A summer program explores the Newberry Volcano, 20 miles south of Bend, the largest volcano by area in the Cascade Range. The two-day event June 25-26 includes contemporary dance inspired by the caldera, an evening of Northern Paiute stories, a geological exhibition and a guided tour of the volcano.
Oregon Origins Project is presenting “Echoes of Eruption.” The arts and culture nonprofit explores the origins of the state through creative expression. This is the first program the group has done in Central Oregon.
On Thursday, June 25, Wilson Wewa, the Northern Paiute tribe’s spiritual leader and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, will share oral histories, accounts of war and events related to the tribe’s presence on the land. On June 26, a dance, choreographed by Samuel Hobbs, will be performed by his company, push/FOLD. The work is meant to take the audience into the molten heart of Newberry, layering and folding bodies in a sculptural representation of churning magma with a musical soundscape described as evocative of the Big Obsidian Flow. Both programs, held at the Tower Theatre, will have a Q&A after the event. On June 27, Discover Your Northwest will offer a guided tour of Newberry for ticket holders of the previous two night’s events. In conjunction, a current exhibit at Scalehouse Collaborative for the Arts Annex Gallery explores geology and transformation through time. “Visual Echoes” will be open through June 26.
Newberry Volcano has an area of 1,200 square miles, including lava flows. From north to south, the volcano is 75-miles long by 27-miles wide. It was named after geologist John Strong Newberry, who surveyed the area for the Pacific Railroad in 1855. Paulina and East Lakes are within the caldera which is four by five miles in diameter. The rock age is about 500,000 years old.
Oregon Origins Project, headquartered in Portland, was founded in 2022 and provides a platform for Indigenous artists and culture bearers to share living traditions and artistic work. The “Echoes of Eruption” is its eighth project.
Oregon Origins Project: Echoes of Eruption
June 25-26 7:30pm
Tower Theatre
835 NW Wall St, Bend
oregonorigins.org/
$18
This article appears in the Source May 21, 2026.
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