Portland, Oregon Local News
The Top 36 Events in Portland This Week: Mar 25–31, 2024 – EverOut Portland
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FILM
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Lebanese director Heiny Srours’s ’84 drama follows Leila, a Lebanese woman whose reflections on the women in Lebanese and Palestinian history translate into time travel on screen—Leila meets women living through the Nakba and the Lebanese Civil War. Leila and the Wolves took over seven years to direct, as Srour filmed under “dangerous shooting conditions” and constructed an elaborate fairy tale amid trauma and destruction. LC
(Clinton Street Theater, Hosford-Abernethy)
LIVE MUSIC
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On her new album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, Chelsea Wolfe channels the goth trip-hop and effortless cool-factor of Portishead and PJ Harvey (à la To Bring You My Love). Reflecting the album’s unending title, the album chronicles a cathartic rebirth that frames healing as cyclical, as opposed to a simple linear process. She will support the album alongside doom metal duo Divide and Dissolve. AV
(Roseland Theater, Old Town-Chinatown)
COMEDY
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Over 30 of Portland’s best improvisers will gather again for this who’s who of Rose City comedy. Each Secret Aardvark event features an extra-special mystery guest (past guests have run the gamut from David Lynch to random high school theater students), and the show’s so spicy that it’s named after the organizers’ fave local hot sauce, so it should warm your chilly bones at this time of year. LC
(Kickstand Comedy, Ladd’s Addition)
FILM
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Kelly Reichardt, deft creator of Oregon misfit characters and “master of the non-event,” returned in 2022 with Showing Up, which was partially shot at the tragically shuttered Oregon College of Art and Craft. (That’s my alma mater, and yes, I’m still upset about it.) The unabashedly arty flick, which serves as a quiet ode to Portland’s creative community, features work by the brilliant sculptorCynthia Lahti and stars heavy hitters Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, and André 3000. Lahti will chat about her work with Grace Kook-Anderson, the curator of Northwest art at the Portland Art Museum, after this screening. LC
(Tomorrow Theater, Richmond)
LIVE MUSIC
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Described by press materials as a “modern Huck Finn,” Alynda Segarra (aka Hurray for the Riff Raff) adventurously travels through vocal runs and Americana music on her new album, The Past Is Still Alive. Pitchfork praised the album in their coveted “best new music” feature with critic Anna Gaca writing: “Segarra’s fantastic new album revives the folky textures of previous records to grapple with American myths and tragedies. It’s part folk-punk memoir, part spiritual invocation.” Don’t miss an opening set from Chicago-based bedroom pop artist Sen Morimoto. AV
(Aladdin Theater, Brooklyn)
LIVE MUSIC
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Danny Brown’s new album Quaranta cuts right to the chase, opening with the bars “This rap shit done saved my life / And fucked it up at the same time / That pain in my heart I can’t hide / Lot of trauma inside / You can see it in my eyes.” His lyrics are vulnerable, reflective, and honest in a way that few rappers are—meditating on aging, trauma, and addiction. He will be joined by the California-based rapper HOOK and rising Detroit MC Bruiser Wolf. AV
(Wonder Ballroom, Eliot)
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Laurie Anderson has made an awe-inspiring mountain of music across her 40-year career as an experimental, trailblazing artist. You can attach multiple creative practices to her name, but her most well-known song—thanks to radio play from famed BBC DJ John Peel and an unexpected Gen-Z resurgence that landed her on the TikTok Billboard Top 50—is “O Superman.” If you scroll, you’ve heard the sample of Anderson’s track; she modulates her voice to an eerie, disembodied being, flatly singing: “Well you don’t know me / but I know you.” While “O Superman” conceptually floats somewhere in outer space, much of Anderson’s catalog is grounded, warm, and passionate. Don’t miss Anderson in Portland on her Let X=X tour backed by the NYC jazz ensemble Sexmob. The show is set to be a multimedia performance, showcasing her multi-hyphenate status while breathing new life into her extensive catalog. AV
(Keller Auditorium, Downtown)
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This immersive concert invites you to “run down memory lane at Sonic speed” with three decades of music honoring your favorite spikey-haired hedgehog. A full symphony orchestra will bring to life everything from the 8-bit/16-bit tunes of the original game to the contemporary rock and EDM scores of the live-action films. C’mon, let’s juice! AV
