedroom music — there's something for everyone this week. Marvel to Release New Luke Cage Series by Portland Writer David Walker - 1:23 The Netflix series has thrust the unbreakable superhero Luke Cage into the national spotlight, although he's been around since the early ‘70s as Power Man. Portland writer Dav...
Feb 11, 2017•53 min
Portlanders love to love their airport. There’s the Stumptown coffee, the Powell’s bookstore, the local restaurants, and perhaps the most photographed carpet in the world. So what else could PDX put in front of passengers? While other airports add yoga rooms and rooftops pools in the quest to tempt travelers, PDX has welcomed an outpost of the iconic Hollywood Theater to be America’s only airport cinema. On a typical January morning at the Portland International Airport, a not so typical passeng...
Feb 04, 2017•5 min
This week on State of Wonder, immerse yourself in a sonic wonderland of Arvo Pärt's music, catch a short film at the airport and hear from local artists about their experience as refugees. Iraqi Artist Farooq Hassan On Painting and War - 1:06 President Donald Trump’s new travel ban has implications for scores of artists, whether they’re doing a residency, in contention for an Oscar, or running from a war. For nearly 40 years, the painter Farooq Hassan showed work in museums all over the Middle E...
Feb 04, 2017•36 min
Director Elizabeth Huffman talks to us about the play she's directing this weekend by Turkish playwrite Sedef Ecer, and her a one-woman show juxtaposing a wealthy Syrian refugee with Marie Antoinette. She performed the show in Germany last year, and visited refugees camped in Bremen, awaiting permanent resettlement.
Feb 04, 2017•18 min
While America spent last winter wondering why the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was taking so long to reflect the face of America, some amazing features were in the works, featuring African-American directors, writers, and actors — films like "Fences," starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, "Moonlight," featuring Naomi Harris, and "Hidden Figures," with the ever-talented Octavia Spencer, have all gotten Oscar nods. If those films made you hungry for more, get ready to...
Feb 03, 2017•22 min
Portland-based vocal ensemble Cappella Romana creates otherworldly mystic sounds with layers of harmony, plumbing that space where eastern and western sacred music meet. While most of their repertory involves the old world, occasionally they love to inject a little new music. One composer in particular embodies their approach to choral music—Arvo Pärt. Cappella Romana has organized a festival of Pärt’s music, the first in the US, Feb. 5–12. Joining with Third Angle New Music Ensemble and other m...
Feb 02, 2017•7 min
Mid-winter blues got you down? We've got the remedy for that. Whether its getting outside in the darkest time of year for a European-style light festival, hearing music from one of Portland's premiere Americana stars, or meeting Portland's brand new city commissioner, Chloe Eudaly, this week's show is guaranteed to warm your soul. Chloe Eudaly on Her Big Step from Indie Bookstore Owner to City Commissioner - 1:23 Chloe Eudaly started work as Portland’s newest commissioner amid a winter weather e...
Jan 27, 2017•52 min
Goodbye Reading Frenzy, hello SW 4th Ave. We sit down with Portland's new City Commissioner, Chloe Eudaly. Her meteoric rise from indie bookseller to Council parallels the city's growing unease with growth, gentrification, and the status quo. This is the first of several check-ins we'll bring you this year.
Jan 26, 2017•14 min
For five years, Eliza Jane Schneider played most of the female characters on South Park: Wendy, Shelly, Mrs. Cartman, the Mayor — they’re all her. She’s created characters for everything from the animated film “Finding Nemo” to the TV series “King of the Hill” to video games like “Assassin’s Creed.” And to top it all off, she writes and performs award-winning plays and one-woman shows. Her voices come from years spent traveling the world, studying and teaching dialects and touring as a musician....
Jan 20, 2017•26 min
There’s been a huge transition on the national stage. The curtain has closed on one act and opened on another. There’s a whole new cast of players, and no one’s sure where this plotline is headed. Not to say that the audience is always sitting still to find out. This hour, we’re going to talk to artists who’re standing up with their art. Trump Inspires a New Era of Protest Music - 1:53 Donald Trump's inauguration party featured musicians like Toby Keith playing the Lincoln Memorial. But alongsid...
Jan 20, 2017•52 min
Subashini Ganesan and Oluyinka Akinjiola stop in to talk about their upcoming performance of new work, IGNITE. They’re from radically different traditions, but each embraces a marriage of traditional and modern forms.
Jan 15, 2017•8 min
A visit to Desert Rain, the Bend home of Tom Elliott and Barbara Scott that is the first single-family home in the world to earn certification under the Living Building Challenge.
Jan 14, 2017•13 min
When it comes to women, there are two things American culture doesn’t look so kindly on: age and weight. Tahni Holt’s newest show revels in both. By the time the audience walks into the theater, the performance has already begun. A heap of dancers writhe across the floor in an undulating mass of brightly patterned skirts, splayed hair, and little flashes of gold lame, like some thrift store reenactment of a Gustav Klimt painting. A tone slowly builds, and the six dancers eventually break into pa...
