Saturday and Sunday

Farafina Kan

All of the drummers of Farafina Kan started playing at young ages—as 2-, 6-, and 8-year-olds. The dancers of the D.C. professional performing arts company also started early, studying movement before reaching their double-digit birthdays. But then, the members of Farafina Kan had an edge on other children their age—the men and women in the troupe were reared in companies dedicated to preserving traditional African dance and music. Their parents and elders immersed them in the Sankofa Dance Theatre, Kankouran West African Dance Company, and the Maimouna Keita West African Dance Company, among others. By mixing the styles of the companies in which its members were reared with their own generational influences, Farafina Kan melds reggae, blues, jazz, and hip-hop with the movement and sounds of West Africa’s Mande people. Because the company is so heavily influenced by the work of those who came before, it is dedicating an entire weekend of festivities to the parents and the communities “who have equipped us with the tools necessary to continue the mission of preserving African culture through music and dance.” In its last D.C. performance of the year, before heading to Guinea, Farafina Kan performs a show that is suitable for all ages yet still defers to the old folks. Farafina Kan performs at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, and 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, at Dance Place, 3225 8th St. NE. $7–$20; free for one child 12 and under with a paying adult for the Sunday show. (202) 269-1600. (Sarah Godfrey)

Friday, Dec. 1

When it comes to writers who liked to drink, positively everyone knows that Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski, William Faulkner, and Lillian Hellman were just lousy with booze. But the annals of literary sousedom don’t end there. Did you know that H.L. Mencken brewed his own beer at home? Or that John Steinbeck and Robert Benchley would have drunken pool parties in which guests would attempt to retrieve empty wine bottles thrown to the pool’s bottom? Or that when Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath went out to drink as students, they would park illegally in a loading zone, figuring that they were going to get loaded? All those tidbits can be found in Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers, a compendium of literary lore, alcohol-themed excerpts, and, of course, bar recipes, courtesy of writer Mark Bailey and illustrator Edward Hemingway (yes, he’s his grandson). BYOB when they appear at 7 p.m. at Olsson’s Books & Records, 1307 19th St. NW. Free. (202) 785-1133. (Mike DeBonis)

The Godfather: Part III has always been the Fredo of Francis Ford Coppola’s operatic trilogy. Whereas the direct, bloody tone of the first installment suits Sonny Corleone’s guns-blazing style, and the follow-up—with its multiple story lines and constantly shifting alliances—is more akin to Michael’s calculating personality, the series’ flawed-from-the-beginning final film is the one everyone in the family wishes would just go away. Sure, The Godfather: Part III probably thinks it’s smart and deserves some respect, but—whether it’s the way the film wants it or not—it’s getting passed over once again. The American Film Institute’s “Francis Ford Coppola Redux” retrospective won’t feature Al Pacino’s spiky, early ’90s hairdo or Sofia Coppola’s painful monotone, but—in addition to featuring the first two Godfathers—it will include a handful of the director’s most notable films. Made between the first two Godfather films, Coppola’s 1974 psychological thriller The Conversation stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who comes to suspect that the young couple he’s been hired to spy on will be murdered; although it didn’t attain the same commercial success as the Godfather flicks, Coppola’s scaled-down study of the invasion of privacy was made all the more timely by the Watergate scandal. For his 1979 Vietnam film, Apocalypse Now, Coppola offered Marlon Brando a role he couldn’t refuse: an insane Green Beret who’s gone AWOL and becomes the target of a military-sanctioned assassination. Being murdered by your own government probably isn’t the best way to go out, but it definitely beats being shot in the back of the head by your mob-boss-brother’s henchman while fishing at the family estate. See Showtimes for details; visit afi.com/silver/new/ for a complete schedule. The films show at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. $9.25. (301) 495-6700. (Matthew Borlik)

