Arts & Culture

The freaky, fantastical world of Nights at the Circus, originally a novel by Angela Carter, will be brought to life for the first time in the U.S. tonight at the UC Davis Wyatt Pavilion Theatre at 8 p.m. Performances will continue through Sunday. Nights at the Circus is directed by UC Davis Master of Fine Arts Candidate Patricia Miller, adapted for the stage by Emma Rice & Tom Morris and originally premiered in London in 2006.

East meets West and movement meets art at the Mondavi Center. As part of the Dance Series, the Mondavi will present Re- (Part One) and Folding, two pieces from contemporary dance company Shen Wei Dance Arts. The company will perform the pieces tomorrow at 8 p.m. at Jackson Hall. Tickets can be purchased at the Mondavi Center ticket office or online at mondaviarts.org. Student tickets are $14 and general admission is $37. A post-performance question-and-answer session will be offered with choreographer and company founder Shen Wei.

After featuring more than 1400 music acts over a five-day stretch in 2007, South by Southwest is back again in March 2008 as one of the premier music festivals in the world. Held in Austin, Texas, the festival gives the music industry a chance to bring all its constituents together in one huge event. Besides hundreds of bands, SXSW also includes a film festival and numerous music industry conferences that draw even more people into the heart of Texas.

This Sunday Varsity Theatre will host Davis’ 4th annual United Nations Association Film Festival. This year’s theme, Camera as Witness, advocates the whole notion of the democratization of the camera, said Jesse Drew, a technocultural studies professor at UC Davis. It is a more authentic and realistic view of the world shot by everyday people.

On Mar. 6, the ASUCD Senate unanimously passed a bill to allocate $12,586.04 from capital reserves to the Entertainment Council to fund sound equipment.