8:30pm DanceIn nine dances that explore the...

8:30pm Dance

In nine dances that explore the dynamics of women’s relationships, choreographer Arianne MacBean and her Big Show Company turn a poem by C.K. Williams titled “This Happened” into an evening of contemporary movement theater. Praised by The Times for what one reviewer called “provocative thought and deft physicality,” the 3-year-old, locally based company now has a repertory of 20 works and specializes in multidisciplinary performance events. Some sections of “This Happened,” for example, include spoken and projected texts. Expect taped music and live percussion, plus video, along with a complex architectural arrangement of white walls and cubes. Unifying all the elements, MacBean says, is the theme of friendship--between dancers, between choreographer and dancer, and between women.

Arianne MacBean and the Big Show Company in “This Happened,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, 8:30 p.m. Also Friday and Saturday, 8:30 p.m. $13 (students); $15. (310) 315-1459.

8:30pm Jazz

His 1960s musical forays with John Coltrane are the stuff of jazz legend--furious, creative innovation that led audiences to new and unfamiliar musical frontiers--and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders has managed to carry on that avant-garde tradition into the succeeding years without sacrificing his intensity. The jazz veteran makes his annual visit to L.A. this week.

Pharoah Sanders Quartet, Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Also Friday and Saturday, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. $18 to $25. (323) 466-2210.

8pm Music

American violinist Leila Josefowicz returns to the Hollywood Bowl, this time with veteran conductor-violinist-violist Jaime Laredo, a moving force in North American chamber music over the past 40 years. The two string players share the spotlight in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, and in Bach’s Double Concerto. Laredo leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Mendelssohn’s beloved “Italian” Symphony.

L.A. Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, 8 p.m. $1 to $76. (323) 850-2000.

10pm Pop Music

Alt-country musician and storyteller Jim White started calling his new tour “Man With Machines” as a joke, but the phrase stuck. Instead of just strumming his guitar while singing his songs, which look deep into the psyche of the American South, the Pensacola, Fla.-reared maverick will accompany himself with tape loops, audio samples and other electronic bells and whistles for shows tonight and Friday at the AlterKnit Lounge in Hollywood.

Jim White, AlterKnit Lounge, Knitting Factory Hollywood, 7021 Hollywood Blvd., 10 p.m. Also Friday, 10 p.m. $12. (323) 463-0204.

all day Movies

In “Annie Hall,” the spider Woody Allen had to deal with was only the size of a Buick. In “Eight Legged Freaks,” engineer David Arquette and sheriff Kari Wuhrer do battle with arachnids the size of SUVs, the outgrowth of a toxic-waste spill near their rural mining town. The carnivorous bugs, clear descendants of the B-movie monsters of the ‘50s, terrorize the small town’s inhabitants, including Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, Rick Overton and Scott Terra.

“Eight Legged Freaks,” rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence, brief sexuality and language, opened Wednesday in general release.