MSA Event Calendar

¡Ven a crear con nosotros! / Come create with us!

La Escalera Amarilla is a community-based workshop from La Mesa Turquesa that combines Spanish language learning with biographical storytelling. Open to anyone with even the most basic knowledge of Spanish, this 3-day, 8-hour workshop invites participants to explore vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation through both individual and collective narrative.

Together, we will practice speaking Spanish in front of a small, supportive group—building confidence, clarity, and courage. Participants will collaboratively create a short performance that weaves language, movement, and personal story as a way of deepening our relationship to Spanish and to one another.

January 16, 17, 18
Friday 6:00–8:00 PM; Saturday & Sunday 10:00 AM–2:00 PM

Produced by La Mesa Turquesa at Mayo Street Arts

Ages 13 and up
$125 with scholarships available

Join us for a captivating evening featuring the award-winning flamenco documentary La Singla, which tells the story of one of the most extraordinary and resilient flamenco dancers of all time.

After the screening, stay for a Q&A session with FLOR Director Lindsey Bourassa and FLOR Chair María Mazorra, where audience members are invited to share their thoughts and ask questions about the film and the rich tradition of flamenco art.

🎟️ Tapas included with your ticket 

🍷 Wine & beverages available for purchase at the bar

🤝 Co-presented by FLOR and Mayo Street Arts

Chamber Series: night sky and the number pi – featuring Michele Kennedy

This concert takes the audience on a journey through a rich tapestry of intense emotional landscapes: relentless determination, the jubilant celebration of true love, the sorrow of forbidden passion, and the searing frustration of being misunderstood. These deeply evocative works are paired with pieces that explore quieter, more reflective themes—visiting a coffee shop, contemplating the intricate structure of an orange, gazing at the night sky, and pondering the endless mystery of the number pi. This deliberate contrast offers the audience both a musical reprieve and a gentle reminder that our emotional experience does not always need to be dominated by extremes. In embracing the mundane with the same reverence as the monumental, these composers invite us to find meaning and vitality in the everyday. Palaver will be joined by acclaimed soprano Michele Kennedy.

Gallery Opening: Friday, February 6 from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM

On view at performances and other public events until October 23, 2025

FREE to All Ages

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Detritus: A two-woman show constructed from neighborhood trash

works by Kate Gerwig and Jill DaltonKate Gerwig and Jill Dalton are two artists living in East Bayside, one of Portland’s most littered neighborhoods. Responding to the refuse in their immediate environment, they find treasures in others’ trash. While their work looks very different, they both use discarded materials to ask questions about our consume-and-dispose culture and its impact on our surroundings. They are both making things that are literally “products of our environment.”

Heavy beats, dusty vinyl, dirty synthesizers, and vivid lyricism are his specialties. Graphic Melee is an emcee, producer, and DJ dedicated to his craft. He makes Hip-Hop for hungry minds.  For this performance at Mayo Street Arts, Graphic Melee will be performing music from several of his albums including cuts from STEREO (his 25th album release), Organic (recorded utilizing only live instrumentation), Synthetic (recorded using only synthesizer based instrumentation), and a new album that drops this spring.  Come see the range and breath that he brings to his work.  

An emerging act at world music festivals across the U.S., Tuvergen Band (“galloping” in Mongolian) is a Chicago-based folk-fusion trio founded by Tamir Hargana (lead vocals, folk lutes, morin khuur), Naizal Hargana (morin khuur, vocals), and Brent Roman (percussion, didgeridoo, vocals) in 2020. Hailing from Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, Tamir and Naizal bring some of the country’s most distinctive sounds to Tuvergen Band, including the cello-like horsehead fiddle (morin khuur), various folk lutes (the Tuvan doshpuluur and West Mongolian tovshuur), and khoomii throat singing. An ethnomusicologist and Asian percussion specialist, Roman augments these sounds with a custom hybrid drum kit of twenty global percussion instruments and didgeridoo. The trio use this rich instrumental palette to perform what they call “modern nomadic music,” incorporating bluegrass, blues, rock, and more into its repertoire of
Mongolian and Tuvan folk songs and originals.

