BEST Things To Do In Phoenix
Friday, August 23, 2019

The Event Oracle knows ALL the fun things to do in the land of the Phoenix sun. Select your date above then scroll down for all the Arts, Entertainment, and Events in my crystal ball...

• Carnival of Illusion

  Arizona Biltmore Resort
  2400 E Missouri Ave
  Phoenix, AZ 85016
  

  Carnival of Illusion is an evening of Old-World Magic in the style of classic entertainers such as Buster Keaton, Mae West, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Harry Houdini. The hosts have performed as house entertainers at the world's top resorts, Fortune 100 CEOs, to the 200 Most Powerful Women in America and operate the longest-running Arizona theater show. Carnival of Illusion is "Magic, Mystery, and OOOH La La."

• My First Time

  11445 N Saguaro Blvd
  Fountain Hills, AZ 85268
  

  In 1998, a website became a phenomenon as stories about ‘First Times’ poured in. Now, these stories and the unique characters in them are brought to life in this hysterical and heart-breaking comedic play.

• Legacy of Landscapes: The Art and Archaeology of Perry Mesa

  3711 W Deer Valley Rd
  Phoenix, AZ 85308
  

  Featuring the artistry of ASU alumnus photographer Pat Gorraiz, this exhibit explores the landscapes of Perry Mesa and the legacies left behind by the Ancestral People who lived there over a period of several hundred years.

  Archaeologists from Arizona State University and federal agencies began researching the mesa in the early 2000s, and that work continues today with School of Human Evolution and Social Change archaeologist David Abbott, retired National Forest Services archaeologist Scott Wood, and many others. Learn more about past research and publications.

• The Electric Guitar: Inventing an American Icon

  4725 E. Mayo Blvd.
  Phoenix, AZ 85050
  

  The Electric Guitar: Inventing an American Icon, shares the untold story of the invention of the electric guitar, an instrument that revolutionized music and popular culture forever. This exclusive exhibition showcases more than eighty of the rarest electric guitars and amplifiers in the world?from some of the first ever heard to those played by the most famous electric guitarists known today. Decades before rock and roll, these instruments jolted, energized, and even confused the eardrums of the nation. The Electric Guitar: Inventing an American Icon encompasses the history of the electric guitar from the very beginning, including its most experimental period of the 1930s and 1940s, and gives a glimpse into the instrument’s influence on genres that defined American music.

• Grand Procession: Contemporary Plains Indian Dolls from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection

  Heard Museum
  2301 North Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Grand Procession celebrates an exceptional collection of dolls, also known as soft sculptures, created by Jamie Okuma (Luiseño and Shoshone-Bannock), Rhonda Holy Bear (Cheyenne River Sioux and Lakota) and three generations of Growing Thunder family members; Joyce Growing Thunder, Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty and Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Assiniboine and Sioux). The dolls provide a figurative reference to Indigenous peoples from the Great Plains and Great Basin regions who lived in those areas during the late nineteenth century. Holy Bear, Okuma, and the three Growing Thunder family members embellish each doll with tiny micro-beads in intricate detail. The 23 dolls included in the exhibition represent the largest private collection of its kind.

• American Indian Veterans National Memorial

  Heard Museum
  2301 North Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Service and sacrifice spanning more than three centuries are honored in the first and only known national memorial to American Indian veterans of many conflicts. The Memorial, located outside the Collector’s Room of the Heard Museum Shop, consists of several sizable sculptures by acclaimed Native artists Chiricahua Apache sculptor Allan Houser (1914-1994) and Michael Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo). The 10-foot sculpture Unconquered II is the last sculpture created by Houser. Naranjo is a Vietnam War veteran who suffered an injury that rendered him blind. Naranjo has been carving his meant-to-be-touched sculptures by feel ever since.

• Pablita Velarde’s Studio

  Heard Museum
  2301 North Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  One of the leading painters of the 20th century, Pablita Velarde/Tse Tsan “Golden Dawn” (Santa Clara Pueblo) (1918-2006) was a pioneer as a woman artist in an era and a community where painting was a male art form.

