By Oregon Coast TODAY
Fresh on the heels of a successful Sydney Festival run, Amelia Zirin-Brown, aka Rizo, has returned home with a new show at the Newport Performing Arts Center on Friday and Saturday, May 31-June 1.
Rizo uses her trademark blend of songs, stories, performance art, comedy and glamor to explore the nature of home and how it informs our identity. Does where you hang your hat define who you are or how you think about yourself?
“In my shows, there is already a high level of vibration,” Zirin-Brown said. “At the coast, that is mixed with the pride of the fact that this is where I sprang from a clam. Riding and harnessing that enthusiasm and cultivating that with the audience creates a whole different kind of wonderful show.”
“Rizo: Home” explores the concepts of home, the “prodigal daughter” and Joseph Campbell’s reported quote that “Women don’t need to make the journey, they are the place that everyone is trying to get to.”
“It’s a deep and varied subject if you really look at it,” she said. “How you view yourself based on where you live and the greater archetypal journey of leaving and returning with new knowledge. And, sometimes, the discomfort that happens when you confront the nostalgia you had for a place once you return.”
The New York Times once referred to Rizo as “Sensational … a fierce but kindhearted fusion of comedy, burlesque, performance art and rock ‘n’ roll.” Taking a cue from Édith Piaf, Rizo fully embraces the role of chanteuse. In recordings, she is a mysterious figure, a siren ushering you through tableaux of heartbreak, lust and the murkiness in between. Live, she is an eyeful.
An international cult favorite, her stage shows bring her powerhouse vocals together with seductive storytelling and wild hilarious audience experiments.
In the studio she has collaborated with Moby, Reggie Watts and Yo-Yo Ma; whose album “Songs of Joy & Peace,” which features Rizo, won a Grammy Award.
Rizo has also received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, a Time Out London theater award, and a London Cabaret award. She recently starred in the role of Madame Zinzanni in the revival of the much beloved Teatro ZinZanni and is in development for a television project with Michael Carbonaro of the popular series “The Carbonaro Effect.”
Live performance is something she does for her own mental health, enjoying the positive effect it can also have on her audiences.
“I like to go from a joke to a transformative experience,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like the audience uses me as an outlet for freedom. You can feel the difference in the room at the end of the show. A lot of my new shows are about peeling back the alter ego I’ve lived with for 20 years. I’ve reached an age where I enjoy looking back on all the lives I’ve lived but am also really looking forward to the new lives I haven’t lived yet.”
In her performance, Rizo reflects on living in New York City and traveling internationally for more than 15 years then finally returning to her home state of Oregon, the land of her art hippy childhood.
“There’s so much separation in the virtual realm and a lot of anger and in order for us to be healthy in the world we need to gather in real life,” she said. “I’m really excited to be in a place where I can offer humor, wild antics, beautiful songs and wild costumes to help people reach that goal.”
- Both shows start at 7 p.m. at the Newport Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $28.75 to $44.25. For more information, go to coastarts.org or call 541-265-2787.
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