For ten years Vanport Mosaic has inspired memory activism for Portland’s history.  Starting as a one-time memorial festival of the Vanport flood the organization grew to a year-round presentations of that has included outdoor walking experiences, arts exhibits, theater productions, concerts,  panels ,videos and oral histories. This multidisciplinary arts organization’s biggest offerings are now a two-week festival. This year’s theme is “A Decade of Memory Activism” runs May 16th through June 1st at Alberta Hall and other locations in Portland such as Third Rail and CoHo Theater as well as historic sites such as the Portland Expo Center.

Laura Lo Forti and Damaris Webb have run the Vanport Mosaic Festival as co-directors for ten years which in itself is an admirable achievement built on trust, hard work and mutual friendship, each respecting the others desire for art, activism and community engagement.

Dmae Lo Roberts talked with the co-directors to hear about the organization they built. They also give us overview of festival. This which includes a walking tour with former Black Panther Kent Ford, a bus tour to call attention to the history of racial discrimination in Portland housing, Damaris Webb’s new devised piece “Precipice” at Third Rail Theatre and Chisao Hata’s collaboration with composer Kenji Bunch called “We Are Still Here” which commemorates the WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans and the impact of that legacy.

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In this podcast we’ll hear:

How Vanport Mosaic is weathering the current freezing of national grants….

Laura Lo Forti: “We are hard broken witnessing what’s happening to so many of our partners and friends. We have a a national archives federal grant that was frozen and wouldn’t be surprised if it vanishes. That’s for a huge project and these are all reimbursable grants that we front (costs) and we hope to see it.”

The festival’s humble beginning…

Damaris Webb: “It was just supposed to be one one festival to kind of you know amplify all these the efforts that had been ah being offered in the community and and the how there things being conversation together and then, show you know, and and and and and honoring of those who had lived there with a private reunion dinner.”

About how Webb travelled almost all Oregon counties for “Precipice”…

Damaris Webb: “I knew that as a Black person or a mixed race family, we stayed on I-5. And even then, there are only particular places that we’re going to stop for gas or eat or hang out at.
And so the idea that I could go into these other places and see the land or maybe even find home there, just at tears, right? And I mean, I was like, this is, could I do that? So I figured if I made a project, I could go do that. And so ‘Precipice’ has been the last project couple years of going out to places like the Painted Hills or or other parts of Oregon.”

About Chisao Hata’s collaboration with Kenji Bunch and Resonance Ensemble at the Portland Assembly Center…

Laura Lo Forti: “We’ll have this immersive site-specific performance in the very place where nearly 4,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated (during WWII). And there will be music, there will be movement, there will be poems, and there will be memories.”


“Precipice”
conceived & performed by Damaris Webb
Written by Chris Gonzalez

Presented by Third Rail Repertory Theatre
May 16–June 1
Thu–Sat at 7:30 PM | Sun at 2:00 PM
Location
CoHo Theatre
2257 NW Raleigh St, Portland, OR 97210
More info: https://thirdrailrep.org/

Chisao Hata, Kenji Bunch and Shohei Kobayashi

“We Are Still Here”
May 31st and June 1st at Portland Expo Center / Assembly Center

Resonance Ensemble and Vanport Mosaic present an immersive site-specific performance of music, theatre, and movement, featuring the award-winning voices of Resonance Ensemble, choral music curated and conducted by Shohei Kobayashi the world premiere of a new work by acclaimed composer Kenji Bunch, and the Portland Assembly Project by Chisao Hata co-directed by Heath Hyun Houghton. More info: https://www.vanportmosaic.org/