OUT Dance Project Goes on Virtual Tour Across Rural Oregon
Tonight OUT Dance Project will launch their virtual tour of stories and dance from rural LGBTQ+ people from across Oregon. The event series seeks to lift up the stories or rural communities, foster connection, build resilience, and counter the myth that all LGBTQ+ people live in the city.
The process has brought together LGBTQ+ artists from across Oregon.
Lead artists Eliot Feenstra & Sophie Traub, who live in the Illinois Valley, worked with renowned choreographers Mizu Desierto, Crystal Sasaki, and Snowflake Calvert to create original dance pieces based on 10 rural LGBTQ+ stories from across Oregon. The virtual performances will be livestreamed March 25-28, 2021.
The stories told in the project paint a vibrant and complex picture of rural queer lives.
Artistic Director Eliot Feenstra told ShoutOut PDX that “There's a level of invisibility in rural communities. Which doesn't mean that we aren't here. Actually, I look around and I'm like, queer people are the cornerstones of rural communities. We're the city councilors, and we're the teachers, and we're the nurses. But this is a somewhat conservative community, and there's not that visibility, as queer people. So it can be really lonely.”
In a 2020 survey from the Rogue Action Center for LGBTQ+ people in Josephine & Jackson counties, 100% of queer youth between the ages of 13 and 17 reported feeling lonely, and 86% of people who responded reported feeling like they need to leave the area to live a good life.
“As queer folks living in rural Oregon we know how hard feeling like ‘the only one’ can be--even though we are here,” said Feenstra.
Co-director Sophie Traub added, “Hearing stories that reflect your experience is a critical part of addressing the loneliness that often accompanies being rural & queer.”
The project is supported by Oregon’s Alliance for Suicide Prevention which is focusing on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on LGBTQ+ communities. This is the third project of Beyond Boom & Bust, an initiative exploring the cultivation of rural economic and social resilience through the performing arts.
Audiences can register online at BeyondBoomandBust.com to receive a link to the performance, which will be livestreamed on HowlRound, an online streaming platform for performance. The shows are free but each show will be “hosted” by a local rural LGBTQ+ advocacy organization that will receive half of any donations. The performances will also be recorded and archived at the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest.
Tickets & Event Information
Tickets are free, with a suggested donation that will benefit a local organization supporting LGBTQ+ people. For tickets, visit www.beyondboomandbust.com or email boomandbust.info@gmail.com.
OUT Dance Project performances will be livestreamed through Howlround, an online streaming platform for performance, and the link will be public. Audience members RSVP for shows through Brown Paper Tickets (links available on website). The Howlround link will be sent to everyone registered before the show.
Facilitated community dialogues will take place on Zoom after each performance with the local co-hosts and the OUT Dance Project artists. Zoom links for the Dialogue will be provided during each livestream performance.
The shows are in two sets of five pieces (Set A and B). If there is a show hosted in your community, you are encouraged to attend that performance; all shows are open to everyone. Shows will be virtually ‘hosted’ in communities across the state, as follows:
Set A: Thursday at 6pm in Wallowa County in partnership with Safe Harbors; Saturday at 6pm in Josephine & Jackson County in partnership with Native Womanshare and the LGBTQ+ Listening Project; Sunday at 1pm in Klamath Falls in partnership with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Klamath County Social Justice Committee and Klamath Falls Friends Church
Set B: Friday at 6pm Lincoln City in partnership with the Lincoln City Cultural Center and the Bravery Center; Saturday at 1pm in Harney County in partnership with the Rural Alliance for Diversity; Sunday at 6pm in Prineville in partnership with H.O.R.S.E.S. on the Ranch and Prideville.
Event Schedule:
Thursday 25 March
Set A, co-host Safe Harbors, Wallowa County
6 p.m. PDT (Portland, UTC -7) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 9 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4)
Friday 26 March
Set B, co-host Lincoln City Cultural Center & Bravery Center
6 p.m. PDT (Portland, UTC -7) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 9 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4)
Saturday 27 March
Set B, co-host Rural Alliance for Diversity, Harney County
1 p.m. PDT (Portland, UTC -7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4)
Set A, co-hosts NativeWomanShare & LGBTQ Listening Project, Josephine & Jackson Counties
6 p.m. PDT (Portland, UTC -7) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 9 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4)
Sunday 28 March
Set A, co-hosts Friends Church & UU Social Justice Committee, Klamath Falls
1 p.m. PDT (Portland, UTC -7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4)
Set B, co-hosts Prideville & H.O.R.S.E.S on the Ranch, Prineville
6 p.m. PDT (Portland, UTC -7) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 9 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4)
More About the Artists
Lead Artists: Eliot Feenstra and Sophie Traub are LGBTQ+ artists living in the Illinois Valley in southwestern Oregon. Eliot Feenstra is a transgender activist and artist who has been engaged with rural queer organizing in southern Oregon since 2012, including hosting workshops, gatherings, and working with the Rogue Action Center’s LGBTQ+ Listening Project. More info about his work can be found at www.EliotFeenstra.com. Sophie Traub is a genderfluid queer performing artist, actor and theatre/film creator with extensive strategic, artistic leadership experience through their work as Programming Director for The School of Making Thinking.
Choreographers: Snowflake Calvert, Mizu Desierto, Crystal Sasaki
Dancers: Link LoPresti, Lara Pacheco, Emanuel Colombo, Chaya, Fern, Amanaka, Mary Rose, and Juniper, Z Behlen, Nicholas Wakeman, Mia OS, Bianca “Fox” Ballara, Sophie Traub, Eliot Feenstra
Writers: Alex Sylvester, Bridgette Extraordinaire, Casifer Nash, Joni Renee Whitworth, H. Ní Aódagaín, Kelly Riggle, Kayla Wade, Casey Davenport, Lycan Coss
Production Team: Eliot Feenstra, Megan Cornelius, Alex Gaylon
About Beyond Boom & Bust
Beyond Boom & Bust is a multi-year initiative exploring the cultivation of rural economic and social resilience through performance. The project launched with the development of the original documentary dance-theatre piece The (w)HOLE, based on interviews with Illinois Valley community members about the economy, visions for the future, and what wealth means. Since then, Beyond Boom & Bust co-produced Shelter-In-Plays, a responsive online theatre festival of original works presented at the onset of COVID 19 and aimed at raising morale and connecting people virtually during a time of physical isolation. Shelter-in-Plays raised over $3000 for local COVID relief efforts. OUT Dance Project, Beyond Boom & Bust’s third initiative, aims to build resilience by connecting rural queers through story and dance.
