Oregon State University’s Big Fish Lab and PRAx are partnering to present the Big Fish Fest, a celebration of all things shark. The evening begins at 5 pm in the Parrish Arts Plaza. Sabor Tamales, Three Potato More and Nick’s Soul Food will all have trucks on site for your eating pleasure while Outer Orbit, a Portland-based soul-funk band, provides outdoor entertainment. Inside the Thomas W. Toomey Lobby will be a Shark Lab, featuring trivia, shark jaws, scientific equipment and dead sharks. Alexandra McInturf, a research associate in the Big Fish Lab, says the sharks had been found “washed ashore (already dead) and are now being used for science and education.” At 6 pm you’re invited to join graduate and undergraduate students from the Big Fish Lab for a series of short, family-friendly discussions of their research and discoveries. The evening concludes with a shark dissection set to live improvisational jazz in the Lynne Hallstrom Detrick Concert Hall at 7 pm. Mike Gamble, Machado Mijiga and Todd Sickafoose will riff off one another while OSU’s Dr. Taylor Chapple dissects a shark found on the Oregon coast, in order to “celebrate the art that is nature,” McInturf says. Why should you attend? “Folks will get to touch a (dead!) shark,” McInturf says. “Need we say more?” Dissections sell out fast, McInturf says, so get your tickets now!

The Big Fish Fest is 5 pm to 8 pm Friday, August 23, at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts, 470 Southwest 15th Street, Corvallis. $22 general admission, $10 OSU alumni, $5 students and children get in FREE.