  Her painting began in a traditional manner but evolved through many original styles and media. She engaged in the experimentation that the best artists practice, in media or style. She cared deeply about depicting traditional lifeways that she feared would be lost and using her art to tell the stories of those lifeways. Over the decades she was an effective spokesperson discussing her art and the larger issues of the Native art world.

  This exhibit contains an accurate recreation with original objects of Pablita’s working studio, giving insight to the public of this extraordinary artist’s process.

• It’s Your Turn – Color!

  2301 North Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  This family-friendly gallery offers a fun and educational component to our exhibition Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles. Weavers use color, pattern, texture, and their imaginations when they make textiles. At times, the colors are so bright and the patterns are so complicated that our eyes jump when we look at them. Some of these textiles are called Eyedazzlers. Artists working in every medium use these elements of design when they create.

  In this gallery, everyone has a chance to experiment with color and pattern. Try each activity and see which one you like the best!

  Pick a color then follow your color to all of the activities!
  Make a Sheep
  Make a Match
  Weave Away
  Light and Shadow
  Make a Pattern
  Create with Color
  Color a Postcard

• Creative Casting

  Heard Museum
  2301 North Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Copper and tin come together to make bronze, a medium that offers wonderful creativity for artists in the choices of texture and patinas. Sculptor John Hoover, for example, whose earlier work was carved from cedar, found in bronze a medium that could express the qualities of his cedar carvings.

  All of the sculpture in Creative Casting came to the Heard Museum’s permanent collection through important bequests. We are honored that two knowledgeable collectors, Les Goldberg and Ann B. Ritt, chose to remember the Heard in their wills and share their collections with the public.

• American Scenes

  Phoenix Art Museum
  1625 N. Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
  

  American Scenes/Americas Seen features works spanning the 1930s and 1940s by celebrated muralists and abstract artists including Diego Rivera, Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Carlos Mérida, Alice Trumbull Mason, Doris Rosenthal, and others.

  During the thirties and forties, many artists reacted against the abstract styles favored by the first generation of American moderns, dismissing non-objective art as “un-American.” Favoring representational modes, artists on both sides of the border pursued variations on several period styles variously called in the United States as the American Scene, Regionalism, and Social Realism.

  In Mexico, the Mural Movement shaped by the utopian fervor of the Revolution was initially a state-sponsored project to bring public art to the masses, translating nationalist ideologies into visual form. Some celebrated muralists like Diego Rivera also created easel paintings of idealized peasants marketed to foreign tourists, and Alfredo Ramos Martinez’s heroic paintings of indigenous peoples were in great demand during his sojourn in California in the late thirties.

• Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist

  Phoenix Art Museum
  1625 N. Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
  

  Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist is the first exhibition on the little-known American painter in more than 24 years. Born to American parents in Stuttgart, Germany, Agnes Pelton (1881-1961) and her family briefly lived in Basel, Switzerland before returning to the United States in 1888.

  A graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, she began experimenting with abstraction in the early 1900s in New York, eventually exhibiting in the Armory Show of 1913 at the invitation of Walt Kuhn.

• Yayoi Kusama: You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies

  Phoenix Art Museum
  1625 N. Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
  

  Yayoi Kusama’s You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies is one of the artist's more whimsical works. Inspired by a Japanese folktale about a person in a field with 10,000 fireflies, Kusama's work brings the fairy tale to life. Beginning with drawings and paintings, Yayoi Kusama’s work transformed from 2-D pieces to large-scale installations, symbolic of the obsessive and massive nature of her ideas. Subsequently, Kusama’s art began to take large forms and often covers and utilizes entire rooms and spaces.

  The piece is a dark room lined with mirrors on every surface and strands of looping LED lighting suspended from the ceiling. This deceptively small room feels as if it’s a vast, infinite galaxy of lighting and allows the viewer to enter and be surrounded, or obliterated by Kusama’s fireflies. 

  Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room explores the psychedelic sensations of the ‘self’ and the artist’s ongoing hallucinations that started when she was a child. In this work, Kusama’s repetitive and extensive use of polka dots, mirrors, and LED lights explores infinite repetition and encourages you to ‘obliterate’ your personality and become one with eternity. 
   
  A pioneer of perceptual experiences, Kusama expresses a complex balance between her psychological obsessions and her aesthetic control over them. In the late 1950s, she left Japan for New York City. Her work spans paintings, performances, installations, sculptures, films, fashion, and literary works. They transcended the Pop and Minimalist movements of the twentieth century and reflect the mind-altering spirituality of hippie culture.

• Landmarks

  Phoenix Art Museum
  1625 N. Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
  

  
  Welcome! Whether you have traveled from near or far, you likely used a landmark to find your way here. Landmarks can be a part of nature, such as a tree or a mountain, or something human constructed. They define boundaries and may be sites of significant events in our collective or personal histories.
  The works of art in this gallery explore ways artists relate to and represent the land. From sites in national parks to things one might see in a desert or urban environment, the artists gathered here investigate different kinds of landmarks.  
  These features of the landscape help us know where we are in the world and orient us through unfamiliar territory. Over time, they might reorient or reconnect us to a place and reveal changes in the physical world and ourselves. 
  Each of us has connections to places that are important to us. What are the landmarks that define your world?
   

• Get Charged Up

  Arizona Science Center
  600 E. Washington St.
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Humans are naturally curious and the science of observation helps us understand the natural world around us – how things work and why.

  Bed of Nails
  Lie down on a bed of nails. With more than 1,000 nails, each nail supports only a fraction of your weight so the nails won't hurt you.
  
  Giant Lever
  Learn how levers give us a mechanical advantage in this giant game of tug-of-war. It's not about how hard you pull the rope, but where.
  
  Pulley Power
  Go for a ride in one of our three pulley chairs.
  
  Color Mixing
  Experiment with a prism to split white light into its different wavelengths and combine them to form different colors.
  
  Electromagnetic Workbench
  Experience the invisible forces of electromagnetism as objects move before your very eyes.
  
  Electric Circuits
  Build your own circuit and explore the science behind basic electrical components, voltage, current, polarity and Ohm’s Law.

• Inspired by History: A Collaborative Exhibit with the Vision Gallery

  300 S Chandler Village Dr
  Chandler, AZ 85226
  

  Our everyday objects may not be so ordinary when seen through the eyes of an artist. Using abstraction, manipulation and interpretation, local emerging and mid-career artists created works in response to objects from the Chandler Museum artifact collection. The exhibit considers memory, continuity and change over time through artworks that explore the connections between people and objects. 

• Forces of Nature

  Arizona Science Center
  600 E. Washington St.
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Immersion Theater
  What does it feel like to be in the middle of a hurricane, tornado, wildfire, volcanic eruption or monsoon? There's only one way to find out. This five-minute show happens every 15 minutes. Supported by a grant from the Freeport-McMoRan Foundation.
  
  Magic Planet®
  See the last six weeks of weather patterns around the planet. Explore the cloud and air patterns that create major storms around the world. Located in the Wells Fargo Classroom.
  
  Stardust Faces of Science
  Meet three scientists with ties to Arizona: a volcanologist, a hydrologist and a meteorologist. The scientists explain, in their own words, what they do and what their work means to the rest of the world. They also share some of the real-life tools they use in their fields of expertise.

• Agnes Pelton

  1625 N. Central Ave. Central Avenue and McDowell Road
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist is the first survey on the obscure American painter in more than 24 years. A graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, she began experimenting with abstraction in the early 1900s in New York, eventually exhibiting in the Armory Show of 1913 at the invitation of Walt Kuhn. She painted conventional desert landscapes to make a living, but it was her abstract studies of earth and light, biomorphic compositions of delicate veils, shimmering stars, and atmospheric horizon lines, that distinguished her work.

