Top Things to Do This Weekend: June 25–28
COMEDY
Jen Kirkman: "If you like Louis CK," says Entertainment Weekly. Uh, yeah, we do! And also this lady. Photo credit: Jen Kirkman.
Jen Kirkman
Saturday at 7 pm, Hollywood Theatre
A veteran (she'd appreciate the ageist overtones) of Chelsea Lately, Comedy Central's @midnight, and Drunk History, Kirkman brings us the tour behind her new Netflix comedy special "I'm Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine)." Local funny lady Bri Pruett opens.
Eddie Izzard
Sunday at 8 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Force Majeure—the name of Izzard’s current world tour—certainly applies to this cross-dressing, impossibly fabulous comic virtuoso. And not just because of the immense fame the Emmy-winning English monologist now enjoys; the 25-country tour is his biggest yet.
Michael Malone
Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 pm, Friday & Saturday at 10 pm, Harvey's Comedy Club
Birth, aging, death—what could be funnier? In his new comedy album Thirty One, the charismatic Malone brings his elastic imagination (and face) to the more ludicrous ways we cope with our universal march to the grave.
MUSIC
Willie Nelson with Alison Krauss
Friday at 6:30 pm, Edgefield
Last year, Rolling Stone wrote “all roads lead to Willie.” The 82-year-old country legend joins platinum-certified songbird Krauss for the Edgefield concert of the season. From Nelson’s “Whisky River” to Krauss’s “Paper Airplane,” it’s pure, all-American honey on the lawn, y’all.
Quiet Music Festival
Friday & Saturday at 7 pm, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center
Transforming Disjecta, for the fifth time, into a “tranquil cave of sonic serenity,” Chris Johanson’s 2015 sleeper brings out the softest side of musicians like Stephen Malkmus, Irma Vep, and Rebecca Gates of the Spinanes. Sponsored by anti-trendy apparel line RVCA, this revolution will not be amplified.
CMNW Summer Festival: Piazzolla and After
Sunday at 7 pm, Kaul Auditorium
Chamber Music NW's 45th annual string-off is billed as the region's most ambitious chamber music festival. In Sunday's performance, eight musicians from Buenos Aires trace the passionate dance of Argentinian tango from streets to symphony halls.
Death to bike thieves! Photo credit: Sarah Mirk.
SPECIAL EVENTS
World Naked Bike Ride
Saturday at dusk, departing from Colonel Summers Park
Bust out that birthday suit: Portland's infamous annual show-stopping bits-flaunting bike ride is this weekend! 10,000 riders joined last year's route, which wound through NE Portland's Concordia neighborhood. This year, it's Buckman that enjoys an eyeful of extreme body-positivity.
BOOKS & TALKS
LitHopPDX
Thursday at 7 pm, Old Town
Booze and books have been bedfellows since the birth of the printed page. (Gutenberg just hacked a wine press, after all.) Portland is awash with both at this annual barhopping blitz: six venues, six hosts, three hours, 54 readers, and as many drinks as you can manage without slurring your Tom Spanbauer. Various locations: check event site for details.
Loon at Coho Summerfest this weekend: mime, masks, magic! Photo credit: the Wonderheads.
THEATER
Loon
Thursday–Sunday at 7:30 pm, CoHo Theatre
Puppets, mimes, and masks: physical theater comany the Wonderheads enliven this silent show—part of CoHo Theatre's six-week Summerfest—with a “most peculiar love story.”
VISUAL ARTS
CLOSING Gordon Parks and Samer Mohdad
Thursday–Saturday from noon to 5 pm, Blue Sky Gallery
Parks may be best known today for helping to launch the blaxploitation genre with his Shaft films, but just as important was his photographic work, like this series of saturated 1956 color photographs, for Life magazine, of an Alabama family struggling with segregation. Lebanese photojournalist Mohdad’s richly textured black-and-white images capture an often-undocumented world—modern Arab life from Gaza to Algeria.
DANCE
Photo credit: Northwest Dance Project
Northwest Dance Project: Summer Splendors
Friday & Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 4 pm, Lincoln Hall
NWDP’s annual vernal celebration partners with Chamber Music Northwest for dance world premieres from four very different choreographers. NWDP founding artistic director Sarah Slipper joins Lucas Crandall, Rachel Erdos, and Tracey Durbin in “linked” performances backed by chamber musicians (including stellar Korean pianist Yekwon Sunwoo) playing Chopin’s complete Preludes.
