Two weekends of fun are a given at the annual NW New Works Festival, only you have no idea what form that fun will take. Seventeen artists or ensembles will be debuting fresh material, including tonight’s Sunshine, by Portland choreographer Tahni Holt. Her two dancers (Lucy Yim and Robert Tyree) will be performing a duet augmented by stacks of cardboard boxes, the empty emblems of our relentless consumption. Yet they’re vessels for the imagination, too. Remember how much enjoyment you got as a kid playing with those brown cardboard containers? You could hide in them, climb on them, cut holes in the sides and wear them, and more. Parents only saw the dull contents and didn’t value the carton. But Holt surely remembers how humble boxes are an invitation to play, a void to fill. Emptiness becomes an asset. BRIAN MILLER

Fri., June 8, 8 p.m.; Sat., June 9, 5 & 8 p.m.; Sun., June 10, 5 & 8 p.m.; Fri., June 15, 8 p.m.; Sat., June 16, 5 & 8 p.m.; Sun., June 17, 5 & 8 p.m., 2012