QuickTake:

Happy Pride, Lane County! There’s plenty for you to do to celebrate queer liberation in our community — not to mention the premier classical music festival of the Pacific Northwest, a hula ho’ike and more.

Happy late June, Lookout readers. This weekend has plenty for you to get up to, and — wait. Do you hear that? The sound of a Chappell Roan song in the wind? It’s Pride weekend in Eugene, and it’s time to get dancing and celebrating queer joy and liberation in our fair city.

Let’s get into it:

Elias Wolf from the Queer Choir Collective singing in a room, backed by members of the choir and lit in purple, at Whirled Pies in Eugene.
Elias Wolf sings with Eugene’s Queer Choir at a Dec. 14, 2024, concert at Whirled Pies. Credit: Sarah Lascano / Courtesy Queer Choir Collective

Queer Choir Presents: Pride Kick-Off Show + Dance Party

Before Eugene Pride begins on Saturday, check out this kickoff choir show and dance party at WOW Hall, with the intergenerational Queer Choir, new a capella group Homophonic, and DJ Lyta Blunt ringing in Eugene’s biggest, queerest weekend of the year. 

  • When: 7:30 to 11 p.m. Friday, June 26
  • Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave., Eugene
  • How much: Tickets are available online at different price points for access to different parts of the show and dance party: it’s $20 for the concert, $5 for the dance party and $25 for both.

Eugene Pride

The anchor event for local Pride celebrations is this Saturday at the Lane Events Center, where 12 hours of festivities will take over the convention center for an array of live entertainment, vendor tables and family-friendly activities.

The official Eugene Pride festival will be followed by a CHUB x PRIDE afterparty with DJ Enriquedammit from 6 to 11 p.m.

  • When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 27. An afterparty begins at 6 p.m. and will run until 11 p.m.
  • Where: Lane Events Center’s Convention Center, 796 W. 13th Ave., Eugene
  • How much: Tickets are available online on a sliding scale, from $1 to $100.

Cottage Grove Pride

This weekend also marks Cottage Grove’s first-ever Pride picnic, hosted by Ms. Gay Oregon candidate Saydie B. Goode and burlesque performer and “The Glitter Queen of Eugene,” Taylor Maiden. There will be a best-dressed Pride fashion runway competition, a drag show, live music, rock painting, face painting, lawn games and more. The picnic is organized by the new group South Lane County Pride. 

  • When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 28
  • Where: Coiner Park, 1319 E. Main St., Cottage Grove
  • How much: Free to attend, but donations are welcome via email to CGPridePicnic@gmail.com.
A group of dancers from the Hula O Nā Pua O Hawai’i Nei halau perform on a dark stage at a previous ho'ike annual dance. They are arranged in rows, with some dancers closer to the foreground. Most dancers are wearing long, patterned skirts (predominantly white with black designs) and black tops, adorned with vibrant green leaf leis around their necks and heads. Their arms are raised, and their hands are posed, suggesting synchronized movement.
Dancers from the Hula O Nā Pua O Hawai’i Nei halau perform at a previous ho’ike annual dance. Credit: Courtesy Akiko Colton / Hula O Nā Pua O Hawai’i Nei

‘The Vast Sea’ Hula Ho’ike

Last year, I spoke with dancers from the Hula O Nā Pua O Hawai’i Nei halau before their annual ho’ike, an exhibition of the hula dancing from Eugene’s hula academy (traditionally called a halau). This year’s ho’ike is this weekend, if you’re in the mood to see some top-notch hula dancing and celebrate Hawaiian culture. The theme for this year’s exhibition is Na Lei Makamae Moananuiākea, “The Vast Ocean,” with stories inspired by the ocean and traveling the sea. 

