9 pm: Performance Art

8pm Pop Music

“Take Offs and Landings,” the debut album from the Los Angeles band Rilo Kiley, is an insinuating set of dreamy indie-pop spearheaded by Jenny Lewis’ beguiling vocals. Despite the record’s unassuming tone, the band is spreading its wings, having recently toured with Superchunk and taxiing toward the annual Noise Pop festival in San Francisco in February.

Rilo Kiley, with Buellton, Act of Breathing In, the Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, 8 p.m. $10. (310) 276-6168.

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9pm Performance Art

Bad office Christmas party got you down? Looking for someplace where you don’t have to buy a gift, bring a gift or wrap a gift? Check out a cavalcade of performance art and head for the dance floor in Highways Performance Space’s “Winter Wonderland” dance party and show. The talent, curated by Pop Tarts, also known as performer Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, includes Simone Gad, Anna Homler, Phillip Munson, Selene Luna, Maria Elena Fernandez and many more.

“Winter Wonderland,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, Saturday, 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. Doors open at 8:30 p.m. $10. (310) 315-1459.

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9pm Pop Music

Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan’s solo side career was supposed to have begun with a teaming with Kurt Cobain. When that project fell through, the singer proceeded with different sidemen to establish a body of brooding work that contrasted sharply with the rock of his band. Now with another noisy group, Queens of the Stone Age, Lanegan takes his solo music out for a rare concert airing.

Mark Lanegan, with Brett Netson, Knitting Factory Hollywood, 7021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, 9 p.m. $16 in advance, $18 day of show. (323) 463-0204.

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8pm Jazz

A fixture on the Japanese jazz scene since the 1950s, internationally renowned saxophonist Sadao Watanabe makes his only U.S. appearance on his 50th anniversary tour Saturday night in Los Angeles. The first half of Saturday’s concert will feature the straight-ahead jazz style of his early career, followed in the closing set with his more recent jazz fusion work.

Sadao Watanabe & Friends, Japan America Theatre, 244 S. San Pedro St., L.A., 8 p.m. $22 to $35. (213) 680-3700.

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8pm Dance

Whether commemorating Kwanzaa, Christmas or an amalgam that Times reviewer Victoria Looseleaf dubbed “Kwansmas,” Lula Washington’s annual “Gospel Kwanzaa Celebration” is a holiday program with legs. As always, it gives the dancers in Washington’s modern dance ensemble a chance to perform alongside a host of guests, which this year include the Showla Dance Company and the Boujoubumbastick African jazz group. The program also features a section from Washington’s “Memories,” saluting the victims and heroes of the World Trade Center disaster. But its happiest moments will probably belong to the children from Washington’s school. As Looseleaf wrote in 1998, “Whenever the Dance Theatre students, ranging from 4-year-olds to teenagers, took to the stage, the atmosphere was charged with inspiration and hope.”

Lula Washington Dance Theatre in “Gospel Kwanzaa Celebration,” Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A., 5151 State University Drive, L.A. 8 p.m. $22.50 to $32.50. (323) 343-6600.

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1pm Family Freebie

Where do you put 15 tons of snow in L.A.? How about Pershing Square? Bring the whole family out to enjoy Snow Day in Downtown, a fun-filled day with games, prizes, Radio Disney music, ice skating, snow, snow and more snow.

Snow Day in Downtown, Pershing Square, 532 S. Olive St., L.A., 1 to 4 p.m. Free. (213) 624-2146.