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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2006)
26 JUStOUt FEBRUARY 3. 20<X> Chambers presents landscape photographs by Chas Bowie through Feb. 25. Amelia White performs during the Songwriter's Circle at Music Millennium with Thad Beckman, Paula Sinclair and Jack McMahon. 17-9 pm. 801 NW23rd Ave.) Tango instructor Nola Gray loves the Argentine dance's "anything goes" edginess. The Bisexual Community Forum hosts a casual discus sion group every first Monday at 3 Friends Coffeehouse. (7:30 pm. 201 SE 12th Ave. 503-285-4848.) Time to Tango Portland is a tango town. Here, unlike many larger U.S. cities, you can dance tango every night of rhe week. And each fall, our city hosts TangoFest, billed as the largest tango festival in North America. This bounty of tango resources—combined with Portlands progressive attitude—makes the city a perfect place for Nola Gray to pursue her goal of establishing a gay and lesbian tango scene. “There’s not age discrimination, and there’s not gender discrimination. I find that on the whole in the tango community in Portland,” says Gray, a bisexual tango instructor. In her same-sex dance class series—dubbed “Mini Marshall” after the famous gay tango ven ue La Marshall in Buenos Aires, Argentina— men follow and women lead. Mixing it up on the dance floor like this is not a universally accepted concept. Some practitioners of the Argentine art form claim tango is defined by the interaction between man and woman. Such naysayers do not discourage Gray, who dances both lead and follow. She believes that, in tango, rules are made to be broken. For example, tango lacks the basic, building block steps of salsa and other social dances. The emphasis is instead placed on the music and the connection between the dancers. So, as Gray teaches, there is never just one way to do a tan go move. “Tango has always had that edginess to it— unexpected, anything goes,” she says. As further evidence of the perfect fit between tango and gay culture, Gray points out: “Think about the whole flair for drama. Who wears fishnets except for drag queens and tangueras?” One of Gray’s most powerful reasons for working to integrate Portland’s queer and tango communities is purely personal. “1 love the gay community,” she says. “For me, it’s family, it’s home. And tango is also fam ily and home.” The classes take place from 7 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Feb. 27 at Tango Berretin, 6305 S.E. Foster Road. Cost is $35 for the series or $10 per drop-in. For more information call 503-238-3939 or visit www.nolatango.net. —Rebecca Ragain It's Movie Night Monday at lesbian-owned Middle Eastern bar Zaytoon. Tonight's films are Michael Moore's gun control manifesto Bowling for Columbine and the cult classic Harold and Maude. (8:30 pm. 2236 NE Alberta St.) Slabtown presents queer service industry night with DJ and dancing every Mon- day. (9 pm. 1033 NW 16th Ave.) Go to Guardino Gallery for Madoka Ito's oil paintings through Feb. 28. TUE V FEB 7 Dr. Gaia Mather leads a seminar on pet skin problems at Healthy Pets Northwest. (7-8:30 pm. 2224 NE Alberta St.) Dyke-owned coffee shop Haven holds an open mike every Tuesday. (7:30 pm. 3551 SE Division St.) Dance your panties off as DJ Atomiton spins funky '80s music and more Tuesdays at the Egyptian Club. (10 pm. 3701 SE Division St. $1.) WED V FEB 8 The Portland Area Business Association holds its monthly meeting at the Governor Hotel, with a presentation by noted futurist and business professor Thomas Jones. (11:30am-1 pm. 614 SW 11th Ave. $19424 from 503-241-2222.) This month at Quintana Galleries, Robert Davidson and other Northwest Coastal Indians bridge the span between the supernatural universe and the human world. Gay-owned Crush introduces house wicca witch Wanda Weegee Wednesdays. Sit back and enjoy a little fortunetelling from a special ist in Tarot readings, casting spells, chanting, making personal charms and celebrity gossip! (7- 10pm. 1400 SE Morrison St.) The Blue Cranes perform modern ambient jazz as part of the second annual Sessions series at gay-owned Aura Restaurant and Lounge. (7:45-10pm. 1022 W Burnside St.) Award-winning Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Adrianne performs songs that go straight for the truth at Mississippi Studios with Camille Bloom. (8 pm. 3939 N Mississippi Ave. $8.) The Djangophiles perform gypsy jazz with a French twist every other Wednesday at gay-owned wine bistro Vino Paradiso. (8-10 pm. 417 NW 10th Ave.) Enter the battle of the bulge with the Best Basket Contest every second Wednesday at the Eagle. The winner gets $100 and joins the Basket Wall of Fame! (8 pm-midnight. 1300 W Burnside St.) THU V FEB 9 Elder Resource Alliance invites older members of the sexual minorities community to meet each other, share common interests and enjoy fun conversation every sec ond Thursday at Old Wives' Tales.' Two door prize winners will get a free bowl of the restaurant's famous Hungarian mushroom soup! (2-4 pm. 1300 E Burnside St. Kevin 503-224-2640.) Q Center, Portland's emerging queer community center, holds a town hall at Haven Coffee featuring the latest CoHo's Got the Real Thing Onstage at CoHo Productions, playwright Tom Stoppard gooses Agatha Christie in The Reul Inspector Hound, a short spoof of the classic whodunit with a clever plot twist of its own—namely the skewering of two mouthy theater critics in the front row who end up a little too close to their story. One of the critics is played by actor John Steinkamp (Recent Tragic Events), who believes Stoppard’s intent wasn’t to lambaste critics but to amuse audiences. “The play comments on the whodunit genre and makes campy fun of it, and it does sort of turn itself inside out halfway through. But I think it’s meant to give people’s brains a little tickle, as opposed to a cramp,” he says. “It makes me think of one of those Swiss clocks with the little figurines that rotate in and out. That makes sense, given the genre that the play is spoofing—the who dunit, which is so mechanistic, where every line of dialogue func From left, Scott Parker, John Steinkamp, Gary Brickner-Schulz and Alan H. King tions as a ‘puzzle piece.’ And because the play is by Stoppard, the spoof Agatha Christie in The Real Inspector Hound. language really is irresistible, full of wit and wordplay. His words are critics as it is about embodying envy. I’m ready for Dr. Faustus now!” he jokes. just a gas to recite.” Steinkamp, who is gay, pitches his character of Moon—the vindictive And Steinkamp’s insider tip? The gown worn by the sexy Adrienne Flagg (The Waiting Room) is worth the price of admission. “A full-length, backless, second-stringer—as a seething mass of insecurities covered with a brittle, satin number that 1 fully intend to steal once the show has closed,” whistles unpleasant veneer of grandiosity. . “At this point in rehearsal, I’m playing with making him as irritating as pos- . Steinkamp. sible, seeing how far 1 can take that without losing the humor. You know how Hound plays 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through some people are just walking emotional car wrecks? You can hardly stand to he March 4 at CoHo Theater, 2257 N.W. Raleigh St. Tickets are $ 19-$22 from in the same room with them, but something about rhe’in is gruesomely fascinat 503-220-2646 or www.cohoproductions.org . ing? That’s Moon. Playing Moon isn’t so much about making a commentary on —Timothy Krause