I have to be honest, I’m not sure I entirely understand what this is, but my old pal performance artist Drew Pisarra is putting it together and it looks pretty interesting. It is called Alembic #13: Now Repeat in Steinese and it is a performance event based on Gertrude Stein.

The description says that Now Repeat in Steinese is four back-to-back stagings of her early enigmatic one-act “White Wines” paired with four different white wines. Now Repeat in Steinese uses one of Stein’s most unstageable works — no plot, no characters, no setting — to reveal the myriad ways such material can in fact be interpreted. Under performance artist Drew Pisarra’s guidance four West Coast theater artists/choreographers/filmmakers interpret the play anew, thereby revealing a completely new set of artistic sensibilities. Pisarra, a fixture in Portland’s dance-theater landscape in the ’90s, returns from NYC to host this one-of-a-kind evening with his longtime collaborator Katherine Gray.

Alembic is an ongoing series of performances curated by guest artists from the worlds of dance, theater, visual and media arts invited to program and produce an event at Performance Works NorthWest. PWNW provides Alembic curators and artists with production assistance and a modest honorarium.

WHO:
Drew Pisarra, curator
Katherine Petersen, co-host
The SteinWays, musical collective
Kyle Delamarter and Starr Ahrens, theater artists
TouchMonkey: Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood, dancers
Austin Newsom, filmmaker

WHEN: April 29 and 30. Friday and Saturday. 8pm.

HOW: Tickets $12-$15 (discounts for Boris & Natasha Fan Club)
at the door or at hulahub.com
WHERE: Performance Works NorthWest (www.performanceworksnw.org)
4625 SE 67th Ave., Portland, OR 97206
503.777.1907