LitWatch July: Connecting with the Coast in Cannon Beach — and Bend
Amy Leona Havin
June 30, 2023
Everlasting summer brings readings by surfing legend Gerry Lopez and the authors of a new book celebrating Steely Dan.
Everlasting summer brings readings by surfing legend Gerry Lopez and the authors of a new book celebrating Steely Dan.
Summer is here! Jason N. Le’s round-up of July shows features group shows, retrospectives, and solo exhibitions inspired by everything from the otherworldly to the intimately personal.
Clackamas Rep brings the ancients romping into the present. Plus: Broadway Rose’s “Dreamcoat,” new leader at Artists Rep, farewell to Book-It Rep and Sheldon Harnick, more.
Hurtling into Fourth of July weekend and the height of summer with Waterfront Blues Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Oregon Bach Festival, and The Thesis.
Artists respond to violence against women, the pandemic, climate change, and other threats to Indigenous communities in a powerful exhibit at the Center for Native Arts & Cultures.
Also screening: Five films by John Carpenter, the documentary “Every Body,” and 35mm prints of “Rear Window” and “Aliens.”
“Out There Jazz Suite” transmutes Hillsboro sculptures into a recording, a multimedia concert, and a community collaboration.
As Oregon lawmakers stumble through a long Senate walkout and then rush to finish business, a cultural sector still hurting from Covid shutdowns loses on several fronts.
The Emerson String Quartet’s longtime violist, performing at Chamber Music Northwest and the Oregon Bach Festival on its final tour, discusses the group’s history and its decision to retire.
It’s the middle of summer and dance performances are just heating up, including several outdoor productions in venues from parks to shipyards.
The Music Critics Association of North America chooses ArtsWatch writers Angela Allen as secretary and James Bash as treasurer.
The museum names Amy Behrens, executive director of a Southern California cultural center and botanical gardens, to lead it into the future.
From the Cocteau Twins to the Cure, a splashy cabaret celebrates goth culture with playful spookiness. Plus: Last call for some good shows, a shutdown in L.A.
Portland Center Stage Actor Treasure Lunan and Associate Artistic Director Chip Miller discuss gender in theater.
Through music, movement, and history, this ambitious endeavor affirmed that we all have power to levy in the collective quest for racial justice.
The vocal ensemble partnered with Indigenous artists for a rained-in festival at Lewis & Clark’s Agnes Flanagan Chapel.
The newest dioramic metafiction from Wes Anderson opens alongside free screenings of “THX-1138,” “Jaws,” and other titles at Portland’s Living Room Theaters.
This year’s five-week festival, commencing this weekend, highlights the relationship between two art forms.
An interview with the mezzo soprano, performing this weekend and next week in the first round of Chamber Music Northwest concerts.
In “Pacific Waters” at the Corvallis Arts Center, students composed works for strings to go with Mary Frisbee Johnson’s water sketches.
As Portland Art Museum decommissions Whitsell Auditorium, PAM CUT looks across the river for a new home.
The Salem Art Association opens the Waldo Bogle Gallery in the Bush House and unveils the two latest paintings in Jeremy Okai Davis’s portrait series. The house’s original owner and namesake would not be pleased.
Plus: Award recipients Jacqueline Stewart and Jon Raymond talk with Marc Mohan about film history, creativity, and their current and upcoming projects.
Utilizing choreographic iterations and iconography from different dance lineage backgrounds, the choreographer and performer offered a uniquely abstract look at the spiraling chain of Portland dance connectivity.
New leadership and a show of diverse work by women artists in the Gorge suggest a transformation of ideas at the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center.
From Verdi’s operas to the films of Orson Welles, Shakespeare’s plays have left an indelible mark on generations of artists. But how much do you really know about the Bard and his admirers?
The grant from The Ford Family Foundation of Roseburg is believed to be the largest single private foundation award in city history.
K.B. Dixon’s culltural-portrait series continues with illustrator Kate Bingaman-Burt, artist Dan Gluibizzi, writers Cecily Wong and Aaron Galbreath, and Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Dani Rowe.
A little razzle-dazzle from “Shazam!,” PlayWrite’s 24-hour play fest, circus for Cutie, Cheryl Strayed in Astoria, Bill Rauch’s big adventure, last chance for a fistful of good shows.
Portland’s Nikki Sandoval finds national success while centering Oregon’s Black children and families in her performances.
Yoko and Jon Greeney talk about the development of their new mobile music venue, hitting the road this summer with shows featuring Charlie Brown III and Lo Steele, Andy Akiho, and more.
The Asian-American singer recently shone in Huang Ruo’s “Bound” with Seattle Opera and “Rusalka” with Portland Opera.
With his own small gallery in a shed, a show at Elizabeth Leach, and a key role in the Converge 45 biennial, the artist juggles “three ways I get to make magic out of dust.”
This week’s cinematic highlights include the filmmaking debut of playwright Celine Song and the story of a closeted high school gym teacher set against the grim backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s England.
The pandemic gave the 53-year-old coastal center opportunities to “look at things in fresh ways,” including youth programs, residencies, and Indigenous fellowships.
Review: Portland Center Stage’s fresh take on Shakespeare’s comedy is a nimble, playful, genderfluid, and not at all didactic delight.
Photographer Joe Cantrell discovers the beauties of the universal in the patterns of very small things.
The weekend event also includes free, self-guided tours of the work of 70 artists in 28 locations along the Central Oregon Coast.
The longtime Portland theater figure and Broadway producer wins again, this time for the musical revival of “Parade.”
As “Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio” opens at the Portland Art Museum, co-director Mark Gustafson and animation chief Brian Hansen talk about the making of the Oscar-winning movie.
Profile’s “How to Make an American Son” tells a generational family tale. Plus: Duffy Epstein & friends head for “California,” openings, closings.
After a four-month construction shutdown, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education reopens with new shows, a new gallery, and a celebratory street fair.
The Oregon composer organization blended works by its members with works by the mercurial Hungarian.
Plus: The Understory Northwest Film Fest presents short films from three PNW directors, Edgar Wright’s “Cornetto” trilogy at Cinemagic, and other flicks from “Ghostbusters” to “The Palm Beach Story.”
A celebration of the theater leader’s life is June 19; Oregon immigrant stories move to Hillsboro; small grants help bring 16 Latino art projects to life.
The company offers its own take on composer Igor Stravinsky through an innovative pairing of two of his most famous ballets.
Tom Stoppard’s Tony-nominated family tale “Leopoldstadt” steps deftly through trauma and time and the toll of the Holocaust.
Lee Blessing life-and-death drama, Shakespeare’s Puck & the gang, “Full Monty,” and last chance for the fine “Mary Jane” and “True Story.”
As Portland strives to revive from the crises of the past three years, K.B. Dixon wraps up his five-part photographic series of scenes from the city that was and might be again.
Other readings this month feature Portland poet Carlos Reyes, Ken Jennings of “Jeopardy!” fame, and photographer Jamie Beck’s exploration of Provence.
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