Welcome to Best Bets, a weekly column in which The Oregonian’s arts desk highlights selected theater, classical music and dance performances and visual arts events. Here are our picks for Feb. 3-9.
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters had three of her recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, was nominated for Emmy and Academy awards, and had a U.S. postage stamp issued in her honor. But success came with much struggle. Waters’ stormy life story is the subject of Portland Center Stage’s latest production, the one-woman musical play “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” Various times and dates, Feb. 4-March 19, Ellyn Bye Studio, Portland Center Stage at The Armory, 128 N.W. 11th Ave. $30-$40, pcs.org or 503-445-3700.
“Veils”
Pacific University’s Department of Theatre & Dance gets topical with “Veils,” a play about two young Muslim women, one American and one Egyptian, who meet as students in Cairo just before the Arab Spring revolution in 2010. The play, which won the 2015 American Theatre Critics Association’s M. Elizabeth Osborn Award, is presented in partnership with the university’s Muslim Student Association and Center for Peace and Spirituality. 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 9-11, 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, Teatro Barbara, Warner Hall, Pacific University, 2043 College Way, Forest Grove. $5-$8, tinyurl.com/pacutickets or 503-352-2918.
Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony
The Oregon Symphony will perform one of the best-known symphonies of all time – famous in part because of its “Goin’ Home” movement, which inspired the spiritual of the same name. The program also includes music by Beethoven and performance by Grammy Award-winning pianist Yefim Bronfman. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway. Tickets start at $23; orsymphony.org or 503-228-1353.
Going Home, Dvorak’s Largo, Harlem Lyric Theater & Opera Co. from Harlem Lyric Theater & Opera Co. on Vimeo.
Arvo Part Festival
Arvo Part, an Estonian Orthodox composer, has been called “the most performed living composer in the world” and has received France’s most prestigious award, the Legion of Honor. Find out why at this festival, which according to the organizer, the Portland choral group Cappella Romana, is the first in North America to celebrate Part’s vocal, choral, orchestral and instrumental works. The festival finale includes a performance by Third Angle New Music and the U.S. premiere of the 2012 choral-string orchestral work “Alleluia-Tropus.” Various times, dates and locations, Sunday, Feb. 5-Sunday, Feb. 12. Tickets start at $12; apfest.org or 503-236-8202.
Arvo Prt – Alleluia-Tropus
“Timsila & the Cypress Tree”
Put together Lakota creation stories, Zen riddles and Japanese Butoh dance, and you get this production, overseen by Portland choreographer Meshi Chavez. The production, which explores the human condition and the spirit worlds, features Cleveland High School students and is the culmination of a nine-week training series. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5, The Headwaters Theatre, 55 N.E. Farragut St., Suite 9. $20, Brown Paper Tickets or 971-258-0748.
“Yellow Terror”
Seventy-five years ago this month, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, including several thousand from Oregon. The anniversary is the ideal context for the exhibit “Yellow Terror: The Collections and Paintings of Roger Shimomura,” a Pop artist, Seattle native and former internee who explores the role of media and pop culture in what he calls “sociopolitical issues of ethnicity.” On view, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5-July 16, Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, 121 N.W. Second Age. $3-$5, oregonnikkei.org or 503-224-1458.
If you would like your event to be considered for inclusion in Best Bets, email the details to fineartsbestbets@oregonian.com.
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