Art Museum’s website

GO → Too Reel Outdoor Cinema:

Night of the Living Dead

Held in Lakewood Center for the Arts’ parking lot, Too Reel’s drive-in screening of Night of the Living Dead will include some spooky scenery and reallife jump scares provided by entertainment team Creatures of the Night. Sure, Halloween isn’t for another two months, but we could all use a little campy fun and adrenaline-fueled escapism from the hellscape of modern existence right now. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S St., Lake Oswego, lakewood-center.org. 8:45 pm Friday, Sept. 4. $35. → Venice VR Expanded While many major local events have been shut down, one of the biggest art events in the world is coming to Portland. The Venice Biennial—arguably the most prestigious every-otheryear art survey—is launching its first virtual reality showcase, and its only U.S. outpost will be here in Portland. Hosted by NW Film Center, the 44 different VR programs set up throughout the Portland Art Museum’s ornate ballroom will include an abstract void created by a French filmmaker, a Sweedish director’s take on Alice in Wonderland, adventures into space, and an animated game by Iron Man director Jon Favreau. Portland Art Museum’s Fields Ballroom, 1219 SW Park Ave., portlandart museum.org. Through Sept. 12. $25. → Ungodly: The Spiritual Medium Disjecta’s final exhibit by guest curator Justin Hoover is a small but impactful show that offers a multimedia meditation on spiritualism and mythmaking, including a quilt that reimagines mosques as spaceships, African walking sticks suspended from the ceiling, and an interactive virtual piece inspired by femme trans-futurism. It’s available as an online exhibit and for in-person visits. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., disjecta.org. Through Sept. 20. Free. → Hallowed Ground Drive-in storytelling and music series Hallowed Ground debuts with an eclectic lineup of local musicians, from jazz pianist Darrell Grant to house music DJ Gila River Monster. The event will be held in an as yet undisclosed location. Tickets will be distributed via lottery to anyone

who makes a donation, and all proceeds go to the Black United Fund. If you can’t score a spot, the concert also streams online and will be simulcast on XRAY. fm. Visit portlandplayhouse.org for more informaton. Sunday, Sept. 20.

→Union PDX Dancer-run Union PDX held its first festival last year, mounting an ambitious schedule of new contemporary dance works, panels and classes. Organizers committed to holding the festival in November, though they haven’t announced a contingency plan if it can’t take place at Portland Opera headquarters as planned. Hampton Opera Center, 211 SE Caruthers St., unionpdx.org.

Friday-Sunday, Nov. 13-14. LIVESTREAM → Chanel Miller in Conversation with T t Madden There is no longer an “Emily Doe” in the 2015 Stanford University rape case that called for a nationwide reckoning of on-campus sexual assault and the criminal justice system. Her name is Chanel Miller, and her award-winning memoir, Know My Name, is a thoughtfully crafted reflection on the pursuit of accountability at great personal cost. Miller is joined by author T Kira Madden. Streams on Zoom. Register at powells.com/ eventsupdate. 5 pm Thursday, Sept. 3. Free.

→Renaissance: Technically Portland Center Stage’s inaugural digital play is intended as an exploration of the possibilities, rather than constraints, of digital theater. Experimental in more ways than one, the devised, stillin-process work will draw on the talents of actors, dancers and visual artists, led by Portland playwright Josie Seid. Streams on Zoom, pcs.org. 7:30 pm Friday, Sept. 4. Tickets are pay what you will.

→Poetry Reading with Gina Williams, Dan Raphael and Christopher Luna Local poets Gina Williams, Dan Raphael and Christopher Luna come together for a virtual reading, bringing selections from their latest work. On the docket will be poetry on beautiful things, ugly things, cosmological babies and jazz quartets. Streams on Crowdcast. Register at annieblooms.com. 7 pm Monday, Sept. 14. Free. → Bad Citizen Northwest Theater Workshop and Theater Vertigo’s series of eight new short works by local playwrights grapples with what it means to be a good citizen in a broken society. The first four free, online plays debut this month, the rest in October. Streams on Zoom, nwtw.org. 7:30 pm Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 18-19 and Oct. 9-10. Free, donations accepted.

→Ingenio Milagro Theatre’s festival of new plays is a yearly highlight, offering imaginative, heartfelt full-length works by emerging Latinx playwrights. This year should be no different, even though the festival has moved entirely online. Sept. 20-28. See milagro.org for more details.

→Colson Whitehead and Mitchell S. Jackson Acclaimed authors Colson Whitehead and Mitchell S. Jackson meet for an evening of conversation on literature, social justice and the nature of juvenile corrections. Whitehead’s most recent novel, The Nickel Boys, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, while Portland native Jackson’s recent memoir Survival Mathearned widespread praise for its meditations on race, violence and masculinity. Streams via Literary Arts, literary-arts.org. 6 pm Thursday, Sept. 24. Sold out.

