Special Events

World Naked Bike Ride
Saturday, Normandale Park, NE 56th Ave and NE Halsey
Pedalpalooza kicks off this weekend with the World Naked Bike Ride. Last year some 8,150 bare bottoms pedaled through the streets of downtown Portland. The forecast calls for 78 degrees; does that mean this year will have even more? Check out our Pedalpalooza by the numbers (for instance, 200 gingers showed up for 2011's ride), or read our recap of last year's ride, when it launched from the art museum's Cyclepedia exhibition.

Film

Night Moves
Opens Friday, Fox Tower
Jesse Eisenberg fought off the undead in Zombieland and conquered the Internet with his idiosyncratic portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. In Night Moves, the new thriller from director Kelly Reichardt and Portland writer Jon Raymond (Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy), he takes on a new cause: the environment. Eisenberg plays an activist who plans to blow up a Southern Oregon hydroelectric dam with two other radicals (Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard). He talked with us over the phone about the draw of playing a militant and why clear-cutting was new to him—all in the same rapid-fire staccato he uses on screen. Read the interview.

Art

Shine a Light
Friday, Portland Art Museum
For one night a year, the art museum turns into the best decorated party venue in town, complete with DJs, booze, and interactive performances and installations by Portland State MFA students. Some of the projects this year involve "Karaoking the Musuem" (singing popular songs with words altered to relate to particularly works of art), getting in touch with your inner child by building a cardboard museum within the museum—and then destroying it at the end of the night, dance by Grace Hwang and her ensemble, and sound healing.

First Thursday
Thursday, Downtown galleries
Usually the weather's not this nice for the monthly gallery walk until July, but we suspect tonight will be hopping as folks turn out to see the newest shows, sip wine, and revel.

Lorenzo Triburgo: Transportraits
Friday–Sunday, Newspace Center for Photography
This local photographer merges transgender men and corny, Bob Ross–style landscapes in portraits that playfully puncture assumptions about men, women, landscape, and photography. Read our story and watch a slide show of his "Transportraits" series. The opening reception is Friday 6–9 pm.

Classical Music

Opera Theater Oregon: Giasone and the Argonauts
Thru Sunday, Hollywood Theatre
Opera Theater Oregon mixes the highbrow and the low to “make opera safe for America.” This time it resets the rarely staged Francesco Cavalli opera Giasone to the iconic 1963 fantasy film Jason and the Argonauts. They share source material, after all.

Metropolitan Youth Symphony: Con Brio
Saturday, Newmark Theatre
MYS wraps up its season with Dvorák’s Symphony no. 9 and Bernstein’s Candide, as well as the winner of the MYS Concerto Competition, who will perform the winning concerto in its entirety. 

Books

James Fearnley with Colin Meloy
Friday, Powell’s
Fearnley, a founding member of the Irish punk band the Pogues, penned a memoir about the band’s early days. He chats about it at Powell's with Decemberists bandleader Meloy.

Poetry Press Week
Saturday, Disjecta
This weekend kicks off the first of three literary extravaganzas with Poetry Press Week. Taking a page from Fashion Week, Poetry Press Week gives poets a chance to strut their work down the catwalk using “models” as readers. The standing-room-only debut last fall involved things like costumed synchronized readings, poems put to music, and the cutest ever bloody-ghost kid (read our review). Poets this time range from local hotshot Zachary Schomburg to multi-award-winning visitor Albert Goldbarth.

Theater

Review Beauty Queen of Leenane
Thursday-Sunday, Winningstad Theatre
The now indispensable Third Rail made its name with the first part of Martin McDonagh’s darkly hilarious Leenane trilogy, The Lonesome West, in 2006. Now the company stages the finale, about a daughter trying to escape her manipulative mother. "A script like McDonagh’s, in talented hands like Third Rail’s, is as universal as the characters are limited..." Read our full review.

Hen Night Epiphany
Thursday–Sunday, CoHo Theatre
A hen night (an Irish term for “bachelorette party”) may be the last place anyone would look for an epiphany, but in this play from award-winning Irish scribe Jimmy Murphy a weekend in a cabin turns serious (but still funny) when secrets start to unravel.

Concerts

Dar Williams
Friday, Alberta Rose Theater
Dar Williams performs The Honesty Room, her debut album that made her a fixture in liberal arts college dorm steroes, in its entirety for the first time since 1993. Her Jodie Mitchel-esque lilting voice and lyricism from this breakthrough album will take you back for its 20th anniversary.

“In My Life—A musical tribute to the Beatles”
Friday, Newmark Theatre
Kicking off a weekend of tributes, In My Life features renowned tribute band Abbey Road in a national touring musical theater tribute to the Beatles as seen through the eyes of manager Brain Epstein.

Brit Floyd
Saturday, Newmark Theatre
What more needs to be said? Laser lights (check), psychedelia (check), eerie background singers (check). Just like the original, sans any of the original people.

Dance

Northwest Dance Project: Summer Splendors
Friday–Sunday, NWDP Studio
Every summer, NWDP invites us to an intimate evening of dance. This summer’s program features revivals of Tracey Durbin’s full-company work Atash and Gregory Dolbashian’s This Is Embracing, along with two new works.

Musings on Memory: Entropy + Tongue
Saturday, Conduit Dance
Alicia Mullikin and Stephanie Gilliland, two choreographers of different generations, bring their companies for a night of dance, multimedia, and musical collaborations.

Tango & Salsa Dance Festival
Saturday, Portland International Raceway
Portland, hotbed for tango lovers, is hosting four tango and salsa bands at the International Raceway this summer. Beginners, have no fear: lessons and instructors will get you on your way. Before heading out, check out why tango made PoMo's list of Top 100 Reasons to Love Portland.