TODAYMUSEUMSKeepinga senseof humorEric Wesley’s large sculptural works...

TODAY

MUSEUMS

Keeping

a sense

of humor

Eric Wesley’s large sculptural works often explore the relationship among sculpture, the artist and the contemporary art world with a sense of humor -- a recent full-scale installation displayed a donkey kicking a hole into the Brooklyn Museum’s gallery wall. “MOCA Focus: Eric Wesley,” the L.A. artist’s installation project made specifically for the Pacific Design Center, features a rotating floor, a Vespa scooter and handcrafted elements.

“MOCA Focus: Eric Wesley,” MOCA Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. (213) 626-6222. Opens today.

* Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, except 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays. Ends June 18.

JAZZ

The words to describe an era

Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Mo., in 1902, became one of the premier voices of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. Tonight the Skirball Cultural Center presents a program based on his 1961 poem “Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz,” a work spawned by the civil unrest and racism of the 1950s and designed to be performed with music. Projected images of the Harlem Renaissance by African American artists and photographers will accompany Hughes’ words, as will live jazz by the Ron McCurdy Quartet.

“Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz, the Langston Hughes Project,” with the Ron McCurdy Quartet, Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. 8 tonight. $8 to $15. (866) 468-3399.

FRIDAY

EVENTS

Orchid event is in bloom

More than 70 growers, both professional and amateur, will display thousands of their most beautiful specimens at the 61st annual Santa Barbara International Orchid Show this weekend. This year’s theme is “Orchids in Paradise.” Hundreds of species and named varieties will be represented. In addition, there will be book signings, lectures and demonstrations about orchid care and culture, and vendors offering plants, supplies and other items.

Santa Barbara International Orchid Show, Earl Warren Showgrounds, 101 Freeway at Las Positas Road, Santa Barbara. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.

$8 to $10; 12 and younger, free.

(805) 969-5746.

www.sborchidshow.com

* Also 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

MOVIES

Can this act be rectified?

Last May at the Cannes Film Festival, Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne won the top prize for the drama “L’Enfant” (The Child). It was the brothers’ second Palme d’Or, following their win for “Rosetta” in 1999. In “L’Enfant,” a young petty criminal named Bruno (Jeremie Renier) vows to change when his girlfriend (Deborah Francois) gives birth to a son but soon falls prey to his old ways and commits an unthinkable act. Bruno’s desperate attempt to rectify his error pushes him toward an epiphany.

“L’Enfant” (The Child), rated R for brief language, opens Friday in selected theaters.

SATURDAY

DANCE

Showing new moves

New experiences are the hallmark of the annual Celebrate Dance series at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and the 2006 edition is no exception. Five local premieres are scheduled by Southland ensembles: the Djanbazian Dance Company’s “Ser (a story about love)”; San Pedro City Ballet’s “Silence” (choreographed by Patrick David Bradley); the Pennington Dance Group’s “Out Of”; JazzAntiqua Music and Dance’s “Mileage: Chasing the One” (choreographed by Pat Taylor); and BackhausDance’s “Love and Other Impossibilities.” In addition, two Bay Area groups are making

debut appearances:

Liss Fain Dance in “The Line Between Night and Day” and the Viktor Kabaniaev Dancers in “White Light.”

Celebrate Dance 2006, Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. 8 p.m. Saturday. $16.50 to $31.50. (818) 243-2539 or www.AlexTheatre.org

POP MUSIC

Strokes, reinvented

The conventional

wisdom was that the Strokes’ third album was a make-or-break release, one that would put the New York rockers back on top after a sophomore slump or serve as exit

music for the band that kicked off the garage thing and then hit the wall. As it turns out, “First Impressions of Earth” didn’t do either, but it marked the band’s reinvention as a scrappy, sloppy outfit

with a new creative and emotional range. No need to clear the throne,

but you can cancel the hearse.

The Strokes, the Theatre at the Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. 8 p.m. Saturday. $29.50. (714) 704-2500.

* Also 8:15 p.m. March 30 at the Gibson Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City (sold out) and 8:15 p.m. March 31. $32.50. (818) 777-3931.

KIDS

The sound of discovery

The kid-oriented Wisteria Music Festival is many steps above the kind of racket one can make with pots, pans and a wooden spoon. This daylong celebration of music, sound and hearing invites the little ones to make instruments out of objects of nature, paint a song, check out Professor Wes Wesley’s theremin that mysteriously plays without being touched or simply listen to 12-year-old Native American flute prodigy Evran Ozan. There also is interactive percussion by Rhythm Child and a set from Grammy-nominated Meredith Brooks, performing from her debut album, “If I Could Be ...” At the close of the day, all musical merrymakers are invited to bang or strum their instrument of choice in a closing parade.

Wisteria Music Festival, Kidspace Children’s Museum, 480 N. Arroyo Blvd., Pasadena. 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday. $8 includes entrance to the museum. (626) 449-9144.

SUNDAY

THEATER

The return of Hedwig

Camp Freddy singer Donovan Leitch plays the fiery, gender-confused East German glam-rocker in the cult musical hit “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask. Bijou Phillips (“Almost Famous”) also stars. Presented by Smashbox Cosmetics.

“Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the Roxy, 9009 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Opens 9 p.m. Sunday (doors at 8). $30 and $35. (310) 278-9457; (213) 365-3500, www.ticketmaster.com

* Runs 9 p.m. Sundays though Wednesdays (doors at 8); some dark days. Ends April 19.

WORDS

Fantastical gathering

In her latest short-story collection, “Willful Creatures,” UC Irvine graduate Aimee Bender writes nervy, fantastical tales, dark and consuming despite her playful prose and a cartoonish cast of characters that includes a family of pumpkinheads, a boy with key-shaped fingers, potato children and a miniature man kept in a cage. In WordTheatre’s presentation of Bender’s stories, including some from her highly regarded debut collection, “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt,” actors Jessica Capshaw (“The Practice”), David Krumholtz (“Numb3rs”), Mark Moses (“Desperate Housewives”) and Jon Tenney (“The Closer”) are charged with bringing Bender’s alchemic blend of childlike curiosity and roving philosophical questions to life.

Aimee Bender with WordTheatre at Aphrodisiac, 10351 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. 11 a.m. Sunday brunch, noon reading. $40. (310) 398-9999.

WEDNESDAY

THEATER

Dame Edna is back

Step lively, possums. Dame Edna, international housewife, megastar, Aussie icon of comedy -- and actor Barry Humphries’ Tony Award-winning alter ego -- returns in “Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance!” featuring song, dance, psychic readings, marriage counseling and the Gorgeous Ednaettes and Equally Gorgeous TestEdnarones dancers.

“Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance!,” Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. Opens 8 p.m. Wednesday. $30 to $85. (213) 628-2772; www.ctgla.org* Runs 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 9.