What to See Hear and Do: September 3-9

Sean Kenney may be a New York-based artist, but his newest exhibition is debuting right here in Southern Nevada. The sculptures in this show are no ordinary statues — they're made with LEGO® bricks. With over 20 years of creating art with the infantile building blocks, Kenney created Brick Planet to help give a better understanding of the environment. The giant sculptures range from mammals, plants, insects, birds, and more! And — what better place is there to premier an exhibit about wildlife than the Springs Preserve's Origen Museum?

Runs through September 8.

The main attraction for this one is the big open-air plaza for events and performances. Breaking it in on opening day tomorrow is local singer-songwriter — and former contestant on The Voice — Jessica Manalo. That's a free concert, by the way. There’s also an art gallery, and, around the same time of Jessica’s performance, an opening reception takes place in the gallery for its first exhibition, called Family Album. Get this: It’s not only the gallery’s debut, but also the first public program by the forthcoming Las Vegas Museum of Art, which will be built in Symphony Park. And Family Album is also their first exhibition in partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is slated to send some of its shows and works to Las Vegas once the museum is open.

For the past nine months, Las Vegas showgirls have experienced a cultural resurgence. There was The Last Showgirl movie, filmed in Las Vegas, released last fall. And the title of the next Taylor Swift album is The Life of a Showgirl, whose theme is based on her experience as an entertainer on tour. So, author Diane Christiansen was a showgirl for Lido de Paris at the Stardust. She also performed internationally. And she sets the record straight in her 2025 autobiography, The Last Real Showgirl, which she says she wrote and titled long before last year’s The Last Showgirl film. In the book, Christiansen gets into what it was like to be in those 1970s shows — a decidedly different time culturally and socially than now. She also addresses why those shows thrived then and have since declined. And it also tackles a topic I have seen come up repeatedly: The difference between a real showgirl and those who merely wear the costume. I’ll just say, the newer, less authentic ones are far more chaste than those of the golden showgirl era were. Folks can meet Diane and hear her story at the Barnes and Noble in Henderson on Saturday, Sept. 6.