  • When: The courtyard opens at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, June 28, and the show itself begins at 2 p.m. 
  • Where: Willamette High School Auditorium, 1801 Echo Hollow Road, Eugene
  • How much: Admission is $25 and up for ages 10 and up, $15 for ages 5 to 9, and free for children 4 and younger. Tickets are available online, and will also be sold at the door.
Ken-David Masur conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony during the 2024 Oregon Bach Festival. Credit: Athena Delene

Oregon Bach Festival begins 

Guys, it’s time to go for Baroque. (I had to do at least one “Baroque” pun, and this was the least-tortured one I could think of. Please send me your better Bach puns. My editor added: “If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it.”) The Oregon Bach Festival kicks off this weekend, beginning a stretch of classy classical music in Eugene through mid-July. 

  • When: The first concert of the Oregon Bach Festival is at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 27, at Mount Angel, with an evening concert that same day at 7:30 p.m. back in Eugene. An opening celebration ringing in the whole festival is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., in the Hult Center.
  • Where: Most concerts are at the Hult Center or the Beall Concert Hall on campus at the University of Oregon, but check specific event listings for individual concert information. (“O Radiant Dawn,” that very first concert at 10 a.m. Saturday, is at the Mount Angel Abbey.)
  • How much: Ticket prices range for specific concerts. Check specific event listings for individual concert information. 

Children’s Celebration 

Willamalane is hosting a summer kickoff event for kids, where children can jump on inflatables, dance along to hours of live music, meet animals and — courtesy of the Eugene Symphony — take part in an instrument petting zoo where they can learn how to make sounds on violins, cellos, flute, clarinets, trumpets, trombones and more. 

  • When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 27
  • Where: Island Park, 200 West B St., Springfield
  • How much: Admission is free when attendees bring a nonperishable food donation. 

Movies

Special screenings

First, I wanted to call out “Princess Mononoke” at the Art House, for any Studio Ghibli-heads who are yearning for theatrical screenings. Those showtimes start this Saturday, June 27, and run through next Thursday, July 2.

Next, we have two feature film screenings — “American Thief,” about a teenage hacker, an activist, a conspiracy vlogger and a programmer during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and “Grasshoppers,” about a pair of star-crossed immigrant lovers in a Midwest gated community — coming to the Art House next week. Those screenings are part of a two-day event celebrating the NonDē filmmaking movement (“nondependent”) centered not on global distribution models, but piecemeal live, local screenings in art-house theaters. “American Thief” will screen on Tuesday, June 30, and “Grasshoppers” will screen on Wednesday, July 1, both at 7 p.m.

Box office

No one is allowed to bother me this evening after 5:30 p.m. 

Why?

I’ll be going to see “Jackass: Best and Last,” what is supposed to be the final installment in the slapstick suffering franchise anchored by the apparently indestructible Johnny Knoxville. I believe, about 90% in earnest and 10% because it’s a fun assertion to make, that the “Jackass” franchise is one of the finest displays of male friendship through life, the trials of addiction and beyond. (An aside: The first celebrity death that ever truly, earnestly stopped me in my tracks was “Jackass” cast member Ryan Dunn, who died 15 years ago this week in a car crash after driving drunk. I thought, in that unserious, young girl-media favorite way, that we would get married; a tribute to him at the end of 2022’s “Jackass Forever” had me crying. Truly, “Jackass” forever.)

Playing at Regal Valley River Center and Cinemark Eugene Springfield.

How about party girl superhero antics? Reviews have been mixed for Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl,” starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, the traumatized, drink-the-pain-away cousin to Superman who had a scene-stealing spin in James Gunn’s 2025 “Superman.” It’s most likely fun, forgettable, and about how you have to fight your own inner demons before you can do any good in the world. Sure!

Playing at Regal Valley River Center and Cinemark Eugene Springfield.

Thank you for reading, Lookout members. If my picks aren’t up to your liking, check out our events calendar for more things to do. As always, if there are any events I should include here, or any feedback for this weekly list, drop me a line at annie@lookoutlocal.com.

Annie Aguiar is the Arts and Culture Correspondent. She has reported arts news and features for national and local newsrooms, including at the Seattle Times, the Washington Post and most recently as a reporting fellow for the New York Times’ Culture desk covering arts and entertainment.