A Wider Stage for PRAxOSU arts and humanities center expands its programming to Portland and Bend.

The only drawback to building a cutting-edge 49,000-square-foot arts center on OSU’s Corvallis campus is that it cannot sprout legs and walk its world-class programming over to the rest of the state.

But thanks to two new partnerships in Portland and Bend, more Oregonians can now experience the magic of PRAx in their own backyard.

PRAx in Portland

This spring, the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts installed a 1,500-square-foot gallery in the Nancy Stueber Natural Sciences Hall at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland.

The PRAx installation opened May 28 and includes five pieces of infrastructure hosting different artistic mediums. PRAx’s team will curate the space each year to include works that align with OMSI’s main gallery theme, “Climate of Change/Clima de Cambio.”

The inaugural exhibition’s works are all centered around the sub-theme of water, with the dance performance “Rising” from PRAx’s 2025-26 season projected onto the life-size video screens, a commissioned piece by musician Eli Stine playing in the gallery’s headphones, and paintings and sculpture lining the gallery’s walls.

The  gallery contains traditional as well as interactive areas devoted to visual arts, sculpture, performance art, literary art and music. 

“It is a big deal for OSU. OMSI gets more than 800,000 visitors a year,” said Peter Betjemann, the Patricia Valian Reser executive director at PRAx and associate vice provost of arts and humanities at OSU. “It was a new kind of challenge to curate a space in which the primary audience is 6- to 16-year-olds. But we are delighted to be partnered with OMSI and to bring the unique PRAx vision of arts, humanities and science integration to Portland.”

The museum and OSU have a lot of shared values, said Akiko Minaga, OMSI’s vice president of learning experiences.

“At OMSI, we think a lot about how to make science more accessible and interdisciplinary,” she said. “For this exhibition in particular, we wanted to explore different ways of being able to talk about and explore climate change, and this partnership with PRAx came at a great time.”

OMSI Creative Director Ciera Iveson has been enjoying watching students experience the PRAx exhibition as they find new ways to engage with the sometimes-abstract concepts of climate change.

“You often see kids imitating the dancers and doing their own dances. They’re literally embodying it,” Iveson said. “I’ve spent a lot of time observing and checking in with teachers from different age groups, and I think there’s something for everyone in this year’s PRAx gallery.”

PRAx in Bend

On the other side of the state, PRAx kicked off a new concert series designed to let the OSU-Cascades community share in the performances experienced by the Corvallis campus. The concerts are co-presented by OSU-Cascades and PRAx at the Tower Theatre in Bend.

A young visitor listens to Eli Stein’s “Where Water Meets Memory.”

In the 2025-26 season, the visiting artists were Ukrainian band Yagódy and percussionist and 2025-26 Patricia Valian Reser Artist-in-Residence Andy Akiho. Next year, there will be three performances, one for each term.

Barcelona-based sextet Maruja Limón brings its fusion of flamenco, Latin rumba and electronic experimentation to the Tower Theatre on Sept. 27. Dutch-Israeli jazz musician Nani Vazana appears with the OSU Chamber Choir on Jan. 23. And Third Coast Percussion collaborates with DJ and pioneering electronic composer Jlin on April 7. (See here for details and tickets.) 

It is a big deal for OSU. OMSI gets more than 800,000 visitors a year.

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The series is the culmination of conversations with Central Oregon community members who want OSU-Cascades to be a campus that strengthens arts and humanities in the region, said Christine Pollard, interim chancellor and dean of OSU-Cascades.

In addition to bringing renowned artists to town, the partnership also helps arts students at OSU-Cascades learn about different career pathways and meet professionals working in a wide range of artistic jobs, Betjemann said. That includes students in the arts, media and technology program, which is offered exclusively at the Bend campus.

“OSU-Cascades should be a destination for the arts, particularly the arts in relationship with media and technology,” Betjemann said. “As a university with deep strengths in engineering and technology, we have a special responsibility to diversify the range of contacts that students have with artists working in all forms of expression.”