Your next seven days should be filled with laughter. The following could help.

Friday, February 3: Demetri Martin at Warner Theater
Mr. Martin has outlasted the hipster backlash. Kind of like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (just stay with me on this), the comic moved relatively quickly, in the public's view, from indie-comedy darling to guy with a big-selling record on a major label. That led to two seasons of a television show that was lambasted by former fans because it wasn't Mr. Show. But it was funny. He kept going. He recently released a book full of those neat drawings he uses in his stand-up act. It was pretty well-received. The backlash was receding. Recent appearances on "W.T.F." and "The Adam Carolla Podcast" shined a light on the pretty normal guy and, like the YYYs, he's back to an elevated level that suits what he does. 8 p.m., all ages, $35.

Saturday, February 4: Matt Braunger at Arlington Drafthouse
Braunger is that funny guy from the show. That guy. Plays the neighbor. There's a kid or something. He's funny. He is. Started in dive bars and is now playing larger alternative rooms and theaters. His style works well in clubs, too. He's funny. Really. Everybody likes him and soon people will love him. He's that guy at the party that makes everyone laugh but doesn't break anything or steal from coats so he's not as memorable as that addict in the corner. But he's funny. 10 p.m., 21+, $20, also February 3.

Read more This Could Be Funny: Matt Braunger

Alas, there is no street beef between the bands U.S. Royalty and American Royalty. There are only questions: Which band is more regal? Which one best represents the U.S. of A.? Sadly, this AWESOMELY EXCLUSIVE CHART doesn't help much:

HOMETOWN
D.C.	L.A.
MUSICAL STYLE
Slightly tarnished AM gold with literary aspirations	Mildly eccentric indie-electro with pop tendencies
MOST RECENT RELEASE
Mirrors LP	Matchstick EP (out Feb. 14)
WHAT ELSE HAVE THEY DONE LATELY?
Daytrotter session	Video for the song "Matchstick"
PRIMARY VICE
Fashion	Techno
UNSCIENTIFICALLY COLLECTED BLOG QUOTE
"Unlike some albums where I feel one emotion or another when the last notes fade, after listening to Mirrors I simply feel satisfied." –Music Bleep	"... the music doesn’t sound like something that would go over well on a Martha’s Vineyard vacation and that’s a good thing." –Potholes In My Blog
SAMPLE LYRIC
"They offered me their finest wine/We danced and drank to pass the time" ("Equestrian")	"Don't you/Try to tell me/What I already know/Yeah" ("Levrolution")
POTENTIAL ADVANTAGE IN A BACKSTAGE ALTERCATION
U.S. Royalty has four members, American Royalty has only two or three	A peace offering of medicinal Venice Beach nugs?
ON-THE-RECORD STATEMENT ABOUT THE OTHER BAND
The band was asked for a comment, but so far has not provided one.	"We think it's a funny co-incidence, and it's come up before recently as we've both begun to garner national buzz. We think they're a great band and respect what they're doing even though we've got really different sounds."
ODDS OF STARTING A STREET BEEF WITH THE OTHER 'ROYALTY' BAND
1,000 to 1	nil, dude

Pina, the 3D documentary by Wim Wenders on the work of famed German choreographer Pina Bausch, opens today in Washington. Film critic Tricia Olszewski reviewed the movie in this week's City Paper. My two-word dance-writer take? See it.

The film—which has been nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature—offers little other than dancing, both as part of long, evening-length pieces that take place on stages, as well as isolated solos and duets with backdrops of abandoned factories and highway medians. But the dancing is stunning, to say the least. My companion and I were busy chomping popcorn and chitchatting as the lights dimmed at a recent screening, but the moment images appeared on screen, we froze, utterly and immediately drawn to the movement in front of us. Neither of us relaxed for a good half -hour: It’s that compelling, in a way nondance fans might not believe possible until they see it.

The 3D element is part of it. Though the effect can, at times, be garish and artificial, it mostly succeeds in pulling the observer into the middle of the action, rather than viewing everything from afar like in a darkened performance space.

But the real hero is the choreography itself. Bausch, who died in 2009, founded a seminal dance style known as Tanztheater, which uses unconventional and often absurd movement to convey emotion, and incorporated it in the works she created over a long career for her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal. The film highlights four key pieces. It opens with Rite of Spring, a dark story of community and sacrifice set to Stravinsky’s score and danced on dirt—yes, inches of loamy brown stuff that increasingly covers the performers’ sweaty bodies. Pounding with overt sexuality and an almost tangible sense of tension, the piece is about as powerful as they come.