→Elisa Gabbert in Conversation with Samantha Irby and Sarah Rose Etter Poet Elisa Gabbert is joined by authors Samantha Irby and Sarah Rose Etter for a timely discussion on disasters and our new virtual frontier of living—plagues, witch hunts, techno-paranoia, etc. Each author, through comedy, fiction or essay, gives fresh voice to the philosophical problem of what it means to exist online. Streams on Zoom. Register at powells. com/eventsupdate. 5 pm Friday, Sept. 25. Free.

→Mlima’s Tale Rather than canceling or postponing its season, Profile Theatre has switched to audio plays. First up is Mlima’s Tale, which follows the ivory tusks and ghost of a poached Kenyan elephant named Mlima. In the hands of Profile Theatre, Mlima’s Tale—which debuted in New York two years ago with sparse staging—is unlikely to lose any of its spectral magic in audio format. Streams at profiletheatre.org. Oct. 7-Nov. 4. Tickets sliding scale. → Soovin Kim Chamber Music Northwest’s new artistic directors, Soovin Kim and Gloria Chen, are starting new jobs at a weird time, to say the least. But unlike most other Portland arts institutions, CMNW has essentially already made it through a season of digital programming—in June, the organization managed to pivot its popular five-week summer festival entirely online. Kim kicks off CMNW’s first virtual season with a free performance of Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas. Streams via Chamber Music Northwest, cmnw.org. 7 pm Saturday, Oct. 10. Free.

→Helen Macdonald Naturalist Helen Macdonald is best known for writing about birds and, perhaps more impressively, convincing others they need to read about birds. Her latest book is Vesper Flights, a collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Expect ruminations on ostriches, nests, swifts and the delicate art of swan-catching. Streams via Literary Arts, literary-arts.org. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 13. Series tickets $90-$355, individual tickets available closer to the event.

WATCH → Nearer Nature: Worth Your Salt Like most of us during the pandemic, artist Malia Jensen has been itching to get out into nature. For her six-hour video Worth Your Salt—the first edition of the Portland Art Museum’s virtual resident series—the Portland artist created salt block sculptures that she placed in six different locations around Oregon. With the help of motion-triggered cameras, she recorded the elk, deer and pheasants who passed by or licked the salt sculptures, including one shaped like a human foot. Streams at portlandartmusuem.org. Through Nov. 7. Free.

→Essential Sounds Season Finale Though the Oregon Symphony has canceled all its live performances for the rest of the year, it’s ramped up its free digital content. That includes Essential Sounds, a YouTube series that started in June in which musicians share stories and play musical tribute to essential workers. The five preceding episodes are already online, and the sixth and final installment, which features violinist Gregory Ewer’s ode to community, debuts this week. Streams at orsymphony.org. Premieres 7 pm Wednesday, Sept. 2. Free.

→StreamingVox Like most Portland dance studios, BodyVox is closed to the public until further notice. In the meantime, four of the company’s past theatrical performances are available for streaming on its website, including the goofy, whimsical Urban Meadow. Streams at bodyvox.com. Free.

→Church of Film TV Before quarantine, Church of Film’s thrice-weekly, mostly free screenings were the best place to see unheard of, visually striking movies from almost every continent, dug up by series programmer Muriel Lucas. Now, Lucas’ labor-of-love finds are available for free on Church of Film’s regularly updated Vimeo page. Streams at vimeo.com/ churchoffilm.

→CST CoVideothon Clinton Street Theater is hardly the only local movie theater to move online during the pandemic—Hollywood Theatre and NW Film Center’s streaming options are definitely worth paying attention to—but the Clinton’s online options are almost all local, DIY productions, including titles from the recent quarantine edition of local horror film festival Guignolfest. Streams at cstpdx.com.

→Movies → Theater → Dance → Books → Visual arts → Music

Da Vinci Middle School, NE 24th Ave. and Everett St.

Local activists hold free weekly movie nights, both to recover from the protests and as a form of activism on their own.

When Fran Bittakis founded Snack Bloc three years ago, she never imagined the protest support group would end up providing snacks and supplies for an uprising that’s continued for more than three months.

Around Day 45 of Portland’s protests against racism and police brutality, Bittakis realized she had been working and protesting nonstop. She hadn’t even been out for a walk, other than to attend marches.

“It’s really easy to disassociate,” says Bittakis, who handed Snack Bloc over to its current president, Masyn Wade, last year but still organizes with the group. “What does it look like now when I’m like, ‘Hey, ya’ll, want to go out?’ Before, that was like, ‘Let’s go to a show, let’s go to an art gallery, let’s go get dinner.’ Now, ‘Hey, you want to go out?’ means ‘Hey, we’re going to bloc up and go be chased around.’”

