Books & Talks

Sean Davis

7:30 p.m. Thu, Powell's Books on Hawthorne, FREE
The Pacific Northwest has a long history of wildfires, and Oregon has experienced some of the biggest fires in the world (yes, in the world) in the past century. In Oregon Wildland Firefighting: A History, author and longtime wildland firefighter Sean Davis dives deep into Oregon’s fiery past and documents what it takes to combat the flames.

Jennifer Egan

7:30 p.m. Thu, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, SOLD OUT
After a Pulitzer for the mind-bending A Visit from the Goon Squad, Egan waited six years before publishing Manhattan Beach. It’s a departure in style—a historical novel about deep-sea diving—but just as captivating.

Dani Shapiro

7:30 p.m. Fri, Powell's City of Books, FREE
After submitting her DNA on a whim to an ancestry site, author Dani Shapiro learned her father was not, in fact, her biological father. In her latest memoir, Inheritance, she sets out to uncover what really happened.

Dance

CLOSING Cinderella

7:30 p.m. Thu–Fri, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat, Keller Auditorium, $29+
The story of Cinderella comes to life in Oregon Ballet Theatre’s production of Ben Stevenson’s ballet (set to a score by Sergei Prokofiev) about a young girl eager to break free from the life she leads.

Alembic Resident Artists

8 p.m. Fri–Sat, 3 p.m. Sun, Performance Works NW, SOLD OUT
Every year, Performance Works NW—Portland’s leading home for experimental dance and performance—awards 10-month residencies to three local artists. Recipients show off their efforts this weekend, with works exploring movement in fat bodies, generational trauma, and the collision of contemporary theory and Native American ritual dance. 

Music

PDX Jazz Fest

Various times and venues thru Mar 3, prices vary
The fest kicked off with award-winning New Orleans trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah—known for his trademark “stretch music” fusion of jazz with hip-hop, R&B, rock, and West African music—and continues with shows by Grammy-winning bassist Stanley Clarke, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, and Portland’s own Farnell Newton. 

Sharon Van Etten

9 p.m. Thu, Crystal Ballroom, $25–30
Sharon Van Etten has been up to a lot since 2014. She went back to school, started acting, had a child, and wrote some film scores. You know, the usual five-year plan. But thankfully she decided to come back and grace us with more of her Joan Jett vibes on fifth album to date, Remind Me Tomorrow. 

Pedro the Lion

9 p.m. Fri, Revolution Hall, $25–30
When it comes to the Northwest music scene, indie rockers Pedro the Lion need no introduction. The band formed in 1995 but fell apart in 2006, and front man David Bazan spent a decade going solo. Now they’re back with a slightly different lineup and their first album in 15 years, aptly titled Phoenix. Bring tissues.

Theater

CLOSING Four Last Things

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, New Expressive Works, $20–25
Irish theater company Corrib presents Lisa Tierney-Keogh’s 2009 play about a young woman facing depression on her family’s rural farm. The Irish Times called its treatment of suicide “very brave and intelligent.”

CLOSING The Delays

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, Shoebox Theater, $10–20
Portlander Sara Jean Accuardi’s brand-new play, presented by Theatre Vertigo, is set at an airport—but the characters aren’t going anywhere. As time travels backwards, their past lives come into focus.

OPENING Dream Logic

11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Sat, 1:30, 3:30, and 6 p.m. Sun, Alberta Abbey, $5–25
Portland’s Hand2Mouth is known for its wildly inventive approach to theater. The company’s latest immersive work, Dream Logic, transports the viewer to a parallel universe where the rules don’t apply—and features a theatrical score by beloved children’s musician Red Yarn. (The show is recommended for adults and kids ages 10 and up.) Hop on the dream machine.

Visual Art

CLOSING Field of View

11 a.m.–6 p.m. Thu–Sun, Wolff Gallery, FREE
Field of View—which places visual artists with developmental disabilities in three-month-residencies in spaces across the city—culminates with this exhibit. The work, by Portlanders Alma Bate, Job Erickson, John Griffiths, and Michael Sherman, cuts across painting, photography, and video.

CLOSING Jeremy Okai Davis

1–6 p.m. Thu–Fri, Stephanie Chefas Projects, FREE
Portland artist Jeremy Okai Davis, known for vibrant, paint-splattered portraits, presents a new exhibit titled Together, Brothers that draws inspiration from ’60s jazz music, his own yearbook images, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

The Map Is Not the Territory

10 a.m.–8 p.m. Thu–Fri, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Sat–Sun, Portland Art Museum, $20
A consideration of contemporary Northwest art, this exhibition is the first in a new triennial series. Annette Bellamy, Fernanda D’Agostina, and Henry Tsang are among the artists represented in an examination of place that spans the Northwest coast from Oregon through Washington up to Vancouver, BC. For more, check out our slide show preview.