Books & Talks

Reema Zaman

7 p.m. Thu, Broadway Books, FREE
Born in Bangladesh, raised in Bangkok, and now based in Oregon, Zaman recently published a memoir charting her life across continents and her search for independence and self-acceptance in the face of xenophobia and misogyny. Kirkus Reviews called I Am Yours “eloquently searching and intelligent.”

Comedy

Sedan Sketch Comedy

8 p.m. Fri–Sat, Siren Theater, $10–15
Sketch-comedy quartet Sedan—Shelley McLendon, Wm. Steven Humphrey, Paul Glazier, and Chad Parsons—presents a new show called First Responders, which they’re billing as quick and painless relief to your “humor emergency.”

Dance

Director's Choice

7:30 p.m. Thu–Fri, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat–Sun, Newmark Theatre, $29–103
Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic director Kevin Irving—a contemporary dancer turned ballet master—curates some of the company’s acclaimed recent contemporary works from Gioconda Barbuto, resident choreographer Nicolo Fonte, and Spain’s Nacho Duato, for a best-of show at the Newmark. Local pianist Hunter Noack performs the Franz Liszt score live for the evening’s final performance.

A Little Less Human: A Ghost Story

7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, Chapel Theatre, $15
Quirky local dance company Trip the Dark stages a new show based on the 2017 movie A Ghost Story—you know, the one with Casey Affleck as a bedsheet-clad specter—that aims to explore grief, love, and loss.

Music

Everything That Rises

7:30 p.m. Thu, OMSI, $5–35
Third Angle New Music, known for its off-kilter approach to classical and chamber music, heads to OMSI’s planetarium for the Northwest premiere of a string quartet by Pulitzer-winning composer John Luther Adams. The piece isn’t just sonically immersive—it also features 360-degree lighting design by Adams himself.

Girlpool

8:30 p.m. Thu, Wonder Ballroom, $17–20
With their unison vocals backed only by guitar and bass, Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker’s 2015 debut album was a lo-fi but charged feat of DIY rock. Follow-up Powerplant added drums, and with the recently released What Chaos Is Imaginary, they’ve made a turn toward the more expansive and surreal.

Mdou Moctar

9 p.m. Sat, Star Theater, $15–18
Raised in rural Niger, Mdou Moctar takes Tuareg guitar in psychedelic, electrifying directions. His latest, Ilana (The Creator), came out earlier this month from Portland-based record label Sahel Sounds. Pitchfork called it “an incandescent set of guitar music with a spontaneous, celebratory air.”

Theater

CLOSING Jump

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, Milagro Theatre, $20–27
Portland actor La’Tevin Alexander directs Charly Evon Simpson’s new play about a young woman who, while still grappling with her mother’s death, finds much more than just a place to vape while standing on a bridge. The play is co-produced by Milagro and Confrontation Theater, a young company that produces work by and about those in the African diaspora.

OPENING A Dark Sky Full of Stars

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, Shoebox Theatre, $5–20
How do we respond to surprising loss? In this world-premiere play by Don Zolidis, presented by Theatre Vertigo, a cast of six women patch together the story of a young man who’s been killed by a community member.

OPENING How to Keep an Alien

7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, New Expressive Works, $20–25
Irish actor and playwright Sonya Kelly’s humorous and moving play chronicles her real-life fall for an Australian stage manager and their subsequent wrangling with the Irish government to prove their love and avoid her girlfriend’s deportation. It was hailed by the Irish Times as “a stirring dossier of an accelerated romance.” In this Corrib production, Sara Hennessy plays Kelly.

Visual Art

CLOSING Jake Scharbach

10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, Froelick Gallery, FREE
The Washington-raised, Brooklyn-based painter’s latest exhibit, Hand to Hand, mashes up ancient Greek and Roman imagery with modern symbols of technology and consumerism—think classical figures in togas being stormed by Pringles cans and shopping carts and plastic flamingos, or Prometheus juxtaposed with a car on fire. Says Scharbach in an artist’s statement: “I believe our intensely capitalistic techno-industrial civilization is poised on the brink of the greatest collapse in human history.”

Rumors

11 a.m.–6 p.m. Thu–Sun, Wolff Gallery, FREE
Seven women make up Small Talk Collective, a local photography group that formed in 2015 and now presents a new exhibit at Wolff. Their work ranges from misty nature shots to moody domestic scenes to spare still lifes.

Mel Bochner

11 a.m.–5 p.m. Thu, 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Fri, noon–5 p.m. Sat–Sun, Oregon Jewish Museum, $8
In Enough Said, printmaker Mel Bochner considers everyday language as both image and concept, filling his bold, often colorful work with words like “blah” and “haha” and “kvetch.” Raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, Bochner frequently incorporates Yiddish words into his art, to humorous and powerful effect.