The Week's Best Bets CLASSICAL NOTES THE SMALL SCREEN Songs of war, peace, darkness and light will fill the hall as the Zamir Chorale of Metropolitan Detroit, under the direction of Benjamin Cohen, presents Darkness and Light, a concert featuring Psalms for Woe and Joy, both by contemporary composer Robert Starer. The program begins 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10, at the West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center. Free and open to the community. (248) 548-3217. Well-known for her interpretations of Kurt Weill's music and Berlin cabaret songs from the Weimar Republic, German chanteuse Ute Lemper celebrates Weill's centenary in a University Musical Society per- formance 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater. $16-$36. (734) 764-2538. In a new Detroit Public Television national produc- tion airing 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, on WTVS- Channel 56, Neeme Jarvi leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a rare performance of Gustav Mahler's reorchestration of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Poet and rock singer Patti Smith hosts. I Can Do Better Than That is a new late-late night interactive TV show airing 2 a.m. Saturdays on WKBD-Channel 50 beginning Jan. 5. The producers are now soliciting videos — original comedy skits, shorts and music videos — of no more than three minutes in length to be entered into a weekly/monthly video festival. Winners get cash, merchandise and the opportunity to be seen by talent agents. For more information, go to the Web site at www.icandobetterthanthat.com . Pop/RocKIJAzz Under the direction of guest conductor David Briskin, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's family-style musical presentation "Yuletide Celebration" combines traditional holiday music with the production elements of a Broadway show. Included in the program, in addition to classics like Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," is Zan-lir Bavel's "Chanukah Light." Performance times are 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 14-19. $15- $25. (313) 576-51111. ON THE STAGE Rubin and Joshua Stilman of Farmington Hills, Erica Harte of Huntington Woods and Lauren Glass of Southfield. Tickets are $5-$7; all seats are reserved. (248) 541-6430. THE ART SCENE Norma Minkowitz uses the crochet tech- nique to create human figural works, which GAIL. ZININIERN1AN eerily evoke supernatural power. The bodies in Arts C Entertainment most of her sculptures are incomplete — one Editor is missing a head, another lacking arms or legs, and this makes them general rather than par- ticular, abstracted sculptural forms rather than portraits. She is one of the participants whose work comprises FAMILY FUN Figurative Suggestions: Woven Knitted and Stagecrafters Youth Theatre, a community theater Constructed Forms, running Dec. 9-Jan. 13 at Royal group for young people ages 8-18, presents a unique Oak's Sybaris Gallery. Each of the exhibit's seven artists version of Hansel & Gretel 7 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. in small and large-scale works utilizes techniques loose- and 3 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8-10, at ly related to weaving to explore the subject of nature and the human body. The opening reception is 5-7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, at the gallery. For more infor- mation, rill (248) 544 3388. Ben Cohen New York artist John Egner, a former painting leads the instructor at Wayne State University, was an influen- Zamir Chorale tial force in the emerging Cass Corridor art scene of in concert on the late '60s and early '70s. His first Detroit-area Sunday exhibit in 10 years, John Egner — Full Circle: A Decade of Work, continues at Detroit's Center Galleries through Dec. 16. (313) 664-7800. The Michigan Guild of Artists and Artisans hosts a Holiday Art Fair, featuring 130 juried contemporary artists in all media, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 9-10, at Oakland Community College Building H on the OCC campus at Orchard Lake and 1-696. DSO Admission is $4 adults/children under 12 free. Conductor (734) 662-3382. Ossip Gabrilowitsch The University of Michigan's Department of takes center Theatre and Drama presents a dramatization of stage in a Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird 8 p.m. Detroit Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8-10, Historical at Ann Arbor's Power Center for the Performing Norma Minkowitz: Museum Arts. Twenty-seven performers — both student "Come Closer," fiber, exhibit. and professional — will inhabit Prospero's wood; at Royal Oak's enchanted island in William Shakespeare's last Sybaris Gallery. great romance play, The Tempest, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 14-16, also at the Power Center. Tickets are $15-$20/$7 students for the Baldwin Theater in Royal Oak. In this fairytale, each performance. (734) 764-0450. rather than being abandoned by their father and evil The Furniture Factory in Detroit hosts Holy Sh*t! stepmother, the children have loving parents, but get Stories From Heaven and Hell, a one-woman show fea- lost in the woods while picking berries. Their parents turing Janice Perry, who'll focus her wit on Western spiri- set out to find them, but in the interim before they are tuality, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 15-16. $24. rescued, the children meet the Dew Princess, the Goblin Gang and numerous forest animals. (313) 832-8890. The cast includes Shanna Eisenberg of Huntington Woods, Jesse Einstein of Bloomfield Township, Eddie WHATNOT Currently open and running throughout 2001 at the Detroit Historical Museum is 30 Who Dared: Detroiters Who Made a Difference. Their names are often enshrined on buildings and streets throughout the Motor City, but most people know very little about their accomplishments. "You could look at this exhibit as a collection of some of Detroit's most unsung heroes," said Dennis Zarnbala, director of Detroit Historical Museums. Two Jewish Detroiters are included in the exhibit: Rabbi Leo Franklin, a leader of Temple Beth El and proponent of interfaith cooperation, and Ossip Gabrilowitsch, who helped turn the Detroit Symphony into a world-class orchestra (he also happened to marry one of Mark Twain's daughters!). For more informa- tion, call the museum at (313) 833-1805. FYI: For Arts and Entertainment related events that you wish to have considered for Out & About, please send the item, with a detailed description of the event, times, dates, place, ticket prices and publishable phone number, to: Gail Zimmerman, JN Out & About, The Jewish News, 27676 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 354-6069; or e-mail to gzimmerman@thejewishnews.com Notice must be received at least three weeks before the scheduled event. Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change. 12/8 2000 78