Break to Build: Mapping Portland’s Landmark Shipyard ​

​We are raising money for our newest short film, Break to Build: Mapping Portland’s Landmark Shipyard. The project spans VR, HD/digital, and new media formats.

Directed by Laura Cannon, our film will explore site-based dances to develop powerful spatial relationships with people and places. Cannon, a choreographer originally from Austin and now based in Portland, specializes in site-specific dance. She has been making place-based work for years, ever since she realized dance could be a language for better understanding and communicating with others; she is neurodivergent and struggles to use words in traditional ways. Together with her powerful team of Oregonian collaborators, Cannon will create an interactive map/dance about cultural archaeology and time, starting from the time when life began on earth.

The film is produced by Future Prairie, a queer creative studio and non-profit artist collective. We make work about the future. We also produce a podcast, host a live variety show, and curate exhibitions, panels, performances, and published works. All of our work centers narratives of historically-marginalized groups such as women, disabled, racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities, and low-income individuals.

We are grateful to partner with Hungry Mantis, a full-service video production company specializing in live-action 360 immersive content. The footage shown here is a work in progress. See more of their work on their website.

Artist Statement

I’m a Portland-based choreographer originally hailing from Austin, Texas and my specialty is site-specific dance. I’ve been making place-based work ever since I realized dance could be a language for better understanding and communicating with others. I am neurodivergent and struggle to use words in traditional ways, and site-based dances have helped me develop powerful spatial relationships with people and places over the years. 

Currently, I am making a dance about cultural archaeology, starting from the time when life began on earth. The concept for this project took root a year ago when I was invited to perform at a small fundraiser on an industrial plot of land down along the south waterfront of Portland. As soon as I stepped onto the property, I thought, “Where am I?”. The land felt  particularly ancient, and I had the sensation I’d been thrown into a time machine.  This semi-abandoned site known as Zidell Yards is a part of our city’s recent history and unlike anything else in Portland — grimy yet somehow dreamy, steeped in money and masculinity yet overgrown with wildflowers and sparrows’ nests. There, the past reclaims the present. Under the ground are layers of history: physical, political, and emotional. It made me wonder, “How can we excavate this cultural sediment?” I asked if I could come back to the space to explore this question through dance, and I’ve been dancing there ever since. 

Every few days, I bring new artists and weirdos out to explore the site with me, and we  jump around on these huge pieces of machinery that make strange sounds. In recent weeks, experimental vocalist Lynne Piper, saxophonist Roman Norfleet, shadow puppeteer Arcadia Trueheart, inventor Jennifer Wright, and poet Joni Whitworth have come out to explore the property and poke around. We also host a wealth of dancers from all around Oregon, including Flo Buddenbaum, Gwen Churra, London Mahina, Emily Running, and Bevin Victoria, among others. Everyone who comes is uniquely inspired by this strange ​​playground for light, color, and movement. They love the excitement and danger of climbing the tall, rusting equipment and the peace and relative quiet of sitting by or in the river. Together we explore both huge, open, and tiny, confined spaces. Musicians wander about making sounds around the property to hear how their noise resonates in or relates to the space. They also find and create sound from all of the already existing ephemera. Filmmakers and photographers are excited to come and play because there are so many interesting visual textures and shapes to document. The decaying structures, the flora and fauna, and all of the known and unknown histories are as integral to the work as the dancers. All these elements serve as partners in the creative process. We’re working to synthesize those elements and distill the essence of the place.

We’ve found a few archival photographs of the site from one hundred years ago when the land was used for a shipbuilding factory, but what was here one thousand years ago? One million? We are partnering with indigenous storytellers to develop deeper understandings of the land, such as what it may have been when families lived in communities along the banks of this same river. We’re also working with scientists to identify what could have been here even before that. What are the forgotten histories embedded within this site? Is there a way to call upon those past and current selves so they can mingle together in this place? Dance is one way to grapple with these massive, unanswerable questions.

