#performance

BACKWORDS blog explores the intersection between presence and history. The blog is a platform that honors the moment of encounter that any one person experiences—with art, literature, music, performance, or place. Often, reflections fit multiple categories—the opposite of a news program or style blog, BACKWORDS is not preoccupied with immediacy. An event does not need to be current to be relevant, nor does a memory need to be close to its origins to hold its potency.

Featured Posts

2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Giverny, This Way

Happy Holidays!

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

Spice and Rain

Traveling with Less

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Date Night ft. Chad Valley

I had the perfect city date-night on the books. One of my besties, Lori, and I had reservations at a restaurant I’d been wanting to try, dessert plans, and tickets for a show at The Doug Fir, a hip Portland music venue. It was a beautiful summer day and, being someone who doesn’t go out much anymore, I was feeling very cool. Dinner was delicious, dessert the same, and by the time we arrived at the show I was excited to grab a drink and dance. The headliner was Chad Valley, an

Delightfully/Disappointingly Crazy

Love and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Call Me By Your Synergy, Call Me By Your Name

For me, world-building is one of the greatest aspects of reading, but the images we translate with our own minds don’t always match what’s on the page. A person's life, what they’ve experienced up until whatever it is that they’re reading, impacts how the story plays out for them. I think that’s why film adaptations of a novel can attract such high levels of scrutiny – how does the page match the screen match your mind? This past Fall, in anticipation of the eagerly awaited f

Hey, who are all those dudes playing marimbas?

It had been a rough day. At work, in general. Word back from an interview was past due, close friends were in the throes of relationship turmoil, one of my favorite temps at work relapsed and was fired from his job. I walked out of my building into the nearly-raining night feeling tired and a little bummed out. I made the two-block walk to my train stop in a bit of a daze, and was met with a wave of music. It’s not unusual for there to be buskers on the corner outside of Pion

Trapped by Crows

Imagine a square-shaped stage. People sitting on the floor all around. With no introduction, around 20 diverse women stand grouped together at the edges. Slowly, one enters the stage, then two, sometimes 3 at a time. Sometimes a single woman again, and so on, until all are standing throughout, each of them facing different directions. All of the women are dressed in black with a white cloth wrapped around their hair. Suddenly, half of the group begins to rock forward while th

That Time I Saw Michael Jackson Perform in Piazza De Popolo

Okay, so maybe this particular Michael Jackson was an Italian imposter. But in makeup, a bright red jacket, white socks, and black loafers, he strutted around his small section of the square in a fairly successful imitation of the King of Pop. My classmates and I watched among a large half-circle of tourists – all taking photos or videos and occasionally staying long enough to drop a coin or bill into the performer’s hat when he passed it around the crowd. Until I started tra

Mozart’s "The Magic Flute"

Mozart’s The Magic Flute was my very first opera. I was in college at the time, still at BYU, and my boyfriend decided to surprise me with a trip to Salt Lake City. It was to be a night of firsts: my first opera, my first date with Luke outside of a bedroom or a BYU apartment, my first night in public where open affection was the rule of the day. Opera, to my delight, made Luke lower all his defenses against the world. Neither a night at the opera, nor Luke really, would have

A Tradition Continues

When I mention I’m going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival I often get a similar set of questions: When? Where? Do you, like, dress up? I can imagine people assembling a scene in their heads. Maybe a large field full of white tents. A long weekend of Elizabethan nerds in whimsical dress (I can say that, right? Since I fall into the category). Swords and/or jousting might be involved. In reality OSF is something of the opposite. The festival runs eight months out of the year

Three Plays in Seventeen Days: Blame the Victim, Populist Fervor, and a Farce

Humblebrag moment: March 2017 I peaked. What I mean by that, is that I went on the trip of a lifetime. For literature/theater/English histor

Cavalia’s Odysseo, Finally

I had walked by it, ridden the train by it – probably hundreds of times while the show was in Portland – so it was surreal to finally be inside the “White Big Top.” But instead of my hometown, I was in Irvine, California visiting my friend and former roommate, Shonna, and the Big Top was the reason she was there. Shonna works for Cavalia – the Montreal based entertainment company – and was (and still is) working on tour with their show, Odysseo. The space inside the tent was

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