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Are You Art Lover Enough? Every 10 minutes for 12 hours, local comedians, dancers, actors, musicians, and monologuists will be performing at Theater Artaud's ninth annual Performance Marathon. The event, which features over 70 companies and 150 artists, is a cheap and effective way to discover who's doing what, and which performers you might want to see again. Run for Your Life! ... It's a Dance Company joins Contraband's Sara Shelton Mann, Fat Chance BellyDance, and the Stephen Pelton and Della Davidson dance companies in the terpsichorean corner; Connie Champagne, Amandla Poets, and the Golden Gate Men's Chorus are among the musical guests; and a Traveling Jewish Theater's Albert Greenberg helps hold up the theater end at the marathon, which runs from noon-midnight at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida (at 17th Street), S.F. Admission is $8 and up sliding scale, good for a re-entry stamp; call 621-7797.
sunday
september 7
Faster, Enrique! Patty Duke as a slurring, pill-popping Hollywood has-been in Valley of the Dolls is funny enough, and the druggy three-way between the Strawberry Alarm Clock, director Russ Meyer, and screenwriter Roger Ebert that yielded Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is funnier still. And then there's Joe Eszterhas, whose work is so bad it's ... just bad. Hard on the high heels of the Castro's Valley of the Dolls revival, disco rockers Enrique and members of the Sick and Twisted Players do the starlets-gone-wrong genre one better with the original rock musical Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls. Enrique, whose performances are marvels in hummable hooks and flammable outfits, and the Players, who specialize in reviving schlock dramas like The Poseidon Adventure, share a deep and abiding love of camp. And Above and Beyond, the story of three naive showgirls corrupted by sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, is all about camp, from the orgies to the angel dust freakouts. Viewers may create post-show scenarios of their own at midnight following each performance, when a guest band will play, followed by DJs Robeena Diet-Biscuit of "Trannyshack" and Deena Davenport of "Baby Judy's," who spin records until 2 a.m. The show begins at 10 p.m. (and runs Sunday nights through Sept. 28) at Club 181, 181 Eddy (at Market), S.F. Admission is $5; call 636-3987.
Brazil Nuts Bahia Cabana celebrates 175 years of independence from Portuguese rule with a street party illustrating the country's complex cultural heritage. The capoeira demonstrations offer some insight into African religious influence, and performances by Fogo na Roupa Samba School and Samba do Coracao spotlight popular music and dance styles. The fair offers games and kids activities, tourist information and food booths, and live music and dance performances throughout the day. It all begins at noon outside of Bahia Cabana, Market & Page, S.F. Admission is free; call 626-3306.
monday
september 8
Parker Here Lovers of old-school funk and soul treat a Maceo Parker show sort of like a pilgrimage, essential and divine. Lucky for them, Parker keeps coming back and blowing his horn, the tenor, baritone, and alto saxes leading off some of James Brown's biggest hits, from "Cold Sweat" to "Gonna Have a Funky Good Time." A sometime member of P-Funk and a Parliament/Bootsy Collins offshoot called the Horny Horns, Parker played with Brown on and off for over 20 years, including a gig at the "Rumble in the Jungle" Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire immortalized in the movie When We Were Kings. That longtime collaboration shows when he gets up a cover of "Pass the Peas" or "I Got You (I Feel Good)," but Parker's way with a groove has left a singular impression on groups from the Rolling Stones to Deee-Lite. New Orleans' Royal Fingerbowl open for Parker at 9 p.m. tonight in the first show of a three-night run; the Latin jazz-schooled Cabaret Diosa open at 9 p.m. Tuesday and pop funksters What It Is open at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell (at Polk), S.F. Admission is $17; call 885-0750.
tuesday
september 9
Office Party There are enough working temps, waiting temps, and former temps in this town to keep the solo and sketch comedy collection "Financial District Side Show" in the black through the end of next year, and who better to appreciate Bridget Schwartz's aptly named Office Donkey sketch than a temp? Schwartz, a stand-up comic who got her start at the Holy City Zoo, turns her barbed wit on a Kelly girl whose eagerness to please at an early morning BofA assignment oscillates between the screaming boredom and unmitigated disasters that characterize her day. Schwartz shares the "Side Show" bill with Liz White, the founder of sketch comedy group the Associates, who rakes telemarketers over the coals in Telescammer Boiler Room, and Associates alum Bill Bernat, whose monologue The Businessman dives into the psyche of a Type A executive governed by committees and codes. "Side Show" begins at 8 p.m. (and continues Tuesdays through Sept. 30) at Venue 9, 252 Ninth St. (at Folsom), S.F. Admission is $6-10; call 626-2169.
Feet First Latin dance continues to enjoy an enthusiastic local following that can be traced at least as far back as the repeatedly extended dance show Forever Tango, if not before. While fans await the upcoming release of Carlos Saura's luminous dance film Flamenco, they can satisfy their hunger with Argentine dance company Tango x 2's production Milonga!, named for an Argentine dance party. In this internationally touring show, four accomplished duos led by Milena Plebs and Miguel Angel Zotto trace the vivid history and multiple nuances of the tango in 32 dance and musical numbers, accompanied by cabaret singer Roxana Fontan. The show begins at 8 p.m. (with additional performances through Sept. 14) at Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft & Telegraph, UC Berkeley campus. Admission is $18-40; call (510) 642-9988.
