Weekend Event Planner

These are the 14 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

The season of festivals continues in and around Dallas, with three more taking place this weekend. Other events include a symphony concert, a performing arts block party, two local theater productions, two concerts featuring legendary singers, two dance productions, a well-known comedian, the final days of a notable exhibition, and a tribute to one of the best singers of all time.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, April 10

Dallas Art Fair
The Dallas Art Fair offers collectors, arts professionals, and the public the opportunity to engage with a selection of modern and contemporary artworks presented by global and local galleries. The 2025 edition will feature a roster of more than 90 exhibitors from over 20 countries, including OMR from Mexico City, Canada Gallery from New York, Koki Arts from Tokyo, and LBF Contemporary from London. Taking place at Fashion Industry Gallery, the event kicks off on Thursday with a VIP preview, with general admission days taking place Friday through Sunday.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Stravinksy’s The Rite of Spring"
Aziz Shokhakimov, Music Director of Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, guest conducts the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for Stravinksy’s iconic The Rite of Spring. Trombonist Jörgen van Rijen will solo in the U.S. premiere of a concerto by Andrew Norman, and the concert will open with Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio espagnole. There will be three performances through Saturday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Friday, April 11

Downtown Dallas Arts & Music Festival
The Downtown Dallas Arts & Music Festival is an outdoor event featuring pop-up markets showcasing a wide variety of area artists, makers, small businesses, and creative brands, including live painting, live murals, curated pop-up exhibitions, food trucks, and more. It will also include a music stage with a full schedule of live musicians, performances, and entertainers. The festival, taking place through Sunday, will spread throughout Downtown Dallas on Main Street, focused on Main Street Garden Park and SPACE at Adolphus Tower.

Dallas Arts District presents Changing Perspectives Block Party
In celebration of Dallas Arts Month, Dallas Arts District will present their annual Changing Perspectives Block Party: A Cultural Festival. The family-friendly event features Melbourne-based performing arts company SWAY, which fuses theater, dance, and circus using a unique combination of sway-pole apparatus and bespoke performance equipment. The one-day event will also feature Monica Saldivar, The Original New Orleans Buckshop with Michelle Gibson, Percussion Things, Bombshell Dance Project with Pegasus Contemporary Ballet Company, the dance party band Aura, community muralist Lashonda Cooks, and more.

Art Centre Theatre presents Reefer Madness
When a clean-cut kid from a stand-up American family falls prey to marijuana, his descent into the pit is filled with jazz, sex, and violence. The pointed political satire is a mockery on the original propaganda film, Reefer Madness. The production runs through May 4 at Art Centre Theatre in Plano.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents Run For Your Wife
A taxi driver gets away with having two wives in different areas of London because of his irregular working schedule. Complication is piled upon complication as the cabby tries to keep his double life from exploding. The production runs through May 4 at Richardson Theatre Centre.

Tanya Tucker in concert
Singer Tanya Tucker is country music royalty, having been in the industry since the age of 14. Her long career, which started in 1972, led her to have a string of top 10 singles throughout three different decades, including "What's Your Mama's Name?," "Just Another Love," and "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane." She's released 25 albums in her career, most recently Sweet Western Sound in 2023. She'll play at Longhorn Ballroom.

Ballet North Texas presents Don Quixote
Under the direction of Artistic Director Nicolina Lawson, Ballet North Texas will present Don Quixote, a romantic ballet extravaganza featuring dynamic choreography, colorful characters, and a captivating narrative that transports audiences on a sunny romp through the Spanish countryside. The show will highlight the adventures of the chivalrous Don Quixote and his loyal squire Sancho Panza, and the blossoming romance between Kitri and the handsome Basilio. There will be four performances through Sunday at Moody Performance Hall.

TITAS/Dance Unbound presents Whim W'Him
Whim W’Him, an award-winning Seattle-based dance company known for its artistic quality and innovative choreography, will make their Texas debut. Founded in 2009 by former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer and choreographer Olivier Wevers, Whim W’Him has become a rising star in the dance world. They'll perform at Winspear Opera House.

Saturday. April 12

Big Texas Beer Fest
At Texas’ biggest beer festival, Big Texas Beer Fest, visitors can sample over 300 beers from more than 65 brewers. Visitors can also jam out to live music in the outdoor food and music pavilion. There will be several food vendors and music from Dallas-Fort Worth bands, as well as arcade games from Free Play Arcade. A portion of the proceeds of the event, taking place in the Automobile Building at Fair Park, benefits the North Texas Food Bank.

Aziz Ansari: Hypothetical Tour
Aziz Ansari is an award-winning actor, director, writer, and comedian best known for co-creating, writing, directing, and starring in the Netflix original series, Master of None. In October of 2025, he will release the film Good Fortune, which he wrote, directed, and costars with Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogen. He is also known for co-starring in NBC’s Parks and Recreation. His latest special, Nightclub Comedian, is now streaming on Netflix. He'll perform at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Graham Nash in concert
Singer Graham Nash has been a part of some of the most iconic groups in music history. He founded the band The Hollies as a teenager in the late 1950s, a group that endures to this day despite Nash leaving it for good in 1983. He was also a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash, an influential group - which sometimes included Neil Young - that was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As a solo artist, the 83-year-old Nash has released seven albums, most recently Now in 2023. He'll play at Longhorn Ballroom, performing favorite songs from throughout his long career.

Sunday, April 13

Arlington Museum of Art presents "Princess Diana: Accredited Access Exhibition" closing day
Sunday will be the final day to view "Princess Diana: Accredited Access Exhibition" at the Arlington Museum of Art, which tells the story of the world’s most loved princess through an intimate new lens. The exhibition features a collection of larger-than-life images taken by Diana’s trusted friend and Official Royal Photographer, the late Anwar Hussein, as well as his sons Samir and Zak.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents R.E.S.P.E.C.T. - A Celebration of The Music of Aretha Franklin
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. is a tribute celebrating the music of the legendary Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. The concert experience takes audiences on a journey of love, tragedy, courage, and triumph, featuring a live band and multiple vocalists. Selections for the concert, taking place at Majestic Theatre, include "Natural Woman," "Think," "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me," "Chain of Fools," "Respect," and more.

Photo courtesy of Dallas Arts District

The Dallas Arts District will present the Changing Perspectives Block Party on April 11.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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