Zipline Adventures Eco Tour
Thursday through Sunday by advance reservation only
According to Zipline, the “Eco Tour” is its most popular. Expect sensational foliage after all that rain. While learning about the flora and fauna of the Sonoran Desert and foothills, guests span five ziplines, ranging in length from 400 feet to 1,500 feet. You and a friend can take the last and longest run on a dual line. Weight limits are 50 to 250 lbs.
Arizona Zipline Adventures and Peppersauce Kitchen, 35406 S. Mt. Lemmon Road, Oracle, $94, store hours 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, www.ziparizona.com
“La Bella and the Beast”
Saturdays and Sundays through Feb. 11
Once upon a time, a kind and smart young woman and her nana got themselves out of an impossible fix by collaborating with the ridiculous prince and silly fairy who’d created the dilemma in the first place. Their success depended on patience, acceptance and trust among unlikely allies, compensating for each other’s shortcomings. The moral? Magic is unreliable! Collaboration wins the day. Director Michael Martinez created the original score.
Children’s Theatre Stage, Live Theatre Workshop, 3322 E. Fort Lowell Road, $12, $10 children, 5 p.m. Saturdays, 1 p.m. Sundays, www.livetheatreworkshop.org
Bernal Gallery: “Portraits”
Through Mar. 8
A new exhibit features portraits depicting cultural, temporal and personal interpretations of identity through a range of artistic lenses. Assembled from the collections and studios of local collectors and artists, and from the Charlie James Gallery of Los Angeles, the exhibit features the work of 20 artists, including the gallery’s namesake. They present their diverse points of view in a range of media, including painting, photography, mixed-media and sculpture. A reception and lecture take place from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 15.
Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery, Center for the Arts, Pima West Campus, 2202 W. Anklam Road, Tucson, free, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. To 3 p.m. Friday,
www.pima.edu/community/the-arts/louis-carlos-bernal-gallery/index.html
85th Annual Tohono O’odham Rodeo and Fair
Feb. 1 – Feb. 4
Four days of events include a parade, traditional dances, a waila contest, a business expo, a pow wow, arts and craft vendors, food vendors, exhibit booths, a carnival, an all-ages, fun run-walk, a wild horse race and a tournament of the traditional O’odham women’s game, Toka, which shares some aspects of field hockey. The biggest attraction for visitors, though, is the all-Indian rodeo. It includes events exclusively for youth, women, roping teams and rodeo masters.
Eugene P. Tashquinth Sr. Livestock Complex, three miles west of Sells, Arizona, along State Route 86, $8 cash only, less for youth, free for seniors, veterans and military, www.tonation-nsn.gov/ton-annual-rodeo/
First Saturday Makers’ Market
Feb. 3
Xerocraft may be the most innovative space in Tucson. It’s worth a visit simply to grasp the radical scope of its vision: Provide a space with all the dedicated rooms, equipment, materials and collegial skill-sharing that anyone could require to invent, create, record, broadcast and otherwise develop any idea they are committed enough to realize. Some of the results are items that make great gifts, ornaments and décor. Once a month, their makers put them up for sale.
Xerocraft, 101 W. Sixth Street, #111, Tucson, free, 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.,
www. xerocraft.org
Tucson Star Party
Feb. 3
Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association will team up with editors from Astronomy Magazine for astronomy talks, solar observing, evening stargazing, a satellite radio demonstration and safe solar viewing. Talks will cover last year’s much-heralded annular solar eclipse and the upcoming total solar eclipse, as well as a method of correlating distant sky phenomena with history on earth, the role of astronomy in the Civil War and the legacy of Comet Shoemaker. Night sky telescope viewing includes observing planets, star clusters, several star systems, nebulae, galaxies and more.
Pima Community College, 8181 E. Irvington Road, Tucson, free, 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.,
www. tucsonastronomy.org/event/tucson-star-party-4
“Outer Flame:
Lost Barrio Songwriter Circle”
Feb. 3
Beloved Tucson guitarist, singer and songwriter Rainer Ptacek was known simply as “Rainer,” locally and in the rarefied atmosphere of first-call blues guitarists in Nashville and Europe. He wrote a memorable song called “The Inner Flame.” His close friend and barrio neighbor, Howe Gelb, has sometimes said of events like this that they’re all for Rainer. Midwestern folk musician David Huckfelt joins Lost Barrio regulars Gelb, Billy Sedlmayr, and Gabriel Sullivan for this song swap.
Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress Street, Tucson, $18, 8 p.m.,
www.Hotelcongress.com
Late Night Radio Hour:
“Brave New World”
Feb. 3
Imagine if radio were your only entertainment. You’d have to know that the horses’ hoofs in a cowboy show were man-made on the spot, like the clang of the trolley and the creak of an attic door. How did they do it? The art is called “foley” and, although it won’t star, it will feature in this presentation of Alduous Huxley’s best-known work, the dystopian drama “Brave New World.” The play’s theme is timely as we humans depend more and more on our systems, its dated sound technology a metaphor.
Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre, Historic Y, 738 N. Fifth Avenue, #131, Tucson, $18, 10 p.m.,
www.scoundrelandscamp.org
Arizona Opera: “The Barber of Seville”
Feb. 3 – Feb. 4
Has more fun ever been had with an operatic aria than with “Largo al factotum’s” “Figaro” refrain? The term “opera buffa” even sounds like there must be a buffoon involved, and so he is in Cesare Sterbini’s libretto of Gioachino Rossini’s opera “Barber of Seville.” After 200 years, it’s still fun to watch Count Almaviva tumble for young Rosina and contrive to woo her as a serial fraud. At last his efforts are rewarded and Almaviva’s predicament resolved. It’s irresistible fun.
Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Avenue, Tucson, tickets start at $65, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3 and 2 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 4,
www.tickets.azopera.org
This article appears in Jan 25 – Feb 1, 2024.