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, South Park Blocks)
READINGS & TALKS
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Rock are cool and all, but I’ll be honest: I wasn’t losing sleep thinking about them until I started following Alison Jean Cole’s Instagram account. Cole’s enthusiasm for rocks brings up all sorts of questions. What is a thunderegg, really? And have I missed my calling? Should I have been a professional rockhounder, traversing the orangey badlands and desert canyons wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a bolo tie?? I am still wondering these things, and maybe you are, too. If so, head to this talk, where Cole will chat about her new book, Beautiful Rocks and How to Find Them, with Angela Piller, curator at the Rice Museum of Rocks & Minerals. The book covers all things rockhounding, including how to read geologic maps, the ethics of rock collecting, and “how to develop your personal tastes in rocks and build a collection.” LC
(Powell’s City of Books, Pearl District)
COMEDY
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I’m not sure what it would take to get me to read my high school diary on stage in front of strangers, but that’s why I’m not a stand-up comedian. Special guest Aleah Liebenau will join Kickstand’s Dear Diary cast for this reunion show, which will return after a four-year hiatus to construct scenes inspired by Liebenau’s childhood journal. Jokesters Natalie Haddad, Brianna Nuñez-Webb, Katie Knackstedt, Roland Mechanik, Lauren Sinner, and Anne Zander will get the good times rolling—all you’ve gotta do is laugh in the face of awkward nostalgia. LC
(Kickstand Comedy, Ladd’s Addition)
FILM
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Calling it now: If you’ve seen Stop Making Sense, it’s probably your favorite concert film. It’s jangly and arty and all of the other words one might use to describe Talking Heads’s catalog, and David wears the suit. Not feeling the Byrne? Listen, I know watching a concert movie for a band you don’t listen to sounds like hell, but this one might be an exception. If you haven’t seen it yet, anticipate looking back on the experience with a funny fondness later, like a good birthday party or the first time you smoked weed. Jonathan Demme (yes, the guy who went on to make The Silence of the Lambs) recorded all of the concert footage over the course of three days at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre in 1983, during the height of the Heads’ visionary fame. It’s screening in a new restoration, so prep for a “once in a lifetime” experience. LC
(Hollywood Theatre, Hollywood District)
FOOD & DRINK
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Scope out sought-after craft brewers like Migration, pFriem, and Everybody’s at this vernal beer extravaganza. While you taste, you’ll be serenaded with live music and will have the chance to participate in raffles. An optional buffet add-on is also available.
(Mt. Hood Meadows, Mt. Hood)
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The writer Iris Murdoch once said, “One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats,” which is a philosophy I share. We’ve made it through the long, treacherous Pacific Northwest winter, and it’s time for a little reward. In celebration of Easter, the bakery pop-up Bubblegum Bakery will sling delicately flavored springtime baked goods like rhubarb and pistachio maritozzi (Roman brioche buns), chocolate nest pies, lemon and olive oil layer cakes, and frosted cookie sandwiches at the Montavilla cafe and market Zuckercreme. JB
(Zuckercreme, Montavilla)
PERFORMANCE
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She might hate people, but everyone’s favorite twisted doll will still bless us with her presence at her first-ever solo tour. The RuPaul’s Drag Race mommy (spoiler alert: she won season 14) will come to slay and hit the stage to tell the story of her god-fearing childhood and rise to D-list status, bringing her trippy pin-up style and sacrilegious humor along for the ride. #Blessed. LC
(Aladdin Theater, Brooklyn)
LIVE MUSIC
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King Woman, led by NYC-based Iranian vocalist and songwriter Kris Esfandiari, redefines what metal can be by contrasting breathy ethereal vocals with pounding drums and roaring reverb. Their 2021 album, Celestial Blues, blossomed out of the desire to reshape biblical archetypes of Esfandiari’s past into a “theatrical tale of rebellion, tragedy, and triumph.” They will support the album alongside the LA-based, self-identified “synth-pop songstress” Riki. AV
(Wonder Ballroom, Eliot)