The other works are Café Muller, a spare, abstract tale of longing and lack of connection; Kontakthof, which is set in a dance hall and populated by dancers in cocktail outfits; and Vollmond, which features a pool of water onstage, together with a massive boulder that takes up a quarter of the space. Read more The Luscious Dancing of Pina in 3D

“Dark Matters,” the title for a show at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, can be read any number of ways. It might refer to subject matter—say, subjects of heightened political tension since Sept. 11. The phrase summons images of CIA black sites, unmanned Predator drones, or, in this show, Wayne Gonzales’ Pentagon, a pointillist painting of a digitally blurred aerial photograph of the Pentagon. “Dark matters” could also mean dark materials or substances, the kinds of things that absorb or negate light and visibility. Hence Roni Horn’s Some Thames—Group M (detail pictured) four images of light playing off the dark surface of the Thames River. With its rotating permanent-collection exhibitions, the Hirshhorn usually strives for crystal clarity, seen in its survey of colorful Minimalist works and a show DJed by John Baldessari. “Dark Matters” is more sinister, but also more playful. It’s a look into the permanent collection’s darker corners, literally and figuratively, to argue that what happens in the dark matters most in art. On view beginning today. Free. (Kriston Capps)

Read more Don’t Be Bored: Dark Art, Guns, and Football

Red Baraat’s musical approach almost seems too contrived: Bhangra meets New Orleans brass meets jazz and funk and go-go. But since this Brooklyn nine-piece group formed a little over three years ago, it's made this largely instrumental style work, and garnished a following to show for it. The group includes three percussionists and six horn players, and tonight they're playing an early show at U Street Music Hall. I traded a few emails recently with Sunny Jain, the group's leader and dhol player.

Jain says he formed the group to bring together the various musical cultures that are a part of his life. “Much of my composing centers around my identity as an Indian-American, and music has always served as a bridge to the two cultures that felt so disparate when growing up,” he writes.  “While leading a jazz quartet as a drum set player for the past 10 years, I found myself gravitating towards the dhol drum. In the fall of 2008, the next natural step in my creative process was to start up Red Baraat, with the intention of creating a large, acoustic band that brought a powerful, primal sound."

The dhol is a double-sided barrel-shaped North Indian drum slung over one shoulder. The instrument "is synonymous with Bhangra, the folk and dance music of Punjab,” Jain writes. Brass bands are not just an American thing.  ”Having seen brass bands in the streets of India during childhood visits,” says Jain, “ I wanted to meld these sounds with the American sounds of funk, jazz, go-go—a musical collection reflecting global unity, which is not only found in the make-up of the band, but also in our audiences.”

Read more Red Baraat’s Sunny Jain on Marrying Bhangra, Brass, and Go-Go

If You Build It...: D.C. officials are trying to woo film-production companies with a Mount Vernon Square space they hope could become a soundstage—which is one solid way, the thinking goes, to attract more film productions to the District. At-large Councilmember Vincent Orange says he hopes the project can be a "public-private partnership."

A Man Must Have a Code: Yesterday, local crime author George Pelecanos held an "IAmA" live chat on Reddit, where he fielded queries from fans for a while. Mostly, they want to know about his days writing for The Wire, as well as his current gig writing for Treme, though he also explains the inspiration behind his latest book: "What It Was is based on a real-life guy, Cadillac Smith, who went on a crime spree in the summer of '72 in D.C., when Watergate broke. Police and the Mob were involved in trying to bring him down. I took the seeds of his story, called him Red 'Fury' Jones, fictionalized the details, and threw Derek Strange and Frank Vaughn into the mix."

Acquisitions Corner: The National Gallery of Art has acquired an 1848 painting, "Still Life With Fruit and Nuts," by Robert Seldon Duncanson, reports The Style Blog. Duncanson is believed to be the first African-American artist "to receive international acclaim," Style Blog reports, and the work is one of less than a dozen still-lifes the artist made. It goes on permanent display beginning today. According to The New York Times, the seller is a private collector.

Today on Arts Desk: When go-go meets Bhangra.

