Dave Knows Portland

Offbeat Belly Dance (20-January-2012)

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Offbeat Belly DanceEvery third Friday of the month the Blue Monk (3341 SE Belmont) hosts the Offbeat Belly Dance collective, a club rocking, good timing, genre-defying gang of badass belly dancers.

This Friday, January 20, 2012 is now exception: Offbeat Belly Dance! Inaugural 2012 Edition! Fun! Fabulous! Free Show!

Can you feel the excitement in the air? Yea verily, tis electric!

Come be a part of the magic, as we gather again in the depths of the Blue Monk’s welcoming and charmingly appointed basement jazz club to stretch, sparkle, and shatter the very limits of the art of belly dance!

Joining us this month are returning champions:

Zighala Zurah!

Vee!

Jasmine!

Friends of Offbeat:

Natasha!

Samira Alemana!

And come see the Offbeat debut of the fabulous and charismatic:

Ayomi!

Friends, Romans, countrymen, goths, pirates, ninjas, panda lovers – this is going to be an amazing night of passionately inventive and delightfully dazzling dance! And it’s free!

In addition to the mindblowing radness of the dancing, the Blue Monk offers tasty libations (the full bar! the dizzying taplist! the delectable drink specials!) and fortifying foodstuffs (the beet salad! the pizza! the other stuff that’s super tasty but I don’t order it because it’s not vegan but I hear it’s awesome!), served up with a smile by charming and attentive bartenders and waitstaff. Seriously, it’s gonna be awesome. You should be there.

Join us this Friday! Bring your friends, your coworkers, your family members, and/or anyone else who seems fun and who you think would benefit from a night of fun and fellowship! Wooo!

Start your 2012 off right with our signature blend of off-kilter awesomeness! Viva Offbeat! Yiyiyi!

Join Karissa, the Ringleader of Offbeat Belly Dance (pictured to the right), and the other fabulous dancers at the show Friday night.

Individually, the members of the Offbeat Belly Dance collective perform at shows throughout the Portland area, but on the 3rd Friday of the month they come together at the Blue Monk to perform in a rollicking belly dance revue. One of the things that makes it offbeat, is that the dancers choose whatever kind of music they like. Karissa tells me this has included traditional Middle Eastern music, zydeco, AC/DC, Strauss, The Pogues, hip hop, jazz, blues, Old Crow Medicine Show, the Spice Girls, and just about everything else.

The shows are free, and go from about 7pm until 9:30pm.

Visit OffbeatBellyDance.com for more information. You can also become a fan on Facebook, and follow the genre-defying, good timing gang of belly dancers in Portland OR, w/Karissa as ringmaster/carnival barker/propagandiston on Twitter at @OffbeatBelly

Photo credit: Offbeat Belly Dance

Free Admission at Lan Su Chinese Garden (January 2-9, 2012)

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Lan Su Chinese GardenPortland’s Lan Su Chinese Garden (NW 3rd and Everett) is offering free admission for eight days from Monday, January 2 through Monday, January 9, 2011.

Just a reminder that Lan Su will be closing at 4pm on New Year’s Eve and closed all day Sunday for New Years. We’ll re-open for our Eight Great Days of free admission beginning Jan. 2 at 10am through Jan. 9. Hope to see you here!

Regular adult admission is $8.50, so this is a great deal! Heather and I visited the garden with our friend Kate during spring a couple years ago. Visiting in winter should be an interesting experience. We may have to take advantage of the tea house this time.

Stumptown Stories: Mythology of Daily Life or “How Beer Saved the World” (3-January-2012)

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Stumptown Stories: Mythology of Daily Life or "How Beer Saved the World"The Stumptown Stories series, geared to everyone who loves this city we live in, takes place most Tuesdays at Jack London bar (basement of the Rialto, SW 4th and Alder). Free to get in, but must be 21 or over – there’s a full bar!

The inaugural 2012 installment takes place this Tuesday, January 3. The topic is Mythology of Daily Life or “How Beer Saved the World.”

Mythologist Kate Bruner defines myth and speaks to how it has affected much of daily lives. Learn why a coward is called, “yellow” and what African mythology has to do with Bugs Bunny, along with why we use the term “werewolf” instead of “manwolf”.

Doors open at 5pm for this free event (21 and over only). Presentation begins at 7:30pm.

Back Fence PDX (23-January-2012)

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Back Fence PDXThe first Back Fence PDX story telling show of 2012 takes place on Monday, January 23.

Story telling show? How’s that work?:

Our Back Fence Storytelling event is the kissing cousin to San Francisco’s Porchlight Storytelling Series. It is an evening with seven people telling true, unmemorized ten-minute stories based on the month’s theme. The stories must not have been performed publicly prior to their Back Fence PDX telling.

Heather and I have thoroughly enjoyed the several Back Fence PDX productions we’ve been to. For one thing free cupcakes from Saint Cupcake make the rounds at intermissions. The story tellers are always courageous and their stories are often amusing, always entertaining, and sometimes gut wrenching or cringe inducing – you really don’t know what to expect!

The theme of the January show is I Didn’t Think This Through. The lineup includes best selling author Laurie Notaro, comedianMary Van Note, photographer Carli Davidson, and more!

And, thanks to a generous grant from Portland Center Stage, admission to this installment of Back Fence PDX is FREE – tickets will become available on Tuesday, January 3 at 10am!