Events for the week

thursday
december 11
La Virgen de Guadalupe Exhibition: She's loved by millions in the Latino community; she can be seen in the back-window shrines of pickup trucks, and she's made other people rich and famous off her image. Are we talking about Selena? No, it's the Virgin of Guadalupe! The patron saint of Mexico is honored with a multimedia exhibition of more than 30 artists from Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. Curated by perennial Virgin fan Jose Vargas, the show features sculpture, drawings, photos, and unpredictable combinations in between. An artist's reception will be held December 13, 4-7 p.m., that includes performances by flamenco guitarist Miguel Antonio and the Ollin-Tonatiuh Aztec Dancers. The show runs through December 27 at The Ice House, 1000 W. Page, Oak Cliff. Call (214) 670-4870.

friday
december 12
Stanya Kahn: Ever feel like you're a small cup running over with messages from radio, TV, movies, and the Internet? Stanya Kahn, a New York-based performance artist who made her first big splash in the performance spaces of San Francisco, is playing on your team. She brings her one-woman, four-character piece Delirium to the McKinney Avenue Contemporary as part of its "Conscious Chronicles: New Left Coast Performance" series. A showgirl being interrogated by a faceless corporate elite; a sexually ambiguous Michael Jackson fan; that character's overmedicated mother; and Chum Chum the Action Man, a superhero who shatters and reassembles everything from nursery rhymes to angry cultural complaints for your delectation--all of them are up late at night attempting to make sense of being on the receiving end of a flood of wire-crossed communication. Her performances happen December 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, 3120 McKinney. Tickets are $7-$10. Call (214) 953-1212.

The Nutcracker: As the only full professional ballet company in North Texas, FortWorth Dallas Ballet certainly can't be accused of helping flood the market with the story of a girl, her wooden love doll, and a rodent with a Napoleon complex. If a company does it right, there's a creepy, psychedelic quality to this ToyStory precursor that offsets the saccharine holiday aftertaste. Performances happen December 12-14 and 18-21 at the JFK Theatre, Tarrant County Convention Center, 111 Houston St., Fort Worth. Tickets are $9-$44. Call 1-888-672-8NUT.

saturday
december 13
Keith Carter: Twenty Five Years: Flannery O'Connor often advocated during her lifetime that writers should take drawing or photography lessons to help them learn how to observe. Nationally celebrated photographer Keith Carter, based in Beaumont, Texas, got that bass-ackwards, learning from a lecture by playwright Horton Foote how to observe his native Texas surroundings. The result is 25 years of lauded Texas landscapes and portraits, now included in a one-man retrospective appropriately titled Keith Carter: Twenty Five Years. It coincides with a new book whose introduction was written by the influential photography critic A.D. Coleman. Carter's photos are not the pastoral, hypersentimental regional imagery you might expect; he skews subjects and perspectives in provocative ways. The show includes a book signing and artist's reception 1 p.m.-4 p.m. December 13. The show runs through January 17 at Photographs Do Not Bend, 3115 Routh. Call (214) 969-1852.

Zoobilee of Lights: The best reason to come to the Fort Worth Zoo this yuletide has nothing to do with animals--they'll all be asleep by the time the really cool events of Zoobilee of Lights kick in. Much like the Fort Worth Zoo can be relied upon to offer a Halloween safe from weirdos for smaller children, they come up with a series of activities that don't rely on the freaky adrenaline that rampant commercialism instills in kids. There's nary a Mattel sign in the laser-light show; no Joe Camels are in the "Wild Winter Wonderland" of large animal puppets; and, as far as we can tell, no reindeer in Reindeer Ranch have corporate logos slapped on their sides. The Zoobilee of lights is open 6 p.m.-9 p.m. December 12 and runs every night at that time at the Fort Worth Zoo on Colonial Parkway in Fort Worth. Admission is $6-$8, and parking is $3 per car. Call (817) 871-7050.

sunday
december 14
A Christmas Variety Show: The older we get, it seems, the less well we really remember our childhoods. As a result, adults tend to project all kinds of hopeful fantasies of innocence and purity onto kids, who, although certainly demanding of our protection, remain little individuals. Keeping this in mind, something like Performance, Unlimited's annual children's extravaganza, A Christmas Variety Show, becomes more than just a cute collection of tykes from pre-school to 16 strolling around offering their original poetry, stories, songs, dances, and live compositions for grown-ups to bear with a generous smile. What does little Johnny's story of a reindeer who wins the respect of the herd say about what he thinks of his relationship to the rest of the world? Will Janie's alternately shy-aggressive tap routine transform itself into a high-powered career and three husbands? The event happens 7:30 p.m. December 12 and 13, and 3 p.m. December 14 at The Corner Theatre in the DeSoto Town Center, 211 E. Pleasant Run Road, DeSoto. Tickets are $5-$10. Call (972) 680-4466.