Portland String Quartet: Point of Departure

This program explores moments when composers stepped beyond the familiar to chart new artistic territory. Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz reveals a lyrical, late-Romantic voice rarely associated with his later atonal work. Ken Benshoof’s Sweeter Than Wine blends classical form with American folk and jazz, creating music that feels both intimate and fresh. Eleanor Alberga’s String Quartet No. 2 bursts with rhythmic drive and bold contrasts, drawing on African-Caribbean roots. Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 2, written during wartime exile, transforms folk melodies into something strikingly original.

Each piece reflects a turning point – a departure from the expected – inviting listeners to experience the spirit of creative risk and reinvention.

Aquarius Funkk & Prismatic Productions Presents: The Lovers’ Ball

Closing out February, we are paying our respects to St. Valentine with a mini ball for the lovers! Featuring 5 categories, with a titillating special performance that will surely leave you gagged and begging for more!

Hosted by Aquarius Funkk
DJ Ben Spalding
With a secret special performance – stay tuned!

Dirty Gerts is a delightful story of growing up in Vermont during the mid-1960s rendered in a groovy blend of historical fiction, 60s pop culture, and colorful confetti. Using paper pop-ups and old style paper dolls, PuppetKabob shows the challenges a young middle schooler, Carol Lee Bell, confronts about fitting in, creativity and acceptance.

Have you ever heard the phrase: “She thinks she’s Queen Elizabeth, but she’s Dirty Gerts to me!” No? Well now that you have, come and explore the story behind the saying in PuppetKabob’s latest pop-up creation “Dirty Gerts” – a show about growing pains. Made entirely out of re-purposed paper products!

PuppetKabob’s latest creation “Dirty Gerts” is a paper pop-up extravaganza! A groovy blend of historical fiction, 60s pop culture and colorful confetti! Come on get happy with middle schooler Carol Lee Bell – as she finds the fold to fitting in – and discovers the best way is to not actually fit at all!

In this full-day workshop, participants will learn how to incorporate various mechanisms and rigging points into paper pop-ups to turn them into animatable or puppeteer-able, hand-held (also known as: direct contact), and/or table-top puppets.

Sarah will also demonstrate how to direct intention, concentration, and energy from within oneself, down the arms, into the hands, and through a paper puppet to give it its own independent focus and breath – the two elements that give any object life.

Participants will experiment with one of the following: immersive experience, forced perspective, or symbolism—to recreate a moment in the form of a short story, knowing that each of these provides different information that shapes and directly influences how their story or memory unfolds.

Finally, participants will present their projects to each other. For some, this will be a new challenge and like stepping outside their comfort zone; however, everyone should feel supported during this brave step so it feels both personally and creatively fulfilling, as well as productive. Each artist needs to gather information individually to continue developing their puppet pieces and to feel empowered outside the classroom.

Ages 15+

$80 (Price includes materials and one ticket to Sarah Frechette’s performance of Dirty Gerts at Mayo Street Arts on Fri 3/27.)

Dirty Gerts is a delightful story of growing up in Vermont during the mid-1960s rendered in a groovy blend of historical fiction, 60s pop culture, and colorful confetti. Using paper pop-ups and old style paper dolls, PuppetKabob shows the challenges a young middle schooler, Carol Lee Bell, confronts about fitting in, creativity and acceptance.

Have you ever heard the phrase: “She thinks she’s Queen Elizabeth, but she’s Dirty Gerts to me!” No? Well now that you have, come and explore the story behind the saying in PuppetKabob’s latest pop-up creation “Dirty Gerts” – a show about growing pains. Made entirely out of re-purposed paper products!

PuppetKabob’s latest creation “Dirty Gerts” is a paper pop-up extravaganza! A groovy blend of historical fiction, 60s pop culture and colorful confetti! Come on get happy with middle schooler Carol Lee Bell – as she finds the fold to fitting in – and discovers the best way is to not actually fit at all!