WKND FEEDBACK

TODAY

DANCE

Got to make it funky

Locally based choreographers Frit and Frat Fuller pay tribute to the late James Brown in “Down Around Brown Town” at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center. The production was reportedly approved by the Godfather of Soul himself before his death and incorporates dancing by the Fullers’ Kin ensemble as well as a text and songs to be performed by actor-singer Dorian Harewood, Frank Lawson and Amanda Zuckerman. The James Brown Band is also on the program, and there’s even a soul food reception following the performances.

“Down Around Brown Town,” Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 W. Washington Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. today. $30 to $40. (323) 240-0058. www.nhpac.com.

* Also 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday.

WORDS

Swank style for swingers

A leader of the swooping and glamorous Googie school of design, Wayne McAllister created some of Southern California’s most iconic buildings, including David Lynch’s favorite lunch spot, Bob’s Big Boy in Van Nuys, and the former home of the Academy Awards, the 1934 Biltmore Hotel. With the 1952 Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, he forever defined playboy style: His swank and glittering Copa Room has become another gin-kissed character in Brat Pack mythology. Historic preservationist and Los Angeles magazine editor Chris Nichols reads from his study of the designer, who had no formal architectural training, “The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister.”

Chris Nichols, Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. 7 p.m. today. Free. (626) 449-5320.

FRIDAY

THEATER

Swift kicks on the stage

In this adaptation of the 18th century classic “Gulliver’s Travels,” Jonathan Swift’s bawdy, razor-edged satire for adults, Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon, sets sail and encounters a series of mishaps, ending up on unknown islands inhabited by people and animals of unusual sizes, behaviors and philosophies. Adapted by company member Joshua Zeller and directed by P. Adam Walsh, with a cast of live actors and puppets.

“Gulliver’s Travels,” Actors’ Gang Theater at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Opens 8 p.m. Friday. $25. Opening night gala, $95. (310) 838-4264. www.theactorsgang.com.

* Runs 8 p.m Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Sept. 8.

MOVIES

A real-life escape artist

Director Werner Herzog once sent a character deep into the Amazon to attempt to build an opera house, so getting a POW out of a Laotian prison should be a breeze. Christian Bale stars as Dieter Dengler, the real-life U.S. Navy pilot who made the escape, in the action-adventure film “Rescue Dawn.” Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies also star.

“Rescue Dawn,” rated PG-13 for some sequences of intense war violence and torture, opens Friday exclusively at Pacific’s ArcLight, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd. (at Ivar Avenue), Hollywood, (323) 464-4226; and Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica, (310) 394-9741.

MUSIC

Back from Indochina

Pasadena-based Southwest Chamber Music went to Cambodia and Vietnam in December to become the first U.S. music group to have residencies in those countries since the fall of the Khmer Rouge and the end of the Vietnam War. The group promised to bring back new music from those countries, and they make good on that promise this weekend with the U.S. premiere of Vietnamese composer Phuc Linh’s Suite for Winds and Strings. The program will also include Beethoven’s Septet for Winds and Strings and Piston’s Quintet for Flute and String Quartet.

Southwest Chamber Music, Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. 7:30 p.m. Friday. $28 and $38. (800) 726-7147. www.swmusic.org.

* Also 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

SATURDAY

POP MUSIC

Rocking hoedown

The organizers of Orange County’s annual Hootenanny festival, the energetic punk-meets-roots rock hoedown, ran out of living legends to headline the show a few years ago. No matter, Social Distortion now handles show-closing duties each year with the requisite muscle and snarl, while veterans, this year including John Doe and Dave Alvin, mix things up during the day with latter-day simpatico acts such as Throw Rag, Big Sandy and Necromantix.

Hootenanny 2007, Oak Canyon Ranch, 5305 Santiago Canyon Road, Irvine. 11:30 a.m. Saturday. $45. (714) 991-2055.

MUSEUMS

Chatting about punk

The Hammer Conversations series, which spans culture, science and the arts, takes a turn toward the punk Saturday at the Hammer Museum when L.A. icon Henry Rollins and the up-and-coming Boston musician Amanda Palmer chat. Palmer is a singer-songwriter-pianist for the Dresden Dolls, a duo that fuses a Weimar era cabaret sensibility and a vaudeville bent with punk rock energy. In 2006, Palmer created an original musical, “Onion Cellar,” and she is collaborating with Ben Folds on an album. Rollins, of course, has been heard in many ways -- as a vocalist for Black Flag and then the Rollins Band; as a spoken-word artist, an author and an actor; and, most recently, as the host of both IFC’s “The Henry Rollins Show” and a weekly radio show on Indie 103.1 (KDLD-FM).

Amanda Palmer & Henry Rollins: A Conversation, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. 7 p.m. Saturday. Free. (310) 443-7016. www.hammer.ucla.edu/programs/8.

ART

Watery creations

Terri Friedman pours vibrant colors onto frosted plexiglass sheets to conjure landscape images that include water features, such as rivers, geysers, lakes, ponds, tsunamis and the sea. The surfaces that result from her handiwork are translucent but also of a patchwork variety akin to those of once-molten lava and Murano glass. In her collection, she explores water’s dual ability to sustain and destroy life.

Terri Friedman, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building B1, Santa Monica. Opens Saturday. Free. (310) 453-7535.

* Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Ends Sept. 1.

TUESDAY

MUSIC

Playing at the zoo

It may be bedtime for Bonzo in the chimpanzee wing of the L.A. Zoo, but he and a lot of other creatures will undoubtedly be up late Tuesday to share the fun of World Music at the Zoo. Music that is almost as varied as the zoo population will be heard at various locations. Among the performers and styles: the Masanga Marimba Ensemble (Zimbabwean), Taiko Drummers (Japanese), Greek Odyssey (Greek), Balalaika Rascals (Russian), Melena and Omele (Latin), the Zydeco Party Band (Cajun) and Kenny Hudson’s World Beat (African).

World Music at the Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo, 5333 Zoo Drive, L.A. 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday. Members: $12 adults, $7 children; nonmembers: $16 adults, $10 children. (323) 644-6042.

WEDNESDAY

THEATER

Naughty puppets

The Old Globe Theatre presents the West Coast premiere of the Tony-winning musical “Avenue Q,” about a bright-eyed college grad who comes to New York City with big dreams and a tiny bank account. Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx; book by Jeff Whitty, based on an original concept by Lopez and Marx. For mature audiences due to strong language and full puppet nudity.

“Avenue Q,” Spreckels Theatre, 121 Broadway, San Diego. Opens 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. $19 to $85. (619) 234-5623. www.TheOldGlobe.org* Runs 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays, except 2 p.m. only Aug. 5. Ends Aug. 5.

* Also at the Ahmanson Theatre, Sept. 7-Oct. 14.

JAZZ

The queen of all media

Queen Latifah is a true Renaissance woman, with successful forays into rap and hip-hop, television, movies, books, product endorsement and beyond. Now she’s moving into the creatively demanding world of jazz. And the performances on her soon-to-be-released CD, “Travelin’ Light” -- a follow-up to the jazz and soul program of her 2004 release, “The Dana Owens Album” -- suggest that the warm timbre of her voice and buoyant rhythmic swing of her phrasing have found a musical home.

Queen Latifah, the Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Wednesday. $6 to $43.(323) 850-2000.