Aimsel Ponti

Aimsel Ponti is a Content Producer at MaineToday.com and a music writer for MaineToday.com and the Portland Press Herald. She has been obsessed with - and inspired by - music since she listened to Monkees records borrowed from the town library when she was six years old. She bought her first Rolling Stones record at a flea market when she was in 7th grade and discovered David Bowie a year later. She's a HUGE fan of the local music scene and covers it along with national musical happenings in her "Face the Music" column and with artist interviews that appear in print in the Portland Press Herald and online at Mainetoday.com. You'll also find her out and about absorbing live music like a sponge and roaming around local record shops and flea markets. Aimsel is also the host of Music from 207 on 98.9 WCLZ and appears monthly on the News Center Maine TV show “207” to talk about...music of course.

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Posted: December 30, 2016

8 Things to do in Maine this weekend including an opera and Disney on Ice

Written by: Aimsel Ponti

Disney on Ice: Dare To Dream
7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday. Cross Insurance Arena, Portland, $15 to $85. ticketmaster.com
Don't have a kid to take to this show? No problem! Just borrow one, because chances are you'll get just a big of a kick out of this show as the kid you'll be bringing with you. We also won't judge if you decide to bring your inner-child instead and go solo. Disney on Ice's Dare to Dream show stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse along with a whole mess of Disney Princesses. You'll travel to an enchanted forest, go on a magical, musical journey and dance and sing from the comfort of your seats while it all plays out on the ice in dramatic Disney fashion.
Image courtesy of Regan Communications
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'
7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday. Through Jan. 15. Windham Center Stage Theater, 8 School Road, Windham, $15, $10 seniors and students. windhamtheater.org
Catch a local production of one of the most powerful plays of our time when "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is performed in Windham. Based on Ken Kesey's novel and first staged on Broadway in the '60s starring Kirk Douglas, the show was one of 1975's biggest and most critically acclaimed films with Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy. Set in an Oregon mental institution, "Cuckoo's Nest" is a riveting story with the memorable supporting characters Nurse Ratched, "Chief" Bromden, Dale Harding and Billy Bibbit among others.
Photo courtesy of Windham Center Stage Theater
Surviving Antarctica
7 p.m. Friday. L.L. Bean Flagship Store Camping Atrium, 95 Main St., Freeport, free. llbean.com/adventure
Hear about one of the most incredible survival stories of all time with a lecture by New England mountaineer Ed Webster that's all about Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance Exhibition to Antarctica. Shackleton and his crew of 27 men survived for months while their ship was trapped in the ice — and then sank — way back in 1914. Webster's presentation includes actual photographs taken by the team's official cameraman. You'll learn about Shackleton's life and heroic leadership, which kept his crew alive to be successfully rescued using the Endurance's 22-foot wooden lifeboat.
Sergey Goryachev/Shutterstock.com
'Journey to a Billion Suns'
7 p.m. Friday. Southworth Planetarium, University of Southern Maine, 70 Falmouth St., Portland, $6.50, $6 children and seniors, free for USM students, faculty and staff. usm.maine.edu/planet/journey-billion-suns-1
Spend a mesmerizing evening mapping the stars. "Journey to a Billion Suns" is a full dome show about the European Space Agency's GAIA project, which hopes to produce the most comprehensive three-dimensional map of our sector of the galaxy. This means that we'll know the distances, sizes, temperatures, lifespans, exoplanet locations and more about a billion stars in our part of the Milky Way. In other words, nerd alert for fans of all things outer space.
Image courtesy of Southworth Planetarium
'Nabucco'
1 p.m. Saturday. The Strand Theatre, 345 Main St., Rockland, $27, $15 students 18 and under. rocklandstrand.com
For nearly three hours, you'll lose yourself in Verdi's opera "Nabucco," broadcast live from The Met in New York City. It stars Plácido Domingo and Liudmyla Monastyrska as Abigaille, the warrior woman determined to rule empires. You'll also enjoy performances by Jamie Barton as the heroic Fenena and Dmitri Belosselskiy as the powerful voice of the oppressed Hebrew people. No need to brush up on your Italian; the show will be subtitled.
Image courtesy of The Strand Theatre
Lakeside Laugh Lab
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Denmark Arts Center, 50 West Main St., Denmark, $10, 21-plus. denmarkarts.org
Spend your Saturday night in stitches as you burn calories by belly-laughing to the comedic offerings of Jordan Handren-Seavey, Paul Hunt, Jake Jacobson, Mark Turcotte and a special guest or two. The Lakeside Laugh Lab series is a mind and leg-stretching uncensored comedy experiment. So, if you're not easily offended, you'll be in good company!
Image courtesy of Denmark Arts Center
Ryan Flaherty
7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10. Portland House of Music, 25 Temple St., Portland, $15, $10 for Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram subscribers. eventbrite.com
Hey baseball fans, check this out. Deering High School graduate and current member of the Baltimore Orioles Ryan Flaherty will be in Portland for a MaineVoices Live appearance. Flaherty will be interviewed by Press Herald sportswriter Kevin Thomas about his journey from high school athlete to major league infielder.
Vanderbilt Photo by Neil Brake
‘The Jones Family Will Make a Way’
7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10. SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress St., Portland, $10 suggested donation. space538.org
Portland Ovations, SPACE Gallery and NAACP Portland invite you to a screening of a documentary about faith, music and so much more. Bishop Fred Jones and his family have performed on the Southern gospel circuit for more than three decades, playing mostly to audiences within the Pentacostal faith. The film tells the story of what unfolds when Jones takes the show on the road outside of his church and connects with an atheist rock critic Michael Corcoran, who also happens to be a gospel historian. And, take note, The Jones Family Singers will be performing live at Merrill Auditorium on Jan. 20.
Photo courtesy of Portland Ovations