If he weren’t such a clever, self-aware guy, Jason Hughes could almost be mistaken for an outsider artist. Take his series “Vices and Virtues,” each a smallish collage using cutout bits of commercial images against a plain white ground. Lust, for example, shows a woman in a red bikini riding atop a wild boar. Snakes wind around her torso and legs, and a halo of clumsily applied gold leaf encircles her head. The use of magazine photos to identify primeval forces—and cheesy decorative touches such as embossing—could mislead the viewer into thinking Hughes is some naive, manic folksy type, like, say, Henry Darger, who found models for representing his bizarre interior world in children’s coloring books. But Hughes, a Baltimore artist and curator, knows his art history, and a little psychology, too. So while the show’s central sculptural piece, Untitled (army men mandala), may be entirely made of cheap plastic toy soldiers, it also uses the form of a traditional Hindu mandala—which Jung believed could express the unconscious self. Such mashups of high and low, Eastern and Western, appropriated and invented, are by now standard procedures for making contemporary art. Yet Hughes’ restless intellect and careful cross-referencing—each color in his mandala, for example, corresponds to a vice-and-virtue icon—offer more than the usual exercise in ironic self-mythologizing. “To Beat the Devil: Jason Hughes” is on view from noon to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, to Saturday, Dec. 30, at Curator’s Office, 1515 14th St. NW. Free. (202) 387-1008. (Jeffry Cudlin)

Saturday, Dec. 2

Not much happening on the racial divide lately, so—OMIGOD! Wait, lemme see that again. (God bless/damn YouTube.) Kramer, seriously, what were you thinking? Oh, that’s not good. Unless you’re Paul Mooney. Mooney has turned understandable bitterness into unequivocal comedy for quite a while, calling out the white folk who continually disappoint their brethren. So the former Seinfeld star just dropped a big load of fresh meat on Mooney’s plate, which will undoubtedly become a feast of funny during his appearance in the U Street corridor. Helping Mooney dish the laughs will be Dick Gregory, who’s been at the task even longer. While today Gregory may be known more for his kinda wacky Bahamian Diet drink, beginning in the ’60s, he was one of the pioneers of a style of comedy that targeted race issues. Laugh at how little has changed at 8 p.m. or 10:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. $45. (202) 328-6000. (Dave Nuttycombe)

Sunday, Dec. 3

In the pantheon of great filmmakers, certain people—often French—come quickly to mind, but you can upstage anybody name-dropping Cocteau or Godard with a reference to Germaine Dulac. This Parisian suffragette specialized in silent cinema and explored the concept of cinéma pur, relying on symbolism and technical experimentation rather than a traditional storyline. Clocking in at 40 minutes, L’Invitation au Voyage (1927) takes its title from Baudelaire’s poem of the same name, and the slightly shorter La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923) concerns itself with feminism—a salient issue, considering France didn’t grant women the right to vote until 1944, two years after Dulac died. Overall, these films offer a snapshot of cinema in its nascent state, when the absence of sound provided a wealth of opportunities for innovation. Get a leg up on Breathless fans when the films show at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium, 4th St. & Constitution Ave. NW. Free. (202) 737-4215. (Kim Rinehimer)

When Jeremy Enigk, then the lead singer of indie-rock/emo band Sunny Day Real Estate, sent an e-mail to fans in 1994 to say that he’d let Jesus into his life, some expected his music to take a more serene turn. Sunny Day broke up for the first time shortly after, and Enigk went on to make his solo debut in 1996 with the orchestral Return of the Frog Queen. But his music retained an anxious undercurrent, and his cracked voice still spoke of pain, even through the reunion and second dissolution of his original band. The mellow transformation has finally happened, sort of, on his second solo album, World Waits. The new music has a resigned calm at its core, with stately piano, slow tempos, uplifting melodies, and guitars that resonate in reverb worthy of cathedrals. But for Enigk, the spiritual path isn’t about passive acceptance. His politically tinged lyrics remain restless, and his singing—never better, as he’s ditched the cracked upper register for a pure tenor—has doubt in every syllable. Rather than reflecting another stage in his religious development, World Waits could just be the sound of a man growing up. In any event, there’s something here for David Gray fans as well as second-generation emo kids. The Hard Tomorrows and Cedars open at the Rock and Roll Hotel, 1353 H St. NE. $15-$18. (202) 388-7625. (Mark Richardson)

If jazz were a church, Wynton Marsalis and his Young Lions protégés would surely represent the orthodox. As the artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center, the trumpet player has dedicated much of his career to closing the text of America’s most significant music. He’s established a canon of artists, developed a set of procedures for valid performance, and eliminated apocrypha such as Coltrane’s Meditations. Which is all well and fine—it’s a comfortable set of values and a nice night out if you’re looking to kneel down and praise the music of the mid-’60s at the Kennedy Center. Matthew Shipp, on the other hand, would be deeply enmeshed with the gnostic heterodoxy. The improvisational piano player has spent the majority of his life reading deeply into the arcane texts of Cecil Taylor and worshipping the mysteries of the universe via the deep resonation of perfect fifths. Since establishing himself in the downtown New York City improvisers’ community during the late ’80s—among fellow heretic luminaries like William Parker and Susie Ibarra—Shipp has developed an elegant voice that recalls Erik Satie as easily as it does Thelonious Monk. While it may not be traditional, it’s hardly a bunch of noise, and anybody who can’t bear another Catholic rendition of “My Favorite Things” might want to seek enlightenment with Matthew Shipp when he performs with the Jason Hwang Quartet at 8 p.m. at Twins Jazz, 1344 U St. NW. $15 plus a one-drink minimum. (202) 234-0072. (Aaron Leitko)

