WEEKEND FORECAST

TODAY

DANCE

They have something of everything

A long-overdue audience development project, “Fall for Dance” brings two mixed bills to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, along with master classes, free pre- and post-show events and dancing on the plaza. Tickets go for $10 (repeat, 10 bucks) for major ballet, modern dance companies, folkloric ensembles and pop dance performers. Program 1: Nina Rajarani Dance Creations, Susan Marshall and Company, Boston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Via Katlehong Dance and Project Bandaloop. Program 2: Charles Moulton Dance, Dutch National Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, Rennie Harris Puremovement and Project Bandaloop.

“Fall for Dance,” Orange County Performing Artscenter, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $10. (714) 556-2787 or www.ocpac.org

* Program 1: 7:30 p.m. today and Friday

* Program 2: 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday

FRIDAY

MOVIES

A defector’s story

Forty-five years after walking through the DMZ into North Korea and not looking back, James Joseph Dresnok finally tells his story in the documentary, “Crossing the Line.” British director Daniel Gordon (“State of Mind”) chronicles the U.S. Army defector’s life on the other side.

“Crossing the Line,” unrated, opens Friday at Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869.

SATURDAY

POP MUSIC

Country newbies

Proven hit makers and seat fillers Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson are the headliners of Go Fest 2007, but the concert’s attraction for serious country fans might be the up-and-coming artists who fill out the bill: Jason Michael Carroll, Keith Anderson and Joanna Cotten.

Go Fest 2007, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 3:30 p.m. Saturday. $30.50 to $125. (949) 855-8096.

WORLD MUSIC

Notorious on the oud

Lebanese oud player Marcel Khalife can’t seem to escape political controversy. He’s been denounced in Bahrain, banned from radio, TV and stage in Tunisia, and -- last month -- had a venue changed in San Diego. What does all this have to do with his music? Not much. Khalife, a UNESCO Artist for Peace, is a master of Arabic music’s complex improv- isational styles. At his best, he enhances those styles with a global palette that incorporates lyrical whispers of flamenco, jazz and Indian ragas.

Marcel Khalife, Wilshire-Ebell Theatre, 4401 W. 8th St., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Saturday. $25 to $55. (323) 939-1128.

ART

Poles of inspiration

Having moved from Detroit to Los Angeles five years ago, artist Mary Jean Mallman became smitten with the landscape of her new SoCal neighborhood -- and the often pedestrian features of the landscape. The drawings featured in her new exhibition, “Raphael, Milo, Irvington,” are based on the eight telephone poles on her block and seek to tease a little beauty out of L.A. sunsets glutted with high-tension electrical towers, cellphone trees and those telephone poles.

Mary Jean Mallman: “Raphael, Milo, Irvington,” Gallery 825/LAAA, 825 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood. Opens Saturday. (310) 652-8272.

* Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Ends Nov. 9.

THEATER

Monks are warriors

China’s “Shaolin Warriors,” warrior monks from the Henan province, present their internationally touring theatrical extravaganza combining traditional martial arts, spectacular imagery and acrobatics.

“Shaolin Warriors,” Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach. 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday. $38. (562) 985-7000. www.carpenterarts.org

SUNDAY

MUSEUMS

African art, graphic systems

A new exhibition at the Fowler Museum, “Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art,” features a range of works from various periods, regions, genres and peoples exploring the interplay between African art and the communicative power of graphic systems. The exhibition consists of more than 100 works -- including Egyptian funerary arts, masks and textiles, and illuminated liturgical texts -- and includes the work of contemporary artists Rachid Koraichi, Ghada Amer, Berni Searle, Ike Ude, Victor Ekpuk, Kim Berman, Yinka Shonibare, Wosene Kosrof and others.

“Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art,” Fowler Museum at UCLA, Sunset Boulevard and Westwood Plaza, Westwood. Opens Sunday. (310) 825-4361.

* Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays though Sundays; noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays.

MUSIC

Gershon knows role

Grant Gershon has been busy of late in his new job of chorus master for the Los Angeles Opera, honing the opera chorus for Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and Janacek’s “Jenufa.” But he comes home this weekend to the Los Angeles Master Chorale, his other, long-term bailiwick, to launch the season with Beethoven’s rarely performed “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage,” a setting of two poems by Goethe, and Brahms’ “A German Requiem,” which draws from Martin Luther’s German vernacular translation of the Bible rather than the traditional Latin of the Catholic requiem Mass. Soprano Elissa Johnston and baritone Stephen Powell will be the soloists.

Los Angeles Master Chorale, Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A. 7 p.m. Sunday. $19 to $114. (800) 787-5262. www.lamc.org

MONDAY

JAZZ

Rare airing of Ellis

Don Ellis, the trumpeter, bandleader and composer, was a true West Coast original -- one of the Southland’s most innovative artists. Ellis explored far-out musical territories in his small groups and big bands, but even his most metrically off-center rhythms always seemed to have melodic references that made them audience-compatible. Sadly, his music has been heard far too rarely since his death (at 44) of heart problems in 1978, which makes this unusual opportunity to hear Ellis’ stirring arrangements for a 19-piece ensemble, performed in living color, a don’t-miss-it event. Keyboardist Milcho Leviev, a close Ellis associate, leads the band.

Don Ellis Reunion Big Band, Charlie O’s, 13725 Victory Blvd., Valley Glen. 8 p.m. to midnight Monday. $20 cover charge. (818) 994-3058.

TUESDAY

WORDS

The lasting effects of 9/11

Aloud at Central Library presents Pulitzer Prize-winning author Susan Faludi in conversation with Los Angeles magazine Editor in Chief Kit Rachlis. Faludi, the author of “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man” and “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,” discusses her new novel, “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America,” a work exploring the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the country’s response to them and the lasting effects citizens have experienced since.

“Susan Faludi and Kit Rachlis,” Richard J. Riordan Central Library, 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles. 7 p.m. Tuesday. Free. (213) 228-7025.

WEDNESDAY

THEATER

Galileo

on trial

Stacy Keach and Simon Templeman headline the American premiere of David Hare’s version of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Life of Galileo,” a resonant exploration of the conflict between reason and faith set during Galileo’s confrontation with the Holy Inquisition. This live radio theater presentation, presented by L.A. Theatre Works’ as its 2007-08 season opener, will be recorded to air as part of the company’s new “Relativity” science series.

“The Life of Galileo,” Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. Opens 8 p.m. Wednesday. $20 to $47. (310) 827-0889. www.latw.org.

* Runs 8 p.m. Wednesday through Oct. 19, 3 p.m. Oct. 20, 4 p.m. Oct. 21; ends Oct. 21.