10th Anniversary FERTILE GROUND FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS Comes to Portland Next Month

By: Dec. 10, 2018
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10th Anniversary FERTILE GROUND FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS Comes to Portland Next Month

The Portland-grown Fertile Ground City-Wide Festival of New Works celebrates its 10th anniversary this January in a town of prolific playwrights, abundant actors, innovative dancers, talented designers and adventuresome producers. Since its first festival in 2009, Fertile Ground has welcomed more than 1,000 "acts of creation" from Portland's artistic communities that thrive on stages, nooks and crannies all over the city for 11 days. The decennial Fertile Ground Festival runs from Thursday, January 24 to Sunday, February 3, 2019.

Fertile Ground is an incubator for new work in all forms and stages of creation, offering theatre and dance, workshops, staged readings, readings and multidisciplinary events - for 11 days, at all times of the day. Offering an astonishing breadth of creative work are seasoned theatre and dance companies alongside new art-creators of every ilk. A full list of Fertile Ground 2019 events can be found here.

Since the inaugural festival in 2009 more than 70 Fertile Ground-originated works have gone on to further productions, locally, nationally and in festivals worldwide. The "extended life" of these past Fertile Ground productions is documented in this newly created archive.

Fertile Ground 2019's myriad of new works span theatre in long and short form, musical theatre, circus arts, sketch and improvisational comedy, animation, a wide variety of dance disciplines, social action through the arts, as well as the voices of youth, lesser heard voices, and shows that are derived from audience participation or input. In addition to seasoned producers, dozens of emerging young producers, playwrights, choreographers and animators will offer their work in this collaborative Portland showcase festival.

"I am tremendously proud of the new work Fertile Ground has generated over the past 10 years," said Nicole Lane, Fertile Ground Festival Director. "It is personally gratifying to see such expansive growth and know that Fertile Ground serves the artists and audiences of this community. Involving hundreds of artists and welcoming thousands of audience members each year, Fertile Ground is a celebration of Portland's artistic community that gives artists the platform to take chances, share their artistic impulses and cultivate some producing skills, while getting introduced to new audiences. Fertile Ground also helps educate audiences about the process of developing new work, and introduces them to new artists and artistic genres. I hope the festival will continue to grow in its inclusivity - welcoming emerging artists, elevating new voices and generating a wider array of arts-centric offerings, while also inspiring new audiences to take in the work of Portland's creative community."


The 2019 Festival offers a robust lineup of works from regularly producing companies like Echo Theatre Company, Live on Stage, Lakewood Theatre and Theatre Vertigo, along with producing veteran companies like Passin'Art, Many Hats Collaboration, CoHo Productions and CompassWorks, but leans strongly into the work of emerging playwrights and producers offering works-in-progress or World Premiere work like MediaRites' Theatre Diaspora, Deep End Theater and Fuse Theatre. For FG19, Polaris Dance Theatre will again present the "Groovin' Greenhouse" with a variety of choreographers and dance groups representing the Portland dance community. PDXPlaywrights will present 10 events comprising new work by 27 playwrights. LineStorm Playwrights will present a host of lunchtime readings at Artists Rep.

All ticket information at www.fertilegroundpdx.org.



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