Books & Talks

Sy Montgomery

7:30 p.m. Fri, Powell's City of Books, FREE
Over her prolific writing career, Sy Montgomery says she has been “chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica,” all in the name of research. She visits Powell's with her new memoir, How to Be a Good Creature, which explores the personalities of 13 animals that have influenced her life. 

Dance

Pilobolus Dance Theater

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, Newmark Theatre, $30–74
White Bird last brought Pilobolus to Portland in 2011, and now the 47-year-old company, known for its bendy acrobatics and surreal stagecraft, returns with a new multimedia program called Come to Your Senses. 

Napoli

7:30 p.m. Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, Keller Auditorium, $29–115
Between The Shape of Water and the merman erotica of The Pisces, aquatic romance is hot these days. Oregon Ballet Theatre taps into the trend with August Bournonville’s 1842 story ballet about a Neapolitan street girl who falls for a fisherman.

Film

Portland German Film Festival

Various times thru Tue, Cinema 21, $7–25
From political documentaries to feature films about kid detectives and wartime Berlin, this ninth annual fest offers up a wide range of offerings for all cinephiles. All movies—aside from a free screening of a film about discount supermarket chain ALDI—feature English subtitles.

Music

Oh Sees

8 p.m. Fri, Crystal Ballroom, $22–25
The Los Angeles-via-San Francisco pop-folk-psych group (ICYMI: they dropped the “Thee”) makes its way to Portland with openers Malaikat dan Singa and Møtrik. The prolific band’s latest album was August’s Smote Reverser, which Rolling Stone said "swerves its own weird way through '60s and '70s rock."

Ty Segall and White Fence

9 p.m. Sat, Revolution Hall, $28–30
Following the 2012 release of Hair, garage rockers Ty Segall and Tim Presley of White Fence have teamed up again for Joy, a collaboration Pitchfork described as a “wildly varied album made to be combed through and prodded.”

Theater

OPENING The Wolf

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, Shaking the Tree, $10–30
At Shaking the Tree, fairy tales aren’t just for children. With artistic director Samantha Van Der Merwe at the helm, and words by Anya Pearson, this devised piece of theater takes inspiration from Charles Perrault’s Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) and explores “desire, longing, and miscommunication of the sexes” via “five living dioramas” through which the audience is invited to stroll.

Come Inside: A Sex & Culture Theater Festival

Various times Thu–Sun, CoHo Theatre, most shows $15
From salacious stories to sex-positive performances about Tinder, breast cancer, and queerness, Come Inside aims to celebrate “the spectrum of sexual identities” and make “the risque relatable.” This year’s fest features performances by the likes of Shirley Gnome (stand-up and songs), Dirty Lola (talk show meets burlesque), and Siouxsie Q and Sean Andries (sex work ... and mermaids). 

OPENING Hurl

7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, New Expressive Works, $20–25
To hurl in Ireland is to play an ancient Irish sport that’s a cross between field hockey and magic, and it’s from the popular game that this Corrib production gets its name. The hurling team in question largely comprises immigrants to Ireland, from Africa, the Americas, and Asia, who come together under the tutelage of an alcoholic priest and a has-been trainer to take on the national sport. Politics and identity, turns out, can occasionally take a back seat to the sliotar (that’s a hurling ball to you).

OPENING Deathtrap

7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, Vault Theater, $27–32
Ira Levin’s 1978 whodunit—a plot twist-filled play-within-a-play that ran on Broadway for four years—makes its way to Hillsboro’s Bag & Baggage Productions.

Visual Art

OPENING Tommy Kha

Noon–9 p.m. Thu, noon–5 p.m. Fri–Sun, Blue Sky Gallery, FREE
“My work is about the self in self-portrait, the portrait in self-portrait, the hyphen in self-portrait,” says Tommy Kha. In I’m Only Here to Leave, his face appears under a dentist’s chair, on a windowsill, on a male model, and on a bathroom floor, among other places, in an unsettling, affecting series of photographs. Kha will give an artist talk this Thursday at 5 p.m., with a First Thursday reception to follow.

OPENING J. D. Perkin

11 a.m.–8 p.m. Thu, 11 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Fri, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Sat, Russo Lee Gallery, FREE
The Portland native has worked with textiles, steel, and (life-size!) ceramics, and even in the field of performance art—a 1990 piece, Dirt Box, was supported by a grant from Portland’s Metropolitan Art Commission. Now, Perkin is back at Russo Lee with a new collection of screen-printed paper constructions, which he says “[reflect] upon the primal urge to create, destroy and then resurrect the human form.”

OPENING Inheritance

Noon–10 p.m. Thu, noon–6 p.m. Fri–Sun, Ori Gallery, FREE
Curated by Ori co-founder Maya Vivas and featuring artists April Felipe, Habiba El-Sayed and Natalia Arbelaez, Inheritance uses ceramics to explore ideas of identity, belonging, power, and loss.

Special Events

RuPaul's Drag Race

9 p.m. Thu, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $39–150
Past contestants from RuPaul’s Drag Race—including Bob the Drag Queen, Aquaria, Asia O’Hara, Kim Chi, and Violet Chachki—hit Portland for a night of long lashes and catwalks.