   

  A believer in numerology, astrology, and faith healing, Pelton’s abstract compositions propelled her into an esoteric world epitomized by the Transcendental Painting Group (1938-1942), a short-lived group that promoted abstract, non-objective art. Although Pelton received some attention during her lifetime, she has been relatively unknown within the field of American Art. Approximately 40 – 45 works will comprise this exhibition shedding light on Pelton’s artistic contribution to American Modernism.

• My Digital World

  Arizona Science Center
  600 E. Washington St.
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Stop by and explore the world of digital communication technology without hearing the words, "If you break it, you buy it." This gallery introduces visitors to the science behind digital communications, how they work and how they are utilized to create and share ideas and information.
  
  The future is now and we are ready to show you how former science fiction technologies are becoming a part of your everyday life. Explore the gadgets that enable us to share messages, ideas, music and images whenever we want at the touch of a button.
  
  Stop by and learn about these innovations in a very real way that connects you to "Your" Digital World.
  
  Virtual Sand
  Discover how the digital world and physics intermingle with Virtual Sand. Use your whole body to interact with dynamic media to learn and play with digital sand!
  
  Warp Your Image
  Twist and bend your face with Warp Your Image, using pixels to create digital art! Coordinate with buttons to explore just how pixels can alter your world!
  
  Harkins Ham Shack
  When all forms of communications have failed the Harkins Ham Shack is where you'll want to be. Learn how to use the most reliable line of communication with the radio experts at the Ham Shack. Want to learn more about Ham radios?

• Solarville

  Arizona Science Center
  600 E. Washington St.
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Step off the elevator and board the Solar Light Rail Station to begin your journey. Once in Solarville, you will stroll through scientific labs that study the sun and how to harness and distribute sustainable green energy – from algae, alternative fuels and poop.
  
  Lend a hand in developing wind engine turbines and inventing new garbage waste systems. Also learn about cutting-edge technologies being implemented to address sustainable energy in businesses and cities around the world.
  
  Explore ways you can utilize solar and renewable energy in your everyday life, from home appliances to harnessing the power of the changing seasons.

• Selections from the Schorr Collection

  Phoenix Art Museum
  1625 N. Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
  

  
  David and Hannah Lewis have spent four decades carefully and painstakingly amassing one of the most important collections of Old Master and 19th-century paintings in the world, and one of the largest private collections in the United Kingdom. With their first purchase in 1967, the Lewises were not art experts, first beginning their collection for the sole purpose of finding art to hang on the walls of their new home in North London. What would transpire would become a passion that would consume their lives for decades to come, and forever transform the galleries of museums all over the world. 

  Today, the Schorr Collection, named for the family of Hannah Lewis, numbers more than 500 works, ranging from tender 15th-century devotional images through to 19th-century French impressionist landscapes and 20th-century Modern Masters. Rather than sequester the treasures of their collection away in private galleries, the Lewis family shares works from the Schorr Collection, one of the largest private collections in the United Kingdom, with public museums on a long-term basis.

  A recipient of long-term loans from the Schorr Collection in 2013, Phoenix Art Museum will now welcome an additional 30 paintings. This significant group will include a full-length 17-century portrait by Anthony van Dyck from his Genoa period and the great Death of Seneca (c. 1625), by Gerrit van Honthorst.

• Mummies of the World: The Exhibition

  600 E. Washington St.
  Phoenix, AZ 85004
  

  Mummies of the World: The Exhibition features 40 real human and animal mummies and 85 rare artifacts from across the globe. This blockbuster exhibition, arriving in Phoenix straight from Budapest, Hungary, provides a window into the lives of ancient people from every region of the world including Europe, South America and Ancient Egypt, offering unprecedented insights into past cultures and civilizations.
  
  The exhibition will enthrall guests with dramatic displays of the mummies and their personal stories, as well as state-of-the-art multimedia stations that will take guests on a 4,500-year journey to explore the mummies’ history and origins as well as how they were created.

• Silk and Jade: Chinese Aristocratic Treasures

  Phoenix Art Museum
  1625 N. Central Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
  

  
  Silk was first developed in ancient China. The earliest example of silk has been found in tombs at a Neolithic site and dates back 8,500 years. Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress. Silks were originally reserved for the emperors of China for their own use and gifts to others, but spread gradually through trade both geographically and socially to many regions of Asia and the rest of the world. Because of its texture and luster, silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants.  In addition to being used to make clothes and other textiles, silk was also used for traditional paintings.
   
