Hand2Mouth Karaoke Gala

Hand2Mouth Theatre
December 4, 2009

Summary:

Support Hand2Mouth by bidding on prizes from yoga packages to locally made jewelry to fancy dinners and booze. Speaking of booze, the beer and wine will be flowing at our no-host bar. And you’ll be able to document the evening’s festivities in our holiday photo booth. Ugly sweaters provided.

Everyone Who Looks Like You

Hand2Mouth Theatre
November 6 - 22, 2009

Review by peanutduck

Who is the audience? H2M confides this piece is personal; maybe too much, not enough distance between heart-strung confessional to universal. Because this isn’t “everyone’s family”; for the non-everyone, it’s an alienating, narrow-framed portrait of a specific type of middle/upper-class family experience. To what end this (yes, aesthetic) familial exploration?

The Panic Show

Witness Relocation (Hosted by Hand2Mouth Theatre)
September 7, 2009

Summary:

Witness Relocation combines dance and theater with the energy of a rock-show. The Panic Show attacks mass hysteria, hyper-ventilation, stress, fight or flight, self-help techniques, not to mention "Panic Room", that mess of a film starring Jodie Foster. This wild ride includes dances, dark confessions, confetti, and real-time performance tasks

The Manor of Art

Hand2Mouth Theatre
August 19 & 20, 2009

Summary:

The Risk/Reward New Performance Series presents a platform for the Northwest's finest genre-busting performing artists to share fresh, short-length new works in the Manor of Art's performance space. Evening programs feature a mix of dance, theatre, spoken-word and performance artists. Artists performing include: Joe von Appen, Angela Fair, Hand2Mouth/Faith Helma.

Hand2Mouth Send Off Party

Hand2Mouth Theatre
Monday, August 17, 2009

Summary:

Come join us for an exhilarating night of music, celebration & performance at the send off party co-sponsored by Portland Center Stage, featuring performances by Holcombe Waller, Dolorean, and Hand2Mouth's Faith Helma. Fundraiser for Faith Helma’s upcoming two week run of Undine at Ontological Theatre at the St. Marks Church.

Undine and You Don't Know Jack

Hand2Mouth Theatre & The Carpetbag Brigade **Photo credit: Ishan Vernallis**
July 3 & 5, 2009

Review by peanutduck

Undine
An irresistible seduction of flesh, electronica, song, and violence. Faith Helma, as character and performer, cannot be trusted - the line between reality and fantasy is inextricable. Her transformation from an ethereal, introspective cave nymph to a violent, pulsating water demon is beyond thrilling; truly a remarkable, viscerally nightmarish journey.

You Don't Know Jack
A work-in-progress in the “sweaty adolescent stage.” As if gauze were covering my eyes, I glimpsed shadows of themes and ideas – violence, war, monsters, destruction, solitude – the presentation of which, through simple, graceful movement, lyrical narrative, and sheer intensity, whetted my appetite and continually enchanted, though didn't (not yet) satisfy.

Risk/Reward New Performance Festival

Hand2Mouth Theatre
June 27, 2009

Summary:

2nd annual performance series curated by Hand2Mouth Theater. Risk/Reward invites several contemporary performance groups, dancers, theater creators and music innovators to the stage to present 20 minutes of new work. Two full programs in one night filled with short, provocative, fun, cutting-edge artistic performance. $8 for one, $15 for both.

Repeat After Me

Hand2Mouth Theatre
June 9, 2009

Summary:

Repeat After Me heads to San Francisco, but Portland audiences can catch it before we hit the road. Mining popular American music from the last hundred years, Hand2Mouth theatre samples Karaoke, outlandish theatricality, exhaustive dances, and absurdist humor in this imaginative work that questions what it means to be a true American.

Everyone Who Looks Like You

Hand2Mouth Theatre
May 14 - 30, 2009 **Extended**

Summary:

The company members re-create, imitate and initiate the complexities of family life – of living and breathing with those who know you best and least. As this household moves through furious dances, ear-piercing fights, unlikely reconciliations and meditative storytelling, a picture of universal family life emerges from the raw and personal.

Justin Bond Rites of Spring

Hand2Mouth Theatre
March 25, 2009

Summary:

A celebration in story and song of rebirth, regeneration and just plain old fashioned spring fever -and you know what that means... Combining cabaret, witchcraft, a punk attitude and neo-folk glamour this show promises tears, glitter and a rollicking good time! Opening the night is Faith Helma’s solo show, Undine.

Undine

Hand2Mouth Theatre
February 19 - 21, 2009

Summary:

A one-woman music/theatre show inspired by an obscure fairy-tale water nymph and the myth of the self-destructive rock star. Like Cat Power, Elliot Smith, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, Undine is a fierce, fragile being lost between night and the dawn of day. Performed, created by Hand2Mouth member Faith Helma.

Project X: You Are Here

Hand2Mouth Theatre **Photo credit: Kate Sanderson**
August 14 - 24, 2008

Summary:

A museum. A performance. A living time capsule. Come and make your mark. Project X: You Are Here, created by Hand2Mouth Theatre and filled in with your stories, testimonies and myths about life, legacy and immortality. Arrive anytime during open hours and stay as long as you wish. Milepost 5.

Repeat After Me

Hand2Mouth Theatre
July 18, 2008

Summary:

The company plays fast and loose with many of the icons Americans hold dear, marrying heartfelt working songs, campfire sing-a-longs to Southern Rock Anthems, SUVs. Steering a course between irony and true compassion, Repeat After Me takes us on a manic tour through the other America and back into ourselves.

