The Best Shows and Events in Portland This Week, April 2026
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Each time I watch a rehearsal clip featuring Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic director Dani Rowe, I wonder what it’s like to be a dancer in the studio with her. Last year, in advance of the premiere of a ballet Rowe choreographed about Marilyn Monroe, I found myself wrapped up in a handful of these videos—absorbed by Rowe’s attentiveness, her curiosity, her eagerness. And the same thing happened this week, as I hit play on a video showing Rowe in rehearsal for another new ballet of hers, Princess and the Pea, which OBT opens this weekend at the Newmark Theatre as part of a mixed-bill program (April 3–11, $39+).
The one-act ballet, a coproduction with the Joffrey Ballet (the Chicago company presented it last winter), draws some inspiration from the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. But Rowe and Garen Scribner’s libretto takes its liberties, setting the action in a world where everything is green and an evil princess has ruled that nothing be eaten but peas. There’s a girl named Penelopea, a fairy godfather character who takes the form of a carrot, a “Mattress Match,” and some extraordinary plaid unitards. (Costume and scenic design are by regular Rowe collaborator Emma Kingsbury.) Plus: a plethora of chartreuse-hued, slightly squishy balls. These are the peas, of course, and the dancers weave them through their legs, roll them along their arms, and toss them in the air. In one particularly charming rehearsal photo, Rowe clutches one under her chin.
“I have a pretty carefree, relaxed nature,” Rowe says in the video. But her choreography has typically tapped into her darker side, some of which should be on display during UnSaid, a pas de deux she choreographed for the San Francisco Ballet in 2019 that is also part of this bill. (Rounding out the program is Tchaikovsky’s jazzy, Stravinsky-set Rubies.) With Princess and the Pea, Rowe says she’s for the first time “going full pelt into the comedy realm.” If she needs an extra vegetable to dance joyfully, I know someone available. —Rebecca Jacobson
More things to do this week
Performance New2You Festival
7:30PM Thu & Fri; 2:30pm & 7:30PM Sat | PICA, $25
Since 2000, Portland's Hand2Mouth has been a force for genre-bending, collaboratively devised performance; the company has made work inspired by intentional communities, motivational speeches, book banning, and forced migration. This inaugural festival, in its second and final weekend, explores the relationship between the body and technology. Expect pieces inspired by Plato and Slavoj Žižek, set in futuristic diagnostic rooms, and built on light and sound. —RJ
The Boss Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
7:30pm Fri, Apr 3 | Moda Center, $97+
The Boss is making ripped-from-the-headlines protest songs, spelling out exactly what he means to say, and diverting his tour to shout them out loud. “Streets of Minneapolis” names names: Renée Good and Alex Pretti and the—primarily unelected—government officials responsible for their deaths, and Springsteen released it just four days after Pretti was killed by Customs and Border Patrol agents. “We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America—American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream,” Springsteen wrote in a statement, “all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, DC.” —Matthew Trueherz
Music FKA Twigs
8PM SAT, APR 4 | MODA CENTER, $50+
A big weekend continues at the Moda Center. FKA Twigs’s 2025 project EUSEXUA is more of a world than an album—have you seen the video for the titular single?—but the Best Dance/Electronic Album award was the closest thing the Grammys could offer it. Expect cuts from EUSEXUA and its follow-up, EUSEXUA Afterglow, at what’s sure to be a transcendent show. —MT
Elsewhere...
- Movie Madness will soon begin renovations of its new location across from the Hollywood Theatre; expect a 45-seat auditorium and 40 percent more square footage than the Belmont space. (Willamette Week)
- Thousands of historic artifacts have been returned to the Umatilla Indian Reservation and will be part of the collection at the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, just outside Pendleton. (OPB)