Monday, Dec. 4

Watching Gimme Shelter, you will notice the following: Charlie Watts always looks bored, Bill Wyman is so stoned he looks like a gnome, and no one really listens to Mick Jagger—even back then. And then you will alight on the pool cues. You will turn to your viewing companion and mutter, “Damn. Pool cues.” The organizers of the December 1969 Rolling Stones/Jefferson Airplane freebie had the bright idea to have the Hell’s Angels do security. The Angels brought pool cues and used them, repeatedly beating on the crowd. Like any good filmmakers, directors David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin know how to foreshadow. While they get some nice shots of Jagger pouting through the chestnuts, they often zoom on the pool cues and then, later, a repeated slo-mo of the Angel stabbing a gun-wielding Stones fan. Whatever you think of a fan packing a pistol, you will still think what everyone else thinks: Nothing ruins boomer Utopian bullshit like a Hell’s Angel. Gimme Shelter plays at 7 p.m. at the Library of Congress’ Pickford Theater, 101 Independence Ave. SE. Free. (202) 707-5677. (Jason Cherkis)

Tuesday, Dec. 5

I have some geekass theories about music. I believe, for instance, that no band ever achieves greatness ’til it writes a song in 3/4, that Faith No More was secretly the most important band of the ’90s, and that the beat from “Not Fade Away” is the basis of 85 percent of all jam music. Daniel Levitin has a lot of theories about music, too, but he’s actually done research to back them up—he was a session musician, A&R rep, and label president before retiring to study audio recording and psychology in the ’90s. That would explain why the title of his book, This Is Your Brain on Music, is as dated as most of his musical references. Still, Levitin can entertain, whether explaining why humans respond to certain rhythms, timbres, and volumes or chasing down the provenance of the “Shave and a Haircut” rhythm. Find out why you suspect your iPod’s shuffle mode isn’t really random when Levitin speaks at 6:30 p.m. at the Freer Gallery of Art’s Meyer Auditorium, 12th St. and Independence Ave. SW. $25. (202) 357-3200. (Andrew Beaujon)

Wednesday, Dec. 6

Pop music is irresistible in its notion that the present is enriched mainly by hopefulness for the future and nostalgia for the past. And its kickass melodies. In these particulars, Pernice Brothers do pop proud. Joe Pernice (formerly of the Scud Mountain Boys) & Co. return to the strings-and-horns lushness of their 1998 debut, Overcome by Happiness, in their sixth album, Live a Little, which also ends with a blown-out version of Scud song, and Brothers live favorite, “Grudge F***.” But the main attraction pulls from their entire discography: A feeling that things have been, and will be, better than they are today. As I sit in my cubicle, daydreaming of an upcoming trip to Big Sur and college roadtrips long gone, “PCH One” instructs me—alongside acoustic guitar, piano, and handclaps—to “struggle through the S’s, through the tunnels in the trees/ÉIt might do some good just to wake up by the sea/To the smell of breath and greasy hair and car seats.” And I know that’s right. Pernice Brothers perform with Elvis Perkins at 9 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $12. (202) 667-7960. (Anne Marson)

Thursday, Dec. 7

Lady Day—the granddaughter of a slave, raped as a child, a prostitute in a brothel—was given a hell of a voice and little else. Despite a biography that’s part legend, one fact is that her voice, even as she destroyed it with drugs, became the defining vocal sound of jazz, one emulated by the likes of Nina Simone. A tribute to Billie Holiday’s life, with all its pain and glory, is now encapsulated in a modern dance routine. Ronald K. Brown of Evidence Dance Company, who is known for melding ballet, hip-hop, West African, and modern dance, presents Blueprint of a Lady: The Once and Future Life of Billie Holiday, with the weight of crooning falling on Nnenna Freelon. Pay your respects to the Lady and try to figure out what in the world “Once and Future Life” means at 8 p.m. at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, 2700 F St. NW. $14–$38. (202) 467-4600. (Kim Gooden)


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