BEST BETS / Saturday 1/20

8pm

Jazz

Expect to hear some selections from Monica Mancini’s latest album, “The Dreams of Johnny Mercer,” when she takes the stage in this concert setting.

* Monica Mancini, Pepperdine University, Smothers Theatre, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, 8 p.m. $35. (310) 456-4522.

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all day

Celebration

The Los Angeles Zoo celebrates the beginning of the Year of the Snake with a two-day Lunar New Year Asian Celebration. The family-oriented event will include kung-fu demonstrations, a lion dance, Asian folk dancers and artisans, and ethnic xxfood from various countries.

* Lunar New Year Asian Celebration, Los Angeles Zoo, 5333 Zoo Drive, L.A. Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Zoo admission: $8.25; ages 2-12, $3.25. (323) 644-6400.

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1pm to dawn

Performing Arts

Paul Zaloom, Chris Wells, Tenacious D, TheatreSports, Fabulous Monsters’ Bennett Schneider, playwright Leon Martell and many other artists are featured in the “Sixth Annual Hollywood Performance Marathon,” an afternoon-till-dawn mix of spoken word, performance art, poetry, music, improv, dance, comedy and multimedia to kick off Theatre of NOTE’s 21st season.

* “Sixth Annual Hollywood Performance Marathon,” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, 1 p.m. to dawn. $8 (for all-day pass). (323) 856-8611.

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9pm

Pop Music

The Jayhawks prefigured the whole alternative-country movement when they started strumming in Minneapolis clubs in 1985. Since then, they’ve weathered such blows as co-leader Gary Louris’ near-fatal car accident early on and the more recent departure of founding member Mark Olson. The group’s sixth album, “Smile,” drew the usual dossier of rave reviews when it came out last year.

* The Jayhawks, with Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 9 p.m. $20. (323) 848-5100.

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8pm

Theater

“Two-Headed,” Julie Jensen’s play tracing the lives of two frontier Mormon women after the massacre of Missourian pioneers by a renegade Mormon militia, has its Los Angeles premiere.

* “Two-Headed,” [Inside] the Ford, John Anson Ford Theatre Center, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood, 8 p.m. Regular schedule: Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Feb. 25. $15-$20. (323) 461-3673.

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8pm

Dance

Dancers wearing intricately feathered wing-sculptures or dipped, head-to-toe, in gleaming silver body paint create dreamlike images when the 10-member, Honolulu-based Iona Pear Dance Theatre performs “The Mythology of Angels.” This full-evening 1992 dance spectacle, choreographed by company director Cheryl Flaharty to music from 11 sources (classical to rock), surveys the concept of heavenly guardians in a number of cultures, to focus on what people consider angelic. Like her accompaniments, Flaharty’s movement influences are eclectic, ranging from Western modern dance to Japanese butoh, fused in her poetic visions of divine power.

* Iona Pear Dance Theatre in “The Mythology of Angels,” Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 8 p.m. $20 to $43. (800) 233-3123.

FREEBIE

Pasadena Symphony’s “Musical Circus” includes a “musical petting zoo” with instruments, a performance by the Pasadena Youth Symphony and an open rehearsal of the Pasadena Symphony’s evening concert with guest violinist Jennifer Frautschi at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena, Saturday, 8:30 a.m. (626) 793-7172, Ext. 10.

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Three players from L.A. Baroque appear in a community concert at the Public Library Main Branch, 1343 6th St., Santa Monica, at 2 p.m. Violinists Gregory Maldonado and Janet Strauss and cellist William Skeen play music by Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn.