TBA By The Numbers: 5 Questions for Sarah Dougher

Thursday, 08 September 2011 13:31 | Written by Byron

Sarah Dougher DJ'ing at a recent event

TALKIN' TBA: Sarah Dougher is an educator, writer and musician from Portland, Oregon. She holds a PhD in comparative literature from University of Texas, Austin, and teaches on topics of popular music, gender, and activism studies at Portland State University. She is currently working on a book about tween girls and popular music. She volunteers with the Portland Rock and Roll Camp for Girls and p:ear. She is also a composer and director and conductor of Portland's Flash Choir, and has performed, recorded, and toured both as a solo artist and in numerous bands.

She's also a rock star.

Her next composition, Fin de Siècle, a setting of poems by Leslie Scalapino debuts at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time Based Art Festival on Sept. 14. I checked with the incredibly busy Dougher and asked her a few questions about her TBA show. Here's what she had to say.

I read this piece that when you originally started work on this piece it wa first time you composed for anything besides guitar and piano. What was that like?

I've been writing for piano and choir since the Flash Choir started three years ago after the "Bird Choir" opening performance at TBA in 2007. I'm not a great piano player, and treat it more like a percussion instrument, but I've also learned how to use a music scoring program on the computer that has playback, so I can experiment with things like trumpet, which I don't know how to play, and figure out what might sound good. It is a layering process where I start with live piano and my own voice and go from there.

Can you tell me about the piece and why you chose such a somber title?The piece is a commission from the estate of Leslie Scalapino, who is a poet who died last year. She was an abstract poet from the Bay Area active in a scene called the "language" poets (others include Robert Duncan, Susan Howe, Robert Creeley, with Gertrude Stein as a kind of foremother). She wrote three poem/plays called "Fin de Siècle" -- and I am using her words, so that's why it is titled like that. I'm attaching one of the poems so you can see what it is like. Very abstract, but also very involved with issues of social justice, interiority and the experiences of others. She was a very radical person and an active Buddhist. I was introduced to her poetry in college, and also teach it in my classes at Portland State. She went to Reed, and I met her family through that channel.

What role does the video projection play in the piece? And who created the images?

The projections are by a photographer named Themba Lewis. his work is here: thembalewis.com. He lives in Egypt and London, and has taken some amazing photos of the Arab spring, the riots, etc. He has a good eye for urban textures. I know him from Olympia, and have followed his work for a long time. I thought it was a good fit since he is interested in showing what is beautiful about people struggling.

This is not your first time at the TBA rodeo. What does TBA mean to you and how important is it that they continue to feature Portland-based artists?
TBA and PICA generally are really important for Portland artists because they are something of a link to the larger world of performance, and by featuring Portland artists in the festival,they both give exposure to and support to more obscure work. I have found that TBA is a great place to form creative relationships with people around the world. The staff at PICA are very accessible as resources for local artists—the organization is a really important one for Portland.

Details: Fin de Siècle is about 50 minutes long, and will be performed at Washington school, between 11th and 12 and Stark in SE Portland. The show starts at 8:30. Tickets are available by clicking the link to the PICA website here.

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