Pamplin Media Group – Wilsonville Arts and Culture Council announces live, virtual performance series

Offerings include concerts, dance routine at local church and WilsonvilleSTAGE show.

Unable to host its annual Festival of the Arts again, the Wilsonville Arts and Culture Council is offering another way for local residents to experience the arts, providing in-person and virtual opportunities to do so.

The organization announced in a press release June 25 that it’s hosting the Wilsonville Summer Performance Series, which will include live performances July 16-17 at Meridian United Church of Christ, as well as recordings that will be available virtually throughout August and September.

Contributing artists include Grammy Award-winning West Linn guitarist Mark Hanson, who the WAIC said “has the rare ability to coax a piano-like richness out of an acoustic guitar,” singer-songwriters and Wilsonville High School graduates Olivia Awbrey and Olivia Klugman, the Mexica Tiahui Aztec Dance Group and funk-jazz fusion band Far Out West. WilsonvilleSTAGE will also perform a virtual show.

“We always want to be inclusive and represent all the different facets of the people who live here and present them with engaging, enriching programming that’s inclusive, that is accessible to everyone and is all-ages appropriate,” WAIC President Christopher Shotola-Hardt said in an interview. “For this festival we have at least three different musical genres, we have dance that reflects a distinct culture and we have theater as well.”

Despite the fact that COVID-19 restrictions are slated to mostly lift by July 1, the WACC president said attendees will be required to wear masks and the attendance capacity will be 100 instead of the building’s capacity of around 350.

“I know things are starting to open up and different businesses can opt to develop their own policies, but just with talking with performers and the WACC board, what feels more comfortable and safest is just to have the audience have masks,” he said.

After not performing since the onset of the pandemic, WilsonvilleSTAGE will unveil a sci-fi show with sound effects at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 27. That performance will be available to watch virtually, not in person.

“That’s going to be a black-and-white film and we’re going to edit and it’s going to have the feel like it’s the production of an old radio show,” Shotola-Hardt said.

The WACC is putting on this event via grants from the Clackamas County Cultural Coalition, the Regional Arts & Culture Council and local businesses, but is also looking for community donations.

For more information on these events, visit wilsonvillearts.org.