GOINGS ON / SANTA BARBARA : Downtown Celebrates Springtime in ‘Parisian’ Style

Restaurants and galleries in downtown Santa Barbara will get into the “Parisian Spring” fun tonight, offering French wine and hors d’oeuvres to the public from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Guests can visit Indigo Gallery on Arlington Avenue, Ro Snell Gallery on Chapala Street, The Wine Cask on Anacapa Street, the Contemporary Arts Forum in the Paseo Nuevo Shopping Center, Mousse-Odile on East Cota Street, and six other stops.

The evening will culminate from 8 to 10 p.m. at Faulkner Plaza, where participants will sample wine from Santa Barbara County vintners, accompanied by the music of the Santa Barbara High School Jazz Band. Tickets for the event are $5. Call 962-2098.

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The wine walk will kick off the Second Annual Santa Barbara Wine Auction Weekend. A rare and fine wine auction and lunch will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Tickets are $50. The museum is at 2559 Puesta del Sol Road.

Assuming you’re still conscious, there will be a Grand Wine Tasting from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Covarrubias Adobe at 136 E. De La Guerra St. Wines from West Coast vineyards will be featured, with food and live music. Tickets are $25. For tickets and information, call 965-WINE.

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UC Santa Barbara’s first “Tibetan Culture and Religion” conference combines lecture and film happenings Friday and Saturday, presented by the Department of Religious Studies and Arts & Lectures.

Tibet scholar Robert Thurman discusses “Tibet and China: Democracy in Asia” 8 p.m. Friday in Campbell Hall. Thurman will focus on the current political quandary in the region that began with the Chinese government’s invasion of Tibet.

Following the lecture will be a screening of the documentary “Compassion in Exile: The Story of the 14th Dalai Lama.”

Tickets are $5, $4 students.

Inspirational speaker Sogyal Rinpoche explores the spiritual dimensions of living and dying during a 4 p.m. lecture Saturday in Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall. Titled “Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World,” Rinpoche attempts to explain simple practices to face both life and death without fear. No charge.

For more information, call 893-3535.

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Conductor Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony will start a West Coast-Mexico tour tonight with a concert at Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre. The performance, sponsored by the Community Arts Music Assn., will include Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony No. 3,” Stravinsky’s “Song of the Nightingale,” and Bartok’s “Miraculous Mandarin Suite.” The concert begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are from $18 to $48. Call 966-4324. The Arlington Theatre is at 1317 State St.

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Key figures in Santa Barbara history return via a multi-media presentation called “If These Walls Could Speak,” at the Presidio Chapel.

Chumash Indian Chief Yanonali; Cipriana Flores, wife of the last presidio commandant; Salisbury Haley, the surveyor who laid out the city’s streets; and others will come back to tell it like it was. The show will run tonight through Saturday and May 5 to 8. Show time is 7:30 p.m. Admission is $3. For information, call the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation at 965-0093.

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Tony Award winner Lou Liberatore, soap opera star Mark Wilson, and other professional actors and actresses will appear in “The Way We Live Now, Theatre for Our Lives in the Crisis Called AIDS,” Friday and Saturday at Santa Barbara’s Center Stage Theater.

The production, a compilation of four short plays, will look at the emotions with which AIDS victims and those around them are confronted. It is being sponsored by Santa Barbara’s Access Theatre for disabled and non-disabled actors, and Heath House, a Santa Barbara AIDS shelter.

Both shows will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 general, and $40 reserved. The theater is on the second floor of the Paseo Nuevo Shopping Center. Call the Center Stage box office at 963-0408.

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At the busy Lobero Theatre: Folk singer-guitarist Tom Chapin will perform his family-style music at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday. Chapin is known for his children’s music, his last three albums having been honored by the American Library Assn. Tickets are $9.50 for adults and $6.50 for children.

On Sunday the West Coast Chamber Orchestra will take the stage, performing Saint Saens’ “Cello Concerto,” the “4th Brandenberg Concerto,” and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 1.” Admission is $18. The show begins at 7 p.m.

On Tuesday, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an acclaimed, all-male ballet company, will impersonate women in such works as “Go for Barocco” and “Isadora Deconstructed.” Show time is 8 p.m. Admission is $18.50 for adults and $16.50 for students. The Lobero is at 33 E. Canon Perdido St. For tickets, call 963-0761.

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Long-time Santa Barbarans don’t have to check their calendars to know what time of year it is. All they need to do is visit Oak Park--if there’s a cultural festival going on, it’s probably sometime between May and October.

Oak Park’s 1993 season begins Sunday with the Jewish Festival. Expect music, food, and dancing. Festivities will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The park is at Alamar Avenue and Junipero Street.

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Inner consciousness probably will be raised Saturday and Sunday at the Arlington Theatre at the “Leaving Our Father’s House” conference, sponsored by the Pacifica Graduate Institute. Jungian analyst-author Marion Woodman, storyteller Diane Wolkstein, actor-director Andre Gregory, and musician-author John Densmore (of the Doors), will look at unconscious attitudes and discovering oneself.

Through lecture, discussion and bodywork, Woodman will help participants take close looks at their lives, their bodies, the earth and institutions around them. Woodman, Gregory, and Densmore will run the conference from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

On Saturday at 8 p.m. Wolkstein will tell the story of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love and fertility, whose story of emergence into womanhood, marriage, descent into the underworld, and rebirth, dates to 1900 B.C. Tickets for the full conference are $200. Tickets for Wolkstein’s performance are $15. For more information, call 969-3626.

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Works by songwriters Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe will be highlighted Saturday and Sunday, when the 90-member Santa Barbara Choral Society gives a “Salute to Broadway” at the First Presbyterian Church.

The program will include songs from the musicals “Gigi,” “Camelot,” “Brigadoon,” “Paint Your Wagon” and “My Fair Lady.” Saturday’s concert will begin at 8 p.m., Sunday’s at 4 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for seniors, students and the disabled. The church is at 21 E. Constance Ave. Call 965-7905.

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Northern California’s Sha Sha Higby, known for her dance and use of elaborate, handmade costumes in her dance performances, will bring her show tonight to UC Santa Barbara. Show times are 7 and 9 p.m. at the university’s Girvetz Theater. General admission is $12. Call 893-3535.