Risk/Reward Performance Lab

Hand2Mouth Theatre
June 27 & 28, 2007

Summary:

Risk/Reward Performance Lab: a new performance series curated byHand2Mouth Theatre. Risk/Reward invites several genre-bending/blending performers, dancers, theater types and music innovators from the greater Northwest to the stage. Two full programs over two nights, filled with short, provocative, fun, unabashedly artistic performance. Take the risk. Someday Lounge. 7pm – 12am. Cash/check only.

From a Dream to a Dream

Hand2Mouth and Teatr Stacja Szamocin
May 29 - June 8, 2008

Summary:

A theatricalization of the fantastic ideas and images of Polish author Bruno Schulz under the direction of Luba Zarembinska of Teatr Stacja Szamocin. Featuring mannequin legs, nurses, plastic wedding dresses and meditations on eroticism and death, this performance explores “in-between” time, when we are neither awake nor asleep. World premiere.

Repeat After Me - TBA

Hand2Mouth Theatre
September 11, 2007; closes September 15, 2007

Put out more flags. There is an almost folkloric terror on display here. Alternating cheerful and grim-faced anthems about “lighting up your world like the fourth of July” expose the imperial anger and arrogance of America, while at the same time making us laugh. Highly charged visuals mostly dominate words.

Interview - Jonathan Walters

Photo: ?

September 6, 2007

PDF of the full interview here.

Full text also pasted into first post of thread.

Just in time for T:BA:07, a talk with Jonathan Walters, Artistic Director of one of Portland’s most exciting and excited performance companies, Hand2Mouth Theatre.

Walters and Hand2Mouth have created an original voice in the local arts landscape, a company that is both in tune with European and international currents as well as deeply rooted in Portland.

It's taken years of hard work and passion, in an often challenging environment for small, new companies.

But with recent critical successes, grant awards, and especially inclusion in Portland's own T:BA this year, Hand2Mouth is poised at their breakout moment. Hello, world!

A few excerpts...

*On how Hand2Mouth has changed REPEAT AFTER ME from the spring 2007 show for T:BA:

“…we wanted to make it much more of a desperate love song for America by a broken hearted (spurned/disgusted/suicidal?) lover, but one who is co-dependant, and can’t leave. That’s what I am, in a twisted, screwed up love affair with my country, and I can’t break it off. Sooo…we want the audience to realize something like that (that they are trapped in this love affair too, and not outside looking in on our event) during our show, and make it gut wrenching. While having the time of your life!”

*On the influence of current European work on Hand2Mouth’s direction:

“What I hope I’ve borrowed for Hand2Mouth is that in the kind of work I’m seeing (and interested in) the audience member must complete the painting themselves, it’s not all given, and it couldn’t happen without the audience…so the audience member really feels it was a personal encounter. You don’t feel FOR someone on stage, you feel for yourself (and those around you) experiencing the event. Only live performance can do that. H2M is shooting for that.”

*On Hand2Mouth’s new project under development, DOS PUEBLOS, a Mexican / American collaboration with La comedia humana in Mexico City and Miracle Theatre in Portland:

“In Mexico we are a strange sight, a group of Anglo-Americans on stage attempting to partner with a team of Mexican artists to figure out what we love/hate deep within one another. I think we offer a strange cathartic quality, because when we “misbehave” and are punished in the show…it’s a justice that really doesn’t happen much in the world…Americans (at least our current administration) can misbehave and throw tantrums across the world, and never really have to face reckoning. On the other hand when we do kind/humane things to the Mexican performers on stage, the crowd was floored.”

*On Hand2Mouth’s current momentum, the road ahead, and the key role larger institutions play in showcasing and nurturing small companies:

“I think what 2007 means for H2M…is that the people who make decisions about programming new work, and bringing shows for touring, and producing new performances, and funding these…we won’t have to knock on their door, or leave phone messages, seething with the knowledge that they are never going to call us back. I hope those dark days are over…now, we might get a chance for people to see our work, and decide if it has quality, and is important to society, and can stand toe-to-toe with the great contemporary work in the US and abroad. And that chance to actually be considered on that playing field for OUR WORK…that’s all that it’s about.

We don’t expect any handouts now, or a flood of contracts and checks. I also hope this scenario can and will play out for other smaller companies/artists in Portland. PICA has a mission to support NW artists, and really is trying to elevate artists from Portland to a national level, so they are looking at work in town and putting their money and name behind a few each year…it would be nice if other influential organizations in town had the same mission.”

Repeat After Me

Hand2Mouth Theatre
Posted by Frenchglen April 29; closes May 5

Industrial strength subversion. Hand2Mouth makes expert use of recycled cultural forms we think we know, only to keep yanking out rug. Shock and awe aerial assault on the red, white and blue reaches deafening, demented levels. Venue, format, open bar create experience unlike almost anything else in town. Excellent ensemble.

Portland Catacombs

Portland Art Center, Hand2Mouth Theatre and Fever Theatre
October 14, 2006; closes October 31, 2006

Curious, though as yet somehwat unsatiating, histories interleafed with contemporary artists reflecting/honoring people, place, change. Fine RPG mechanics from elaborate shoestrings. Intentionally fragmentary, tapping interactive audience, collaborative environment to grow/evolve through time. A thoughtful, theatrical haunt — environmental form that continues to carve a welcome niche in Portland theatre. Bears revisiting.

City of Gold

Hand2Mouth Theatre
March 9, 2006; closes March 26, 2006

Intent evident but motivation unrevealed, result puzzling. Kinda punch-drunk drama club missing raw sophistication of recent H2M creations. Maybe bigger spectacle to match scale of immense storyboard? Skeletal-staging fun; some caricatures boorish; banana-sucking climax jumped shark. Bottom line: To what end? Nevertheless, Portland repertoire needs this type of storytelling exploration.