Arts & Events

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 23 -more-

The dismal failure of the Copenhagen world conference on climate change makes the current show at the Kala Art Institute acutely relevant. Taking the perilous increase in global warming as a serious reality, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison have created major works of art for more than 30 years; their art instructs the viewer about environmental degradation as well as offering potential correctives. -more-

The Flamenco Family Fiesta, featuring Yaelisa, founder of Caminos Flamencos, will take the stage at Ashkenaz at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 27. -more-

As the holiday season advances, there’s still much to see and do, including that blowout of blowouts, New Year’s Eve. Here are a few of the highlights—and unusual sidelights—along the way, including just a few New Year’s Eve celebrations. -more-

The Bay Area’s African-American theaters’ holiday shows continue through this weekend: Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity, a gospel-infused story of the first Christmas, staged by Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Company in San Francisco; Cinderella, a Louisiana-flavored twist on a camped-up Christmas “pantomime,” at African American Shakespeare’s newly-renovated Buriel Clay Theatre in San Francisco’s Western Addition; and a solo show by comedian and author Paul Mooney, equally known for his comedy, books and being a writer for Richard Pryor, at Berkeley’s Black Repertory Theatre, through Dec. 31. -more-

Susannah Martin, who directed Threepenny Opera for the Shotgun Players, spoke about the satiric musical show she transplanted from Victorian London (and 1920s Weimar Republic) to the 1970s London of the Sex Pistols—and onstage in Berkeley today: -more-

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 23 -more-

THURSDAY, DEC. 17 -more-

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble, directed by Jude Navari, with guest organist Matthew Walsh, will perform The Greenest Branch: Medieval, Romantic and Twentieth-Century Music on a Marian Theme, the ninth annual show in their Voices in Peace series, at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley in Kensington. -more-

Rain, rain, it falls for nothing.” Empty shoes tap dance atop a red ladder (under the hand of puppeteer Tim Giugni) in the old gaming salon at the Berkeley City Club, which opens like a sideshow tent for Helen Pau’s The Stone Wife: A Burlesque in Nine Acts. -more-

Berkeley’s Wilde Irish is tying on a good one at 8 p.m. tonight through Saturday: A Joycean Christmas, at the Gaia Center, 2116 Allston Way. “It’ll be like the party from ‘The Dead,’” avers producer Breda Courtney—meaning, of course, the famous yuletide tale of an epiphany (which, many will recall, inspired John Huston’s final film) from James Joyce’s The Dubliners, from which the company will enact “Araby,” as well as the Christmas table scene from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. -more-

Every holiday season, there are the classics—like The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, the Messiah, A Child’s Christmas in Wales—and the alternatives, some of which are on their way to becoming classics. Here are a few: -more-

THURSDAY, DEC. 17 -more-