Today on the show: lots of goodbyes. A writer says goodbye to the New Orleans she used to know. A musical phenom gives Portland a big farewell smooch, as he takes off for the continent. And a dancer bids farewell to a measure of safety, during a nearly disastrous public rehearsal.
But there're also some hellos! A world premiere, a best new band. Plus, sandwiches.
For over thirty years, PHAME has provided opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities to pursue their passion in the arts, sharing the stage with acts such as Pink Martini and putting on plays like "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Grease." But their new production, \u201cUp The Fall,\u201d is unlike anything they\u2019ve done before: PHAME commissioned an original, full-length musical from local playwright Debbie Lamedman and singer-songwriter Laura Gibson. It runs Aug. 22\u201329 at Artists Repertory Theatre.
9:10 - Portland author Ellen Urbani lived through the final years of Guatemala\u2019s horrific civil war\u2014an experience she wrote about in her first book, 'When I Was Elena.' She then spent 13 years as an art therapist working with oncology patients and disaster survivors. Both experiences primed her for dealing with trauma in her first novel, 'Landfall,' about the days after Hurricane Katrina.
19:12 - In a city where it seems like everyone plays in five bands, there are few as booked up as Papi Fimbres. He\u2019s a lynchpin in a whopping 23 bands, including Orquestra Pacifico Tropical, Sun Angle, Minden, and Mascaras. And he\u2019s putting them all on hold as he moves to Germany for a year. He told us about his decision to leave \u2013 and five things every prospective Portlander needs to know.
27:22 - Divers live shows are so electrically sweaty and infamous that they topped Willamette Week\u2019s best new bands poll this year. They stopped by opbmusic to test the sound proofing capability of the opb studio.
32:31 - Uncage the Soul Productions has produced all kinds of gorgeous, viral time-lapse videos of Portland and Oregon. We talked with the filmmakers about how they do it.
36:43 - Something went up online this week that caught our eyes. It\u2019s a video of Daniel Giron of 11: Dance Co. dancing on the Portland waterfront when he's threatened by a man with a sledge hammer. But instead of stopping, Giron rips his shirt off, ups his twirls, and prances right into the Salmon Street Springs Fountain, while his friends go crazy cheering. He and 11's artistic director, B.B. DeLano, told us about the experience.
41:43 - Frank McCourt honed his storytelling skills as a teacher in a vocational high school in New York. He found stories were one way to keep the kids engaged, particularly since he didn\u2019t know how to teach. But it wasn\u2019t until he retired to Ireland 30 years later that he started putting those stories down on paper in memoirs. His first, 'Angela\u2019s Ashes,' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997.