1pm
Music
In honor of Veterans Day, the 562nd Air Force Band will perform at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Patriotic and favorite American songs will be presented by the group, which is also known as the Air National Guard Band.
* The 562nd Air Force Band, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, 40 Presidential Drive, Simi Valley, 1 p.m. Museum admission: $5; 62 and older, $3; 15 and younger, free. (800) 410-8354.
7pm
Theater/Music
Songwriter Steve Schalchlin spent three years dying from AIDS--and then a new drug brought him back to life. He calls his life since then “the bonus round.” His recovery took on a life larger than his own, though, when he started keeping an online diary (https://www.bonusround.com) and then wrote the songs “The Last Session,” which ran in New York and Los Angeles, and won four Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards. Now Schalchlin has taken those songs and a few others, and created a performance called “Living in the Bonus Round.” He’ll perform it Sunday as a benefit for the Celebration Theatre.
* “Living in the Bonus Round” at the Celebration Theatre, 7051B Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. $25. (310) 289-2999.
7pm
Dance
Although classical ballet often creates the illusion of weightlessness, modern dancers rarely seem lighter than air. But the 75 corps members of modernist Susan Marshall’s “The Descent Beckons” can’t help it: They’re balloons in human form and at human scale--pumped-up dummies manipulated by the six flesh-and-blood dancers of Marshall’s company in an offbeat, full-evening exploration of winter solstice rites and New Year’s celebrations. Music by David Lang (of the Bang on a Can music group) and a text by Lisa Kron (of the Five Lesbian Brothers theater company) help Marshall, her dancers and her platoon of airheads ring out The Old and ring in The New with distinction.
* “The Descent Beckons,” Susan Marshall and Company, Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 7 p.m. $15 to $43. (800) 233-3123. Also today, 8 p.m., in Campbell Hall, UC Santa Barbara campus. $12 (students) to $22. (805) 893-3535.
4pm
Music
After its recent tour of European cities--St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Talinn and Berlin--the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles repeats its tour program, called “From Russia With Love,” Sunday in West Hollywood. Jon Bailey, the chorus’ artistic director, conducts.
* Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, West Hollywood Park Auditorium, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood. 2 and 4 p.m. $25. (800) MEN SING.
noon
Poetry
The Los Angeles Poetry Festival, which got underway Wednesday, brings the prankster performance artist The Dark Bob in to the Cast Theater on Sunday to cap “Stage Presences,” an afternoon of stylish spoken word by Michael Datcher, Liz Gonzalez and Sarah Maclay. The festival continues through Nov. 21 with more than 40 events around the city. Also on tap Sunday is a Poetry of Tolerance event by the Valley Contemporary Poets at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, the site of a hate-crime attack earlier this year.
* Los Angeles Poetry Festival. Prices and venues vary. Information line: (323) 255-5223. “Stage Presences” at the Cast Theater, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood, noon to 2 p.m. $7. “Poetry of Tolerance,” 16601 Rinald St., Granada Hills, 7 p.m. (323) 666-0808. Other events daily through Nov. 21.
8pm
New Music
Trombonist Michael Vlatkovitch, a former Angeleno now based in Portland, Ore., is a musician who knows no bounds. Here, the veteran composer and experimentalist will explore three-cornered improvisation as he does on his latest CD, “No Zee Two Es” with bassist Anders Swanson and drummer Christopher Garcia. Opening is the Ziggurat Trio, a chamber group that is beyond categorization: saxophonist-clarinetist Eric Barber, guitarist-bassoonist John Weitzenrater and percussionist Eric Getter.
* Open Gate Theatre presents Michael Vlatkovitch Trio and the Ziggurat Trio at the Pasadena Shakespeare Company Theatre, Plaza Pasadena, 202 E. Colorado Blvd., second level, Pasadena, 8 p.m. $10. (626) 795-4989.
FREEBIE:
The vibraphone-based Latin jazz band of the Estrada Brothers plays the Warner Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro, 3 p.m. Reservations required. (310) 548-7466.
Singer Yvonne Williams & the Jazz Chronicles appear at Grace Chapel, 1125 Centinela Ave., Inglewood, 7 p.m. (310) 677-5962.
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