Dance
Collaborative Artist Showcase
West Las Vegas Library
Longtime Las Vegan Bernard Gaddis’ dance company, Contemporary West Dance Theatre — as a welcome gesture to the conference of the Western Arts Alliance — hooks up with four other compelling dance orgs (Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Chuthis., Versa-Style Dance Company, and BodyTraffic, from L.A.) to *makes blow-your-mind gesture* August 29, 4:30p and 7p, free, lvdance.org
Theater
Locked Up: The Musical
Summerlin Library
Darius Campo’s new musical begins with a curious scenario: the world’s greatest violinist enclosed in a prison cell. There’s some “inner torture,” plus his mother, the warden, the devil — who, apparently, has a thing for fiddlers, amiright Charlie Daniels? — and his girlfriend, who’s a mannequin. It is, we are told, a “romantic dark comedy.” Well, it would have to be. August 10, 7:30p, free, lvccld.org
Folk-Rock
Mark Huff
Bunkhouse Saloon
This guy. Long ago, Mr. Huff — slender, Dylanesque, compelling — was a fixture on the Vegas music scene before decamping for Nashville. Now, with his ninth solo album, Stars for Eyes (sample hype: “shimmering sonic dreamscape”), in hand, he’ll rock the lid off the Bunkhouse. Give him a big Las Vegas welcome back! August 17, 8p, $8-$10, bunkhousedowntown.com
Lecture
Books in the World of Things
Lied Library, UNLV
Sure, books are full of good stuff, but how often do you think of books as objects in and of themselves? As director of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for the History of the Book — a very serious bibliophilic institution, as you can tell by the spelling of “centre” — Tom Mole thinks about it all the time. As objects, his website tells us, books “serve as badges of allegiance, signifiers of class, focal points for rituals and festivals, tokens shaping interpersonal relationships, and more.” We’ll save you a seat next to ours. August 30, 3p, free, unlv.edu/calendar
Visual Art
Workshop with Artist Ian Racoma
Winchester Community Center
The exhibit First Gen is Racoma’s look at the situation experienced by the children of Asian and Pacific Island immigrants, shaped both by the traditions of their parents and the cultural blend-o-rama of modern America. A first-gen Filipino-American himself, Racoma mainly works in oils, but knows his way around other media, so this workshop ought to be culturally and artistically informative.
August 4, 11a, free, 702-455-7340