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Here’s your chance to see a living legend in the flesh! Counterculture icon Lydia Lunch is best known for her ’70s no wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, as well as her later collaboration with Sonic Youth (their song “Death Valley ’69” was named one of the “50 Most Evil Songs Ever” by Kerrang!) Nowadays, Lunch spends the bulk of her time leading self-empowerment workshops and performing spoken-word poetry. For this performance, she will be joined by fellow New Yorker and multi-hyphenate Joseph Keckler and iconic Portland punk Jerry Lang (of Poison Idea). AV
(Star Theater, Old Town-Chinatown)
EXHIBIT
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As a child, I begged my mom to take me to a “fossil digging” experience staged in an old Chuck E. Cheese, where kids were given a shovel and a sifter and let loose in a swimming pool-sized sand pit to hunt for petrified remains. I had the time of my life, came away with dozens of fossils, and it only hit me about five minutes ago that they were probably all fake. Point is, dinosaurs evoke strong emotions. “Tyrannosaurs – Meet the Family brings the latest tyrannosaur discoveries to life, overturning preconceptions about these ferocious predators,” OMSI’s promotional materials read. Okay, so do we have T. rex’s vibes all wrong? Have we been slandering their name for…let’s see…66 million years? This exhibition seems like a solid way to find out. Head to OMSI to learn about tyrannosaurs through real and replica specimens, fossils, three life-sized reconstructed skeletons, and a “30-foot tunnel where you can watch tyrannosaurs exploring modern-day Portland.” LC
(OMSI, Central Eastside, Tuesday-Sunday)
FESTIVALS
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After a particularly grueling 2023 season (atmospheric rivers to start and a heatwave to finish), the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm promises to come back better than ever this year for their 40th annual fest. Make sure you snag tickets in advance—they’re only available online. We recommend a weekday visit to beat the crowds and boost your mood—after all, who doesn’t love playing hooky to dance in 40 acres of flowers against the majestic backdrop of Mount Hood? SL
(Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, Woodburn, Monday-Sunday)
FILM
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Happy Women’s History Month! Hollywood Theatre’s Feminist March program will once again offer up a full month of screenings celebrating women in film. Programmed by Hollywood Theatre community programmer Anthony Hudson and Hollywood staff members Destynee Norwood and Cable Wells, this year’s lineup “delves unflinchingly into the dark and seedy depths of female experience” (oOoO!) with 19 films. The wide-reaching festival continues this week with Under the Skin and Titus. LC
(Hollywood Theatre, Hollywood District, Monday-Sunday)
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In sophomore director Rose Glass’s queer melodrama Love Lies Bleeding, Kristen Stewart plays Lou, a chain-smoking dirtbag dyke and gym manager who splits her time between unclogging toilets, fending off the unwanted advances of her overzealous admirer Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), worrying about her sister Beth (Jena Malone), reheating frozen dinners in a drab apartment, and masturbating on a faded couch in full view of her cat. When she meets ambitious muscle mommy Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who’s passing through town on her way to a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas, the star-crossed sapphic lovers immediately fall into a spiral of toxic U-haul infatuation. Glass, who directed the 2019 psychological horror flick Saint Maud, brings a startlingly singular and stylish vision to life. She’s cited David Cronenberg’s Crash and Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls as influences for Love Lies Bleeding, and the carnal obsession of those films shines through in her work. The result is a seedy, sexy, high-octane ride that holds its own amongst the erotic thriller canon. JB
(Hollywood Theatre, Hollywood District, Monday-Thursday)
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When presented with the opportunity to see a film by director Andrei Tarkovsky in a movie house, you should take it. In this case, a new 4K restoration by Italian national film school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia provides a great opportunity to see Tarkovsky’s first film made outside of the Soviet Union. Nostalghia isn’t his boldest work, but it’s the one where you perhaps get the best feeling of the director’s self, as he uses his signature dream sequences and long takes to wrestle with the alienated feeling of leaving Russia—shortly after Nostalghia‘s release he vowed he would never return. PORTLAND MERCURY ARTS EDITOR SUZETTE SMITH
(Cinema 21, Nob Hill, Friday-Sunday)
PERFORMANCE