  Jade refers to an ornamental mineral, mostly known for its green varieties.   It can refer to either of two different minerals: nephrite, a silicate of calcium and magnesium, or jadeite, a silicate of sodium and aluminium.  Nephrite jade has been mined and worked in China since Neolithic times.  Jade was used to create many utilitarian and ceremonial objects, from indoor decorative items to jade burial suits.  “Anciently superior men found the likeness of all excellent qualities in jade.  Soft, smooth, glossy, it appeared to them like benevolence; fine, compact, and strong, like intelligence; angular but not sharp and cutting, like righteousness; its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws, like loyalty.” In these words the sage Confucius captured how the Chinese have felt about jade for thousands of years.
   

• Gaman: Enduring Japanese American Internment at Gila River

  300 S Chandler Village Dr
  Chandler, AZ 85226
  

  During World War II over 16,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the west coast to Gila River Internment Camp, near Chandler, simply because they looked like the enemy. This poignant exhibit demonstrates how the Japanese value gaman, enduring the seemingly impossible with patience and dignity, guided these American citizens, through loss and incarceration in the Arizona desert.  See the photos, hear the stories, read the names of incarcerees, and view the community contributed paper cranes in this transformative exhibition. 

• I Have a Name

  1300 N. College Avenue
  Tempe, AZ 85281
  

  “I Have a Name” features a collection of black and white photographs of the people on the street by Jon Linton. Through this dramatic collection, Linton puts names to the faces of the people who live in and around our communities, who have no home to call their own. This exhibition will be accompanied by extensive programming exploring the many facets of the homeless population, from the demographics of the homeless, to their impact on communities, to the service organizations who serve them. Don’t miss this riveting exhibition and programs.

• A Place for All People

  1300 N. College Avenue
  Tempe, AZ 85281
  

  This exhibition explores the African American experience, evoking the power of oration and freedom stories, the brilliance of artistic achievement, and the soaring heights of cultural expression, philosophy, sports, and politics through a series of posters from the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture. The posters serve as the backdrop for displays telling the story of African Americans in Arizona. From the churches and schools to the boardroom; to the battlefields and to the neighborhood barbershops and beauty shops where important news of the day was discussed – the stories weave a rich tapestry of African American heritage.

• Sister Act

  7701 W. Paradise Lane
  Peoria, AZ 85382
  

  No booze? No sex? No drugs?… No way!
  
  The mob is after Deloris. The solution? Hide as a nun in a traditional convent! Here Within These Walls, she finds herself at odds with both the rigid lifestyle and an uptight Mother Superior. Deloris breathes new life into the church and community (Take Me to Heaven), but blows her cover. How is this Sister Act going to save her? A sparkling tribute to the universal power of friendship, Sister Act is reason to REJOICE!

• Skewed News Hour

  6040 N. 7th St.
  Phoenix, AZ 85014
  

  You pick the news, we pick it apart. Every Friday at 7pm, you select news articles of the day and SNH performers will use them as inspiration for their improvised scenes. The Skewed News Hour takes some of the best improvisors in the Valley and throws today’s hottest headlines their way to create great comedy. Turn off your TV, throw away your laptop, and stay up-to-date in a way you never imagined!

• THE MUSIC OF COWBOY BEBOP Performed By MAMMOTH ENSEMBLE

  Crescent Ballroom Cocina 10
  308 N. 2nd Avenue
  Phoenix, AZ 85003
  

  Mammoth Ensemble is here to emulate the spicy sounds behind the classic anime "Cowboy Bebop", a space-western following a group of bounty hunters traveling planet-to-planet trying to make ends meet. The music of Cowboy Bebop was brought to life by "The Seatbelts", an eclectic jazz/blues band from Japan, lending the show to a mixed bag of genres that stick in the minds of fans both old and new.