Yesterday I experienced canoe dancing in person for the first time. So beautiful...so passionate, so hilarious! Well, hilarious especially when Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen is doing the dancing.
He and co-creator Jonathan Krisel are in town shooting season two of Portlandia. A 6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series based on and filmed in Portland, Oregon. Alder Creek got the call from the production company and I was brought in to teach Fred how to canoe well enough to pull off some seriously sweet canoe dance moves in the 5 minutes we had before the first take.
I was amazed at how quickly he took to it, and what a great sport he was about it all. I enjoyed having some time to chat with him on set. He seemed genuine and was kind and courteous to everyone around him. He was one of the easiest students to work with by far. Once our quick lesson was over, I was asked to fill in as an extra in the scene. Not a bad days work...
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| I handed my phone off for a quick student / coach photo with Fred in character between takes. |
Move over Marc Ornstein there's a new game in town. The interesting take away from this for me was that you could be on You Tube one day and end up being spoofed by some of the best sketch comics in the biz four years later?! Sometimes real life presents the most humorous of all situations I suppose.
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| Behind the scenes on the Portlandia Set |
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| Fred styling Blue Lake, Oregon as the crowd looks on. |
Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Season 2 of Portlandia. It was a great opportunity, and I look forward to seeing it all come together. If your curious about Portland or your just looking for a good laugh, it's worth a look.