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NW Dance Project’s 20th anniversary season continues with this triple bill evening of dance, which will include sublime debuts by colorful, dynamic Spanish choreographer Gustavo Ramírez Sansano and Swiss/British performer and dance theater creator Nicole von Arx. Joseph Hernandez, NW Dance Project’s associate choreographer, will present Fistful of Love, a “mix of cabaret performers and survivors of a natural disaster.” LC
(Newmark Theatre, South Park Blocks, Friday-Saturday)
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Cervantes’s hero Don Quixote gains new life in this modern, Tejano-inspired twist on the 17th-century tale, set in the fictional town of La Plancha, Texas and infused with Spanish music. Quixote Nuevo follows a professor with dementia who imagines himself as Don Quixote and embarks on a love-driven journey while encountering border patrol drones. The Seattle Times described Quixote Nuevo as “deftly and efficiently lead[ing] viewers from reality to fantasy and into the murky borderlands that lie in between.” LC
(Portland Center Stage, Pearl District, Wednesday–Sunday)
SPORTS & RECREATION
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Get ready for Women’s March Madness to come to town! Division One regionals are split between Portland and Albany, New York in the second-ever two-site format (and we all know the better site; here). There will be six games across four days, and you can treat yourself to an all-access pass or just grab a single-day ticket. Sign up for the NCAA Fan Experience to get your pic with the National Championship Trophy, say hi to a former NCAA player or coach, and more. It’s going to be six years until we host the Final Four again, so we recommend that college basketball fans jump on this opportunity. SL
(Moda Center, Lloyd District, Friday-Sunday)
SPRING
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Each spring, 100 cherry blossom trees pop pink blooms at the Japanese American Historical Plaza up at the north end of Waterfront Park. Tourists and locals alike stroll the tree-lined stretch to partake in stunning photo-ops, bask in the delicate falling petals, and reflect on the history of Japanese Portlanders. JW
(Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Downtown, Monday-Sunday)
VISUAL ART
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The first of its kind to “consider the work of Black artists collectively in Oregon,” PAM’s fresh exhibition will showcase Black artists in and outside its collection, with special attention paid to underrepresented regional artists. Black Artists of Oregon thinks carefully about the African American experience in the Pacific Northwest, with pieces spanning the last 100 years by heavy hitters like Carrie Mae Weems and professional puppeteer Ralph Chessé. I’m particularly stoked for the exhibition because it was guest curated by Portland-based artist Intisar Abioto, whose own practice fills gaps in our region’s history with critical context on lived Black experience. LC
(Portland Art Museum, South Park Blocks, Wednesday–Sunday; closing)
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Modern technology collides with the natural realm, all across Ido Radon’s solo exhibition. Using materials such as solar panels, recycled PC cases, and cabinets, Radon forged sculptures intertwined with organic substances like rabbit fur. There’s a sculpture dangling from the gallery ceiling above a mirror, like an inverted city of Kandor or a miniature Castle Said to Hold Eternity. Is the mirror the way to view “Server,” stuck starkly above? An installation of nylon ropes, wires, and bamboo beads intermingle and dangle suspiciously on the wall nearby as if you’re invited to climb up there for a closer look. PORTLAND MERCURY CONTRIBUTOR ASHLEY GIFFORD PETERSON
(ILY2, Pearl District, Wednesday–Saturday; closing)
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In Fazilat Soukhakian’s native Iran, same-sex sexual activity is still punishable by death. Before moving to the US, Soukhakian witnessed this discrimination and the fear it induced in the LGBTQ+ community, but after moving to Utah, she found a remarkably similar atmosphere. Her Queer in Utah project, begun in 2019, includes intimate portraits of a new generation of LGBTQ+ Mormons and residents of Utah who are challenging the constraints of their religious beliefs and the conservative heterosexual image. LC
(Blue Sky Gallery, Pearl District, Wednesday–Saturday; closing)
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Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks, which comes to the Portland Art Museum by way of Canada’s Bata Shoe Museum, features almost 60 “futuristic” footwear designs created with ultra-modern technologies and materials. (If you could actually imagine yourself sporting the auto-lacing Nike MAG, this one’s for you.) This might be your only chance to scope out 3D-printed shoes, repurposed ocean plastics, and mushroom leather within a museum space, so don’t miss out. LC
