While many new works festivals have closed post-pandemic around the country such as the Humana festival in Louisville, Portland is enriched by festivals such as the Fertile Ground Festival of New Works, Risk/Reward and the Jaw Festival that feature original works. 

Jessica Wallenfels, artistic director of Many Hats Collaboration and a longtime director and choreographer, is embarking on a new project. She calls it The Hatchery –a project dedicated to developing nontraditional new works using music and movement as an integral part of the storytelling and audience experience.

The Hatchery offers selected artists and projects a 30-hour workshop with paid stipends to all collaborators. At the end of the six-day exploratory rehearsal process, audiences are invited to two work-in-progress showings at The Judy (the new home of Northwest Children’s Theater and School), which introduce the projects to local artistic directors, presenters and community collaborators, as well as and audiences hungry for new work. Audience and peer feedback are invaluable at this pivotal stage of development. The inaugural year of The Hatchery is partially funded by a $10,000 award from the National Endowment of the Arts Challenge America grant. Many Hats was selected for this prestigious federal grant due to The Hatchery’s purpose to serve historically underrepresented playwrights/ensembles.

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In this podcast, Dmae Lo Roberts talks with Wallenfels…

About her new collaboration and her hopes for its launch and future:

“I need to be the link between the generation that came before me and the one that’s coming after and you know, be the conduit for that current of energy. And in order to do that nothing feels better than providing opportunities, especially the kind that I didn’t have because The Hatchery is a little bit Like bucking a stereotype of a new works development project that begins and ends with a script and working on that script at a music stand. And so it has been the dream of my life to sort of bust that container open and offer a space that I didn’t have when I was emerging.”

About her love of theatrical movement:

“For me, movement really comes from urge, I guess is what I would say, from an urge or an energy, and so that’s why it relates to intention and theater, as opposed to sort of dancer dancers who are much more concerned with line. And movement quality. That has never interested me as much as watching an actor pursue something silently. And watching the way that they use their bodies to pursue that intention. You could call it dance, you could call it theater without words. I don’t know what it is, but that’s the space where I live.”

The Hatchery debuts August 25th with with two public performances, a dance class and community panel:

2pm – “La Mariposa” by Sofia Marks and Isabel McTighe
3:30pm – All bodies community dance class
4:30pm – Panel Discussion: Creating Deaf Theater
5:30pm – 6:30pm – Complimentary Happy Hour
7pm – “WHY and HOW Are Not in the Picture” by Monique Holt

All events are are free and at The Judy (Judy Kafoury Center for Youth Arts), 1000 SW Broadway, T-100, Portland, OR 97205. More info at manyhatscollaboration.org. Register at this link.

More about Jessica Wallenfels and Many Hats Collaboration:

Jessica Wallenfels is a director/choreographer and educator. She creates new work that is music and movement-driven as artistic director of Many Hats Collaboration, and also works as a freelance director/choreographer and educator. She teaches movement, devising and acting and is currently an adjunct professor at Portland State University and Mt. Hood Community College. Directorial work includes direction/choreography of The Wolves at Portland Playhouse and Into the Woods for Broadway Rose. She co-directed/choreographed Everybody at Artists Repertory Theatre and Scarlet, a new musical, at Portland Playhouse. She has also directed Dragons Love Tacos, Ella Enchanted and Pete the Cat for Oregon Children’s Theatre. Wallenfels was a choreographer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for four seasons and six shows. Regional choreography includes: Cymbeline, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Robin Hood, Love’s Labors Lost, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and Romeo and Juliet (Oregon Shakespeare Festival).

Many Hats Collaboration creates theater performances which reimagine music and movement onstage. Since 2005, Many Hats has created 10 original, genre defying performances spanning theater, music, site-specific movement, and film. With the belief that arts are vital to life, Many Hats brings artists and audiences together for shared experiences that foster connection. Our work has been co-presented by CoHo Productions, Portland Center Stage, and Bag & Baggage, among others, received multiple Drammy Awards including Best Production of a Play, and been called “utterly charming” (Willamette Week) and “inspired” (The Oregonian)