Books & Talks

Tommy Orange

7:30 p.m. Thurs, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $15–65
The author of There There comes to the Schnitz as a part of the Multnomah County Library’s Everybody Reads series. The book, a sprawling account of Native American life in Oakland, California, was a 2019 Pulitzer finalist the New York Times called “tense [and] prismatic, with inexorable momentum.”

Dance

Attention Everyone!

8 p.m. Sat–Sun, A-WOL Dance Collective, $28–40
A-WOL, Portland’s stalwart aerial dance collective, puts on a spring showcase at its warehouse space on NE Schuyler. Expect Cirque-level skill with some contemporary dance sprinkled in. You’ll never look at a set of drapes the same way again. 

Film

OPENING: Portland International Film Festival

Various times and venues Thurs–Sun, $12–350
Back for a 43rd year, PIFF hits the NW Film Center with its usual mix of screenings, talks, and workshops. This year, the festival introduces its Cinema Unbound Awards—recipients range from sometime-Portlander Todd Haynes to Shrill star John Cameron Mitchell.

Theater

CLOSING: The Found Dog Ribbon Dance

7:30 p.m. Thurs–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, CoHo Productions, $20–35
Reed alum Dominic Finocchiaro’s play The Found Dog Ribbon Dance explores the “anatomy of loneliness” through the eyes of two Northwesterners: a ribbon-dancer and a professional cuddler. Connery MacRae directs CoHo Productions’ take on this quirky but resonant comedy, which features perhaps the most memorable use of a Whitney Houston song since The Bodyguard.

CLOSING: Indecent

7:30 p.m. Thurs–Sun, 2 p.m. Sat–Sun, Lincoln Hall, $30–60
Profile teams up with Artists Rep to produce Paula Vogel’s Tony-winning play. One of the most-produced works in the country last season, Indecent tells the story of the controversial 1923 Broadway production of God of Vengeance. It's a moving if occasionally confused production—check out our review here.

Pipeline

7:30 p.m. Thurs–Sun, 2 p.m. Sat–Sun, Portland Playhouse, $26–36
Variety called Dominique Morriseau’s play about American education disparities an “emotionally harrowing” drama that “raises barbed questions about class, race, [and] parental duty” when it premiered in New York in 2017. Now, Portland Playhouse teams up with Confrontation Theatre (dedicated to “present[ing] excellent, affordable theatre by and about the African diaspora”) for its Portland premiere.

Visual Art

Art and Race Matters

10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thurs–Sun, Portland Art Museum, $17–20
Fresh off a 2019 stint at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, this retrospective on Portland painter Robert Colescott comes to PAM. Colescott got his start in the early ’60s after Arlene Schnitzer showed his work at her Fountain Gallery, and he went on to become a notable neo-expressionist—Art and Race Matters pulls pieces from his five-decade career, and wades into his legacy as a race-and-sex focused upstart.

Ed Bereal

10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thurs–Sun, Portland Art Museum, $17–20
The LA-born firebrand opens a show at PAM as part of APEX, the museum’s ongoing series on Northwest-based artists. Bereal’s last show, Wanted: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace, was a hit in Bellingham—one piece depicted a bronze-genitaled Ronald McDonald as one of the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 

CLOSING: Nierika

12–5 p.m. Sat–Sun, Disjecta, FREE
The Nierika, a “God’s eye” used as a ritual item by Mexico’s indigenous Wixarika (Huichol) people, is at the center of queer Wixarika artist and self-described witch Edgar Fabián Frias’s new exhibit. Incorporating prints and videos alongside readymades like shower curtains and pillows, Nierika is an idiosyncratic exploration of “how we are linked to a larger world through ecology, community, and spirituality.” 

Volcano!

10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thurs–Sun, Portland Art Museum, $17–20
Forty years ago, Mount St. Helens blew its top, killing 57 people and casting an ashy film over the entire northwest. This is something most millennials were told in third grade, but it’s tough to actually imagine. Enter the Portland Art Museum. Using photos, paintings, and drawings dating back to 1845, PAM has assembled an exhibit meant to tell the story of St. Helens through images.