(Portland Art Museum, South Park Blocks, Saturday-Sunday; opening)
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Rachael Zur calls her sculptural works “expanded paintings”—they merge physicality with traditional painting techniques, and the pieces have been previously featured in New American Paintings. In Hours After Winter, Zur’s latest solo exhibition, the artist ponders life cycles, renewal, and the “curious capacity domestic spaces have for holding the echoes of lives lived.” If your interest in art about domestic spaces is piqued, I recommend heading to Blue Sky Gallery afterward for Sarah Malakoff’s Personal History. LC
(Carnation Contemporary, Kenton, Saturday-Sunday; closing)
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Curated by Jeroen Smeets of The Jaunt, this group exhibition spotlights five artists who took part in the organization’s “summer camp” program: painters Tim Biskup, Jillian Evelyn, and William LaChance, multimedia artist Macarena Luzi, and folk art-inspired artist Stevie Shao. The artists converged in Joseph, Oregon, a small town at the base of the Wallowa Mountains, to create amid the scenic atmosphere. Joseph showcases the “collective fruits of their creativity” and includes a limited edition silkscreen print. LC
(Chefas Projects, Central Eastside, Wednesday–Saturday; closing)
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Lee Materazzi’s inaugural show at Nationale is also a traveling exhibition—it was previously presented at San Francisco’s 1599fdT, and will be shown at San Diego’s Quint Contemporary in the future. ¢a$h&¢arry compiles 250 archival images that chronicle the last five years of Materazzi’s practice, including portraiture and reflections on the precarity of the human body. Materazzi shares her studio space and practice with her children, Mia and Brook, so the works on view in this show were “completed between the ages of 37 and 41 and 3 and 11, respectively.” LC
(Nationale, Buckman, Monday/Thursday-Sunday; closing)
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You might have seen Jeremy Okai Davis’s work in his 2022 solo exhibition A Good Sport, which saw the painter investigate the experiences of Black Americans in traditional sportsmanship roles within the rigid confines of athleticism and academia. This time around, Davis has taken on a curatorial role—Mélange pulls together an “array of voices and creative expressions” from printmaker Rebecca Boraz, North Carolina-based artist Maria Britton (who uses used bedsheets, dry permanent markers, and newspapers as artistic material), Bronx-born collage artist Anthony R. Grant, and Chris Lael Larson, who “culls riches from the everyday absurd.” LC
(Nationale, Buckman, Monday/Thursday-Sunday; closing)
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Jessie Rose Vala’s latest installation pulls from mythic storytelling to erect a stoneware and neon “effigy” to hybridity and connectivity across the ages. The work includes glass pomegranates and is surrounded by sound and video elements that amplify Vala’s focus on ancient histories and “future ways of being.” Meteorite Mama also offers an opportunity to make your own talisman on March 9—effigies, beads, and string will be provided. The exhibition will conclude with a ritual event on March 30, which will include an acapella performance by devotional artist Willow Gibbons and a natural arrangement workshop led by floral designer Hilary Horvath. LC
(Well Well, Kenton, Saturday-Sunday; closing)
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Large-scale color photographer Sarah Malakoff has been preoccupied by domestic interiors for as long as she can recall. Her long-term documentation project Personal History looks closely at how we arrange our spaces and how décor communicates our “tastes, personalities, quirks, and culture.” (What would Malakoff think about the dishes in my sink?) This exhibition highlights objects arranged in American homes, including teapots, pinball machines, Obama pillows, Egyptian pseudo-artifacts, and lots of other odds and ends that might surprise you. Malakoff wonders how these objects “underscore the privilege and power implicit in the act of collecting.” LC
(Blue Sky Gallery, Pearl District, Wednesday–Saturday; closing)
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Too often we shy away from the reality that artists have day jobs or work in the art sector behind the scenes. Between shifts and sleep, many employees who work in the arts are also artists themselves. This group show brings together past and current gallery workers at PDX Contemporary—showcasing their talent, vision, and creativity, via painting, photography, and sculpture. PORTLAND MERCURY CONTRIBUTOR ASHLEY GIFFORD PETERSON
(PDX CONTEMPORARY ART, Slabtown, Tuesday–Saturday; closing)
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