Walking through the property and encountering unnamed spaces, you start to develop your own language and map. Artists come up with their own nicknames for different areas of the property. I’ll hear people say, “Oh, we’re headed down to work at the Ghost Wall today,” or, “I’m headed to The Stacks.” When I was a child, I loved to read storybooks with maps. Open up one of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, and you’ll discover a beautifully illustrated Middle-Earth map with events, places, and characters. You can journey through an imagined space and projected time at a glance. The map is an art piece that supports the narrative of the book — art upon art. 

Maps are about place, but really, we are acknowledging time. What was here? Can we make a map for the future based on the past? I want to find a way to tie all those things together to expose hidden and unknown histories. The history of this place looms large when you stand amongst the towering cranes and feel the breeze coming off the Willamette. The land has shaped this area's economy, landscape, and culture for more than a century. Today, the vintage blue corrugated barge building and tall cranes remain in stark contrast to the ultra-modern high-rise condos, health centers, and futuristic aerial tram. Constant re-invention has happened here: scrap metal being collected; ships being disassembled; giant barges being built. Transformation brings impact, and the accumulated byproducts of industry poisoned the site’s land and water. A massive environmental clean-up is yet another twist in its story. We are the next twist.   

 Each time a new collaborator comes out, we get to see the site change through their unique lens- and it only continues changing. As a lot situated in the heart of the city, various stakeholders are eager to develop it; some even want to build a road right through it. The family who owns the site hopes it can become a living public space, and they expect to begin work on that  in the next few years. Until then, the site is suspended in time, straddling a midpoint between what it was and what it will soon become. The site represents one step of the journey of how we, as a community, got to where we are now. Once it’s developed, we won’t be able to see it in the same way. The site will become more walkable, and more efficient — arguably good things for our community. But it will never be what it’s been.  

To preserve the story of this land, we are creating a cultural map of Zidell Yards using art, music, and dance. We’ll  archive it in VR so people in the future can journey to the past and walk around our map. This free resource will be available for free and navigable on an immersive headset, allowing anyone to wander around this old shipyard, even after it’s been developed into something else. This work is especially exciting from an accessibility standpoint; viewers will be able to feel the energy of a place that, for logistical or safety reasons, they can’t go to in real life. 

​Watching the clouds go by, tromping through rainbows suspended in oily puddles, my fellow artists and I discover who we are together. Recently, we crammed into the giant blade of a deconstructed wind turbine and lost all sense of time. Were we at the turn of the 20th century when this area was just a swamp? What was there before the river? What was there before that? What if the wind turbine blade was at the bottom of the ocean where hydro-thermal vents come up? Is that how life on earth first formed? If life emerged from that place, how did it move? We hung bungees and suspended ourselves from giant cranes to mirror how it felt to be suspended in time. The cranes loomed above us like decaying dinosaur skeletons. Making art helps one find belonging in an authentic community, and we’re always looking for new collaborators to join us. We want to bring anyone who is interested into this space to enjoy it before it changes forever. We have a unique opportunity to root into this place and explore order and chaos before the next big transition. I see our work not only as mapping the site itself but as mapping our cultural mindset — how we feel about and interact with this site at this time. When we create with others, we forge deep connections that sprout tendrils and weave a community of people who can speak together in specialized, non-verbal languages. Being creative with others is how I know who they are. Being creative with the world is how I know who I am. 

Featured Artists

Director Laura Cannon

360 Matt Rowell
360/VR DP + 360 Editor Forest Brennan
Artist Arcadia Trueheart
Assistant Director / 360 Editor Rachel Bracker
Cinematographer Travis Stanton-Flowers
Dancer Flo Buddenbaum
Dancer Gwen Chura
Dancer Rhen Miles
Dancer Sara James
Dancer/Musician Bevin Victoria
Lighting Jim Stanic
Musician Lynne Piper
Musician Roman Norfleet
Musician Spider Moccasin / Marcus Moseley
 
We are grateful to partner with Hungry Mantis, a full-service video production company specializing in live-action 360 immersive content. The footage shown here is a work in progress. See more of their work on their website.