Jan 13, 2017•6 min
State of Wonder will melt your winter blahs down to marshmallowy molten goodness with provocative dance projects, hot new fiction, and music for transformative times (with twirling rifles!). Tahni Holt’s Sensational Disorientation - 1:21 When it comes to women, there are two things American culture doesn’t look so kindly on: age and weight. Portland choreographer Tahni Holt’s newest performance delights in both. “Sensation/Disorientation” runs at Reed College’s Diver Studio Theatre as part of Wh...
Jan 13, 2017•52 min
By 2015, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education had a problem — the good kind of problem: It couldn’t accommodate the crowds that wanted to get into its exhibits and events. So it commissioned a study to see if it could afford a bigger building. Then director Judy Margles learned that the Museum for Contemporary Craft was closing its downtown Portland doors after 79 years. “It was just absolutely serendipitous, as we were completing the study in February 2016, this building ...
Jan 12, 2017•4 min
Amid regulatory crackdown on Northwest glass makers, Eric Lovell transfers the business to California-based Oceanside GlassTile.
Jan 07, 2017•14 min
We listen back to what Ted Wheeler said as a candidate about his arts agenda for Portland, and talk with three bright guys in design, architecture, and planning about what challenges lie ahead for Portland during Wheeler's tenure.
Jan 07, 2017•17 min
2016 was packed — packed! — with big arts stories, both locally and nationally (we're still mourning you, Bowie and Prince, Cohen and Jones, and all the other dynamos). We decided to spend our first episode of 2017 looking back at some of them and updating them for the new year. Art Glass Meltdown We should have known 2016 was going to be a doozy last January, when one modest Forest Service research project turned the Northwest’s storied art glass industry upside down. Oregon’s two major supplie...
Jan 07, 2017•52 min
We love talking to authors about their books, but do you know what’s almost more fun? Talking to them about other people's books. This year, at the book festival Wordstock, we rounded up some amazing writers and illustrators on the OPB Pop-Up Stage to ask them: was there a book that changed your life? Richard Russo - 1:24 The books of Richard Russo are practically synonymous with small town American life. They tell stories of working-class folks in falling-down mill towns in upstate New York, bu...
Dec 28, 2016•53 min
Because our mailboxes are flooding with requests for year-end giving, we're listening back to an episode we did last year with philanthropist, instigator, and friend to the arts, Dorie Vollum, who also kindly came aboard as our guest curator. This week, Vollum helps us explore what giving means — not just to the individual giving, but for the arts organizations on the receiving end, and how those relationships work. We look at her family’s deep history in the Portland economy and supporting inst...
Dec 22, 2016•52 min
[image: 20161217_arts_post-134_2,left,300x390,5852f415280b1e0339fc7fb2] Ever been in an American Legion hall? They’re not fancy, but for a certain generation they’re as familiar as the corner taproom. They're the place to go for a chat, cheap drinks and of course, monthly bingo — not to mention the assurance of finding people who’ve experienced military service. Legion membership is shrinking nationally, but one hall in Northeast Portland — an old Quonset hut with a dropped ceiling and scuffed f...
Dec 19, 2016•9 min
Mark Rothko is one of the 20th century’s most famous painters, and his formative years were spent in Portland: He immigrated here at age 10 from Latvia and took classes at the Museum School at the Portland Art Museum before graduating from Lincoln High School. In October, the museum announced plans for the Rothko Pavilion (see pictures), a new multi-story glass structure that will link the museum’s two free-standing buildings and include a number of new galleries and education and programming sp...
Dec 19, 2016•7 min
This week we take you on a sleigh ride from operatic strippers to poetry by veterans. What Do You Get When You Mix Opera And Stripping? This month a subversive group of classical musicians called the Cult of Orpheus are staging a holiday performance like no other. Viva’s Holiday is a short opera based on the memoirs of Portland's most famous exotic dancer, Viva Las Vegas. Christopher Rothko on Sharing His Father's Art with the Portland Art Museum + The Museum Hires a New NW Curator - 5:38 Mark R...
Dec 17, 2016•52 min
The Cult of Orpheus is reviving last year's popular original, one-act opera, "Viva's Holiday", based on the memoirs of the celebrated Portland exotic dancer, Viva Las Vegas. Think your family holiday gathering is complicated? Picture outing your life as a stripper to a minister father. Take a listen, and mark the calendar for the remaining four performances. (photo cred. Gene Newell/Courtesy of the Cult of Orpheus)
Dec 13, 2016•4 min
Warm your hands on these picks from KMHD program director Matt Fleeger, and OPB digital producer David Stuckey. We talk about a few selections from KMHD's top ten albums of 2016, plus a few live shows that kept us jumping this year. (Photo cred. David Stuckey)
Dec 09, 2016•12 min
Stories of reptile love, seeing your neighbors darkest secrets, a bizarre visit to the dentist — these are just some of the stories from the Plotto flash fiction contest we did with the publisher, Tin House. Plus, we hear some of the top picks of 2016 from KMHD's music director, we explore the art in Portland's eastward expansion, and we talk to one of Oregon's most celebrated writers about what it was like to finally win the Oregon Books Award after being the literary bridesmaid so many times.
Dec 09, 2016•53 min