If you hear the phrase “mind-body connection,” what comes to mind? Most likely, yoga. After all, the practice of holding standing and seated poses has been the first and last word on the mainstream movement scene for almost a decade now.

But in fact, there’s a range of activities from all over the world that are geared to help practitioners feel more relaxed, supple, and at home in their bodies. The movement forms—often summed up as “somatics”—simply haven’t made it far into the mainstream yet, and maybe they never will. But they offer opportunities to tune into one’s body and experience awareness, sensation, and movement in distinctly new ways.

This month, the Dance Exchange is offering a series of Thursday night classes that provide new avenues into the body. Each course focuses on a different movement practice. Tonight’s covers Alexander Technique, which teaches students how to lengthen their spine in order to free up movement patterns. Next Thursday is all about Bartenieff Fundamentals, a practice that helps release muscle strain.

On Feb. 26, choreographer Nancy Bannon will lead the workshop “Love Your Badass Self”; what that entails isn’t quite clear, but Bannon’s last workshop focused on a series of exercises designed to pair movement and emotion. And the last Thursday of the month is a couples massage workshop. Read more More Than Yoga: Dance Exchange’s New Ways to Connect Mind and Body

It's been a rocky road for The Enterprise. Charletta Lewis, the proprietor of the jazz lounge and theater space on Georgia Avenue NW, hosted the property's soft opening on Sept. 3, with plans for a grand opening in the second week of October. That grand opening came just a bit late—on Oct. 19—but it wasn't the celebration Lewis had hoped for.

Issues with DCRA were already threatening the Enterprise before it had really started, problems that Lewis blamed on property owner Michael Ressom and Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. At the time, Lewis promised to continue with her plans for the venue, whether the legal entanglements are resolved or not.

Well, not all of them are resolved just yet, but enough have been that The Enterprise is rebooting itself. Grand opening 2.0 will consist of "3 days of music, theater and art" — and it starts tonight. Doors open at 4 p.m. tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday with a rotating stage lineup that includes Frankie Addison & Friends, Whop Craig & Friends, Total Recall Band, GGT Band, comedian Eddie Bryant, DJ Jammer, and DJ Ron B.

Read more Enterprise Jazz Club Tries Again

If my desk reflects my personality, then clearly I am a mess.

Yesterday, E. Brady Robinson, the photographer behind the ongoing project "Desks as Portraits: An Inside Look at the DC Art World," stopped by Washington City Paper to take a portrait of my workspace. Obviously, I did not clean up beforehand.

Well, OK, I made one change. When she arrived, Robinson asked if I wanted to cover up anything. See that yellow notepad? It's in front of a whiteboard I no longer use, on which I used to jot down story ideas. Before Robinson got started, I adjusted the pad so it's blocking a particularly provocative article idea I never got off the ground. But otherwise, that's my desk in all of its usual squalor.

Read more My Office Squalor Is Now Art

Even from my nose-bleed seats at Carnegie Hall last month, Chucho Valdes’ hands looked huge and commanding as they swept across the piano. The reputation of the renowned 70-year-old Cuban musician got a bump 12 years ago in the film Calle 54, in which he reunited with his now 94-year-old piano-playing father, Bebo. Valdes and his band the Afro-Cuban Messengers perform at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts tomorrow night in support of the album Chucho's Steps. He spoke with me briefly on the phone recently via a translator.

Valdes is a kind of citizen of the world now. He lives in Malaga, Spain, he tells me, but since his wife is from Argentina, he also spends time there. But the setlist at the New York show demonstrated where his musical heart is. “I started with Ellington [“Satin Doll”] and finished with Gershwin [“Summertime”] with Afro-Cuban in between,” he says. Emphasizing Steps tunes between the cover-song bookends, Valdes and his band, all from Cuba, have ample opportunities to show off their range. On “Danzon,” Valdes plays delicately but swings while his trumpet player and acoustic bassist add romantic accents.  For “Zawinul’s Mambo” they get funky, incorporating Weather Report’s ‘70s hit “Birdland.” Afro-Cuban numbers such as “Yansa” allow his bandmates to chant folklorically and engage in percussion battles while Valdes shows his ability to play more straight-ahead dance rhythms. But when I ask whether he listens to any contemporary Latin pop sounds, like bachata, reggaeton, or timba, he responds, “I am familiar with them but I like jazz and classical.”

Read more Chucho Valdes’ Afro-Cuban Twist on the Standards