So in early July—out of a concern for the well-being of herself and other activists, and out of nostalgia for pre-pandemic movie nights—Bittakis and Snack Bloc started hosting weekly screenings, starting with Disclosure, a documentary about transgender representation in the media.

COURTESY OF SNACK BLOC

Held in Scapegoat Tattoo’s parking lot on Southeast Stark Street, the roaming duo Mobile Projection Unit provided the AV equipment and Snack Bloc provided vegan burgers for a handful of mask-wearing attendees who arrived with lawn chairs and blankets.

It’s been happening every Tuesday since. By the third screening, the audience was too big for Scapegoat’s small parking lot.

Now held at Da Vinci Middle School, the ad hoc infrastructure has grown with the crowd. There are medics, porta-potties and activists who give speeches and safety training for protesters. Bittakis, a filmmaker herself, helms the movie programming, but she’s also tapped the help of beloved local programmers like Church of Film and Fuck Film School, which have screened the documentaries like Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square and The Infiltrators, a docu-thriller about young immigrants working to stop deportations. Equitable Giving Circle gives out free plants to BIPOC attendees, Dial R for Revolution makes zines for the event each week, and Fingers Crossed provides American Sign Language interpreting. The newest collaborator is Herb Bloc, which gives out teas, tinctures and balms to frontline protesters.

But the screenings aren’t just recovery for activists, they’re also a form of activism on their own—and not just because most of the movies so far have been documentaries about an international history of resistance. The guerrilla, permitless screenings also stand as an example of the community care and resource pooling that prison and police abolitionists advocate for.

“It gives us a moment to be together and not always be trauma bonding,” says Bittakis. “It’s some little normal thing that we can all do together that’s not being on the streets together. We can’t just be grinding every single day.” SHANNON GORMLEY.

Open Signal, NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Graham St.

A media accessibility organization has launched an all-local online streaming service.

In case you didn’t get the memo, Rebecca Burrell has news for you: Portland is no longer putting birds on things.

“I think, as a city, we’re way past the Portlandia stereotype now,” says Burrell, director of strategy for Open Signal. “I think people are trying to figure out what Portland is now that we’re getting a totally different type of media attention.”

If you’re trying to understand what Portland is now—or what it could be—go to the Open Signal website and tune to the media arts center’s new digital network. There, you’ll find taped content and livestreams covering everything from activism and faith to art and comedy.

Launched in 2017, Open Signal evolved from the public access television nonprofit Portland Community Media. Since Open Signal’s video production studios have only partially reopened, the new network offers the organization a chance to extend its currently limited reach.

“This new digital network is something that we’ve been talking about for years,” says Daniela Serna, Open Signal’s communications manager. “In a way, the pandemic gave us the time [to create it] and the need was super-pressing for it to happen.”

The network launched Aug. 22 with a seven-hour fundraiser for the Our Stories, Our Lives Black Media Maker Response Fund. Other offerings include short films from Echo Productions—which has helped underrepresented young filmmakers create everything from cooking videos to a dreamy rumination on nature and injustice—and an upcoming video game designed by Colombia-born Portland artist Laura Camila Medina that Serna cryptically describes as “a walk” through Medina’s memory.

What comes next for the network will depend on Portland.

“As an organization,” Burrell says, “I would say we have no problem changing plans at the last minute if we feel like there’s something else we need to do that’s more relevant.” BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON.

IATSE Local 28, SE 32nd Ave. and Powell Blvd.

Portland’s laid-off stage hands have formed a masksewing team.

A ritual has developed at the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 28’s union hall.

Throughout the pandemic, members of Portland’s theatrical stage workers union have stopped by the union’s Creston-Kenilworth building and to drop off bags of homemade face masks in the parking lot. Since the start of the pandemic, the group has made about 2,000 masks, which are then donated to everyone from grocery store employees to transit operators to kids organizing Black Lives Matter protests.

“Having something to focus on and doing something that you can feel good about was really important for a lot of us,” says Rebecca Lewis, chair of Local 28’s Good and Welfare Committee. “We come from an industry where we’re used to seeing each other all the time…and a lot of our sense of community is tied up with our jobs.”

The mask-making brigade began with conversations between Lewis, who worked

as props carpenter at Portland Opera before the pandemic, and some of her laidoff co-workers. That led to the creation of a sewing team (which uses a pattern from Deaconess Hospital in Indiana) that included not only laid-off wardrobe department workers, but actors, audio engineers and more.

The efforts of the ad hoc sewing team have reached beyond Oregon—they have sent masks to Washington and even Puerto Rico. It’s a project that has been profoundly meaningful to laid-off stage employees like Lewis, who doesn’t expect to return to her job at Portland Opera until May 2021.

“Losing the opportunity to collaborate on something with other humans was a really big blow, and I think it’s that way for a lot of people,” she says. “And so even though we couldn’t be in the same place, I think having some outlet where we could sort of socially distance collaborate together was a really big help for a lot of people.” BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON.