Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

While many events in and around Dallas have either been postponed or canceled during the coronavirus pandemic, some organizations have pivoted to virtual or socially-distanced events to continue offering the masses some entertainment while we need it the most.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. While they're not all outside of the house, they all promise to provide a nice distraction from the everyday life.

Thursday, November 5

Galleria Dallas and Fashion Group International presents "Fashion Meets Mask"
Galleria Dallas is partnering with the Dallas chapter of Fashion Group International to present "Fashion Meets Mask," an exhibit and virtual auction celebrating the art of the mask. More than 50 face masks created by local and national celebrities, including Venny Etienne, Lea Fisher, Linda Gray, and Troy Aikman, will be displayed on Level One at Galleria Dallas through November 30. Proceeds from the sale of those masks will benefit the Fashion Group Foundation of Dallas.

Reliant Lights Strauss Square
This event marks the return of concerts to AT&T Performing Arts Center. Featuring Dallas favorite Jake Dexter & the Main Street Sound and hosted by the Center’s Auxiliary Board, this benefit concert supports the relief fund created for the Center while its stages have been dark and its doors have been closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will take place outdoors at Annette Strauss Square.

Friday, November 6

Avant Chamber Ballet presents Under the Stars
Avant Chamber Ballet will present their first in-person performance of the 2020-21 season, Under the Stars. The show, which will be outdoors at Annette Strauss Square on Friday and Saturday, will be three ballets with no intermission: Katie Puder’s Ravel Violin Sonata, the world premiere of Madison Hicks’ Still Growing, and Katie Puder’s 19th Amendment, all with live music.

AURORA presents Marina Rosenfeld: "Ssalute"
AURORA’s Biennial will open with the world premiere of a new work by Marina Rosenfeld titled "Ssalute." A drive-through sound installation occupying the upper floors of a parking structure at 1200 Ross Ave., Rosenfeld’s new work is oriented around the spectator as a driver or passenger, enclosed in the protective skin of their vehicle. It starts with a personal salute offered by a live trumpet player, and this thickly amplified and augmented salutation follows drivers, echoing through the structure until they emerge onto the roof and the ambient sound of the city. The event will take place nightly through November 15.

Disney on Ice presents Dream Big
Courage leads the way for Disney’s most adventurous heroes when Disney On Ice presents Dream Big. The show, which will take place on various dates at American Airlines Center through November 15, features favorite Disney friends such as Mickey, Minnie, Miguel, Moana, Elsa, Belle, Genie, and more highlighting all the magic and adventure of Disney’s tales through world-class figure skating. The event will have pod seating, allowing visitors to safely enjoy Disney On Ice while social distancing from other groups that are also in attendance.

Saturday, November 7

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden presents Holiday at the Arboretum
The annual Holiday at the Arboretum includes the 12 Days of Christmas, featuring 25-foot-tall elaborately decorated Victorian-style gazebos that represent each of days from the song. In the evenings, the garden is open late for a special experience with over a million lights, with the gazebos and Christmas Village coming to life. The expanded Christmas Village, which opens on November 27, will feature life-size European-style houses, lighted trees, shop owners passing out samples, and live entertainment. The festival takes place through December 31 at the Dallas Arboretum.

Teatro Dallas presents A Grave is Given Supper
A literary-theatrical event, A Grave is Given Supper is a Narco-Acid Western told in a series of interlinked poems. The production, taking place on various dates through November 14 at Latino Cultural Center, follows the converging paths of two protagonists through El Sumidero, a fictional U.S./Mexico border town where an ongoing drug war rages. It is presented in an outdoor cabaret, and refreshments, rituals, and a copy of the book of poetry are included in the ticket price. A maximum of 24 tickets will be sold per performance.

Mainstage Irving - Las Colinas presents Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End
A celebration of humorist Erma Bombeck, At Wit’s End rejoices in the life of a woman considered to be one of America’s funniest moms, who championed the everyday lives of housewives with a daring truth few of her generation were willing to tell. Mainstage Irving - Las Colinas presents this one-person, full-length play, which will be available for on-demand streaming through November 21.

Disney on Ice: Dream Big will be at American Airlines Center, November 6-15.

Photo courtesy of Feld Entertainment

Disney on Ice: Dream Big will be at American Airlines Center, November 6-15.

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Movie Review

Alexander Skarsgård commands the bold, offbeat drama Pillion

Photo courtesy of A24

Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in Pillion.

Describing the new movie Pillion is almost an act of futility. It contains a variety of seemingly disparate parts that coalesce into a whole to make it utterly fascinating. Few other recent films have been able to walk the line between filthy and wholesome in quite the way this one does, and that’s only because few other filmmakers would actually dare to try.

It centers on Colin (Harry Melling), a meek man in his mid-thirties who still lives at home with his parents, Pete (Douglas Hodge) and Peggy (Lesley Sharp), while working a dead-end job giving out parking tickets. While performing in a barbershop quartet at his local pub, Colin catches the eye of biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who summons him for a clandestine hook-up the following day (which just so happens to be Christmas Day).

With barely a word exchanged between them, Ray establishes a dominance over Colin that quickly leads to them starting a relationship in which Colin does anything Ray asks. And that means more than just sex: Colin, whether desperate for any kind of affection or unlocking a side of himself he hadn’t known, readily agrees to cook, clean, shop, and basically do whatever else Ray wants him to do.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton, the film is astonishing in the way it’s able to mine humor from Colin and Ray’s atypical bond. To call Ray “unfeeling” might not be totally accurate, but the way he treats Colin borders on cruel. However, the way Lighton structures the film, it’s easy to understand why someone like Colin would be willing to go along with the situation. It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking to see Colin debase himself in a variety of ways.

On the flip side is Colin’s heartfelt arc with his parents. It’s established right away that Peggy, who is sick with cancer, is a bit too involved with Colin’s love life, with the opening scene featuring her setting him up on a blind date. But their easy acceptance of his queerness and desire to see him find love is as heartwarming as it gets. The juxtaposition between the wholesomeness of their family and Colin’s new life is also the source of a good amount of comedy.

Lighton does not shy away from the sexual side of Colin and Ray’s relationship, and the scenes he depicts are as graphic as you are likely to see in an R-rated film. Some go up to and a little past what might be expected in a mainstream movie (including the use of a certain fake appendage). Other times they play out in a comical way to illustrate just how far Colin has progressed from the person he was when the film started.

Skarsgård, who stole the show in the Charli XCX movie The Moment, is the attraction in more ways than one in this film. The part calls for someone who’s not only impossibly handsome, but also a person who can stop dissent with just a glance, and he lives up to both qualities equally well. Melling, best known for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies, also embodies his role perfectly. He plays Colin as weak enough to be run roughshod over by Ray, but not so hopeless as to not be worth rooting for.

Pillion (which is the name of the secondary seat on a motorcycle on which Colin rides multiple times in the film) operates at a storytelling level that is difficult to achieve. Many people will not fully understand the film’s central relationship, but the way it is showcased by Lighton makes it compelling, gut-wrenching, and sexy.

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Pillion is now playing in theaters.

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