BOOKS & TALKS

Janette Sadik-Khan in Conversation with Congressman Earl Blumenauer
7:30 pm Thursday, Powell's City of Books
The former New York City Department of Transportation commissioner joins Oregon's favorite bowtie-wearing politician to talk about public transit, pedestrians, and bike lanes. Sadik-Khan's new book is titled Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution.

Barry Gifford with Willy Vlautin
7:30 pm Friday, Powell's City of Books
Barry Gifford hasn't just provided source material for David Lynch (he wrote the novel Wild at Heart, and the two later collaborated on the screenplay for Lost Highway). The 69-year-old author, who started out as a journalist, has published poetry, fiction, memoir, and plays. His newest book, Writers, imagines famous authors—think Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac—at their most vulnerable. He'll talk with Portlander Willy Vlautin, author of The Motel Life and frontman of Richmond Fontaine.

Portland Poetry Slam
6:30 p.m. Sunday, Gerding Theater
Every other Sunday, slam poets of all stripes gather for a fast-paced competition: every contestant may perform up to three poems, each not to exceed three minutes in length. The entire audience gets to play judge. 

COMEDY

PiggyBack
7 p.m. Thursday, Funhouse Lounge
Comics and improvisers, unite! Local stand-ups perform sets, which Funhouse improvisers then riff on, in a style chosen by the audience.

DANCE

New Expressive Works Residency Performance
7:30 p.m. Friday–Sunday, Studio [email protected]
The most recent graduates of N.E.W.'s residency program—a 6-month program for contemporary choreographers—showcase what they've created over the last half year. Expect evolving work from Catherine Egan, Lane Hunter, Linda K Johnson, and Ruth Nelson.

MUSIC

Peter Frampton
7:30 p.m. Friday, Revolution Hall
English rock musician Peter Frampton just released his first unplugged album, Acoustic Classics, featuring some of his best-known songs. You might also recognize a cartoonish Frampton from his cameo appearances on The Simpsons and Family Guy. 

Geographer
7 p.m. Friday, Hawthorne Theatre
San Francisco-based indie pop outfit Geographer makes cool and gauzy tunes with hooks still catchy enough for dancing.

Quilt
9 pm Friday, Mississippi Studios
The Boston quartet—the members met while attending art school—plays dreamy psych rock with just the right dash of folksy twang.

Bag Raiders
8 p.m. Saturday, Doug Fir Lounge
The Australian electro-pop band drops an impassioned club floor beat like no other. Consider packing your glow sticks.

THEATER

OPENING The Few
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, CoHo Theatre
It’s 1999 in a small town in northern Idaho: the grassroots newspaper for long-haul truckers has become a mere clearinghouse for personal ads, and Y2K fears are looming. Brandon Woolley directs this empathetic drama by MacArthur Fellow (and native Idahoan) Samuel D. Hunter. Back in 2012, Portland Center Stage workshopped the show at playwrights’ festival JAW.

CLOSING The Lady Aoi
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Imago Theatre
Yukio Mishima’s erotic thriller invokes both medical stasis and midnight incubi in what director Jerry Mouawad calls the Japanese version of Fatal Attraction. Read our story here.

CLOSING Each and Every Thing
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday–Sunday, Gerding Theatre
A year or so ago, impresario Dan Hoyle charmed Portland with his gritty one-man travelogue The Real Americans. The “slow tech” devotee now expands his critical lens to connection (or lack thereof) in the digital world.

CLOSING Stupid F**king Bird
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Sunday, 2 p.m. Saturday–Sunday, Gerding Theatre
Chic actresses, suicidal playwrights: Chekhov’s 1895 drama The Seagull gets an update in Aaron Posner’s take on classic themes of generational schism and aging. (Plus, read our Q&A with the Oregon-born playwright.)

VISUAL ARTS

OPENING Next Level Fucked Up
10 a.m.–8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Sunday, Portland Art Museum
For Vanessa Renwick's multi-channel video and sound installation, viewers enter a red-lit room with a mountain of TV monitors playing video loops: distressed elephants pace at the zoo. Cats kill songbirds. Portland homes get demolished. Voodoo Doughnut founder Tres Shannon complains about eyesore apartment buildings. Earthquakes rumble. Oil trains burn. Typhoons churn. It's an alternately horrifying and humorous look at the ways humans screw with the natural world. Read our story about Renwick and the exhibit.

Contemporary Northwest Art Awards
10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thursday and Sunday; 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Portland Art Museum
Prejudice, war, technology, and the environment are some of the issues addressed in the works on show at the Portland Art Museum’s fourth biennial awards exhibition. This year’s celebration is an eclectic showcase of eight of the region’s most significant artists working in all manner of media—among them, Portland artists Dana Lynn Louis and Samantha Wall. Expect large-scale installations, neon figures, ceramic portraits, and metaphorical, moody landscapes.

Rowland Ricketts
11 a.m.–6 p.m.Thursday–Saturday, Museum of Contemporary Craft
From hand-grown indigo dye (“sukumo”) prepared the ancient Japanese way, Ricketts creates an immersive, site-specific installation featuring hand-dyed linen and historic textiles.