19 Awesome Things to Do in Dallas This Weekend, Oct. 22- 25

Thursday, Oct. 22
Weatherproof
If you've been hoping to check out the McKinney Avenue Contemporary's new digs, here's your chance. See some incredible works of art by Letitia Huckaby, Jeremy McKane and Gregory Ruppe, and Jeff Gibbons inside the large warehouse space, as well as some great works of art outdoors by the likes of Carolyn Sortor, among others. The MAC will be open from noon-5 p.m.Thursday and Friday. And don't let those cloudy skies keep you away, the art is all weatherproof. 

A Very Hitchcock Halloweeen 
Nothing says Halloween like candy and scary movies. Let the Granada take care of the second part for you. At 7 p.m. Thursday, they will show a double feature of Hitchcock classics Psycho and The Birds. Put the psychological into your spooky this year. 

Rockitecture
Is it the Catalina Wine Mixer? No, it’s not. But everyone who attends ROCKITECTURE, a silent auction benefitting the Dallas Center for Architecture’s educational programming, will receive a “prime vintage from the inaugural ROCKITECTURE Wine Pull.” And even though there won’t be any helicopters or John C. Reillys, it’ll still be a pretty moneyed event with lots of Miffys, Biffys and yacht talk. So break out your coattails, cash in your Coinstar and head to The Carlisle Room at Lone Star Gas Lofts (300 St. Paul St.) at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to bid on silent auction items from designers, artists and architects plus a resort stay, accessories for both inside and outside your gold-plated three-story home, and autographed sports memorabilia, randomly. Cocktails and appetizers will be served and music will be played. We’re still sad Boats ’N’ Hoes didn’t make the cut for a theme. Tickets are $125 at DallasCFA.com. - Nikki Lott

The Face of Emmett Till
In 1955, long before the recent racial tension-raising tragedies in Ferguson, Baltimore and South Carolina, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, was murdered by an angry pair of white men for allegedly flirting with one of their wives. Then, just a couple of months after their heinous act, the two men were acquitted at trial, though they admitted to the killing soon after. When Till’s family was grieving his death there were no social media outlets or around the clock cable news channels to shed light on the sickening injustice. But Till’s heartbroken mother, Mamie Till Bradley, found a way to attract widespread attention to his horrific death regardless. She insisted upon an open casket funeral, where the thousands of attendees saw firsthand how grotesquely Till had been tortured, creating headlines across a country that was desensitized to hate crimes. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center (215 S. Tyler St.), you can see TeCo Theatrical Production’s The Face of Emmett Till. Tickets are $18-$22 at 214-948-0716. -Kelly Dearmore

Friday, Oct. 23
Night of the Living Dead Composers
Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart are as undead as you can get — though they’re long gone and buried, they’re resurrected darn near every time a group of strings or woodwinds gets together. Their spirits don’t get a lot of rest, but we’d like to think of them as a more jolly, fun-loving sort of undead: smiling over their symphonies and giving the thumbs up to even the worst renditions of their masterpieces. Not so much spinning in their graves as grooving in them. Night of the Living Dead Composers celebrates that notion from 7:30 until 9:30 p.m. Friday with a spooky Halloween tribute that’s a bone-rattling, headstone-kicking good time. Head to Klyde Warren Park, 2012 Woodall Rodgers Freeway, to join Decomposing Beethoven, his buddy Decomposing Brahms and the All Hot Ghoul Orchestra for selections that include Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and Mozart’s Queen of the Night arias. The presentation will also be filled with little tricks and treats (like tap-dancing skeletons!), and is free and open to the public. See openclassical.org for more information. .- Jennifer Davis-Lamm

Come to the Cabaret
Mary Poppins, Chicago, Wicked and more! Broadway star Ashley Brown has performed quite a bit in her day. And now she’s treating Dallas to some of that Broadway magic by performing the highlights during Come to the Cabaret at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2301 Flora St.) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Brown will perform “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins, “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, a Disney medley and more. If Broadway is your thing, but being weighed down by the dialogue and costume changes is not, then a cabaret show is the perfect way to see and hear it all. Tickets are $19-$119. To buy, call 214-849-4376 or visit the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s website, mydso.com. -Paige Skinner

Shiki: Landscape and Beyond
There is a pine tree that has seen more of the world than most humans. Well, it’s mostly a pine tree; the trunk is real, the leaves are handmade from resin by floral sculptor Azuma Makoto. This tree suspended in an open steel frame makes its way to Dallas via Zhulong Gallery (1302 Dragon St.) for an exhibition titled Shiki: Landscape and Beyond. The beautifully odd tree has taken a trip around the world, stopping in a variety of locations from government halls to unexpected landscapes. While the tree will be the centerpiece of the exhibition, it will be surrounded by large-format photographs documenting the journey, shot by Makoto’s collaborator, Shunsuke Shiinoki. The opening reception for the exhibit will be 7-9 p.m. Friday. More at zhulonggallery.com.

BrewHaha #11
Laughs? Check. Beer? Check. What more do you need? The next installment of this series of stand-up comedy/craft beer mixers takes place at 7 p.m. Friday at Peticolas. Tickets are $20.

Saturday, Oct. 24
Reading Room Book Swap
Every year the Reading Room (3715 Parry Ave.) hosts a book swap, and every year, without fail, the date slips off my calendar and I spend a few months in regret. This is the year I put my FOMO to rest by writing in iCal that the book swap will take place from 2-7 p.m. Saturday. There will be book trades, beer and microreadings (which sounds totally adorable). Readers include local luminaries such as Will Evans, Janiel Engelstad, Kendra Greene and Patrick Romeo. Trade up that new Jonathan Franzen tome for a Deep Vellum book, if you’re lucky. More at readingroomdallas.blogspot.com.

Trinity River Wind Festival
For the past five years, Dallas has made sure to find the most obscure way to celebrate the open space of the Trinity River — by celebrating “wind.” The Trinity River Wind Festival is back again with a family- and budget-friendly day. The festival will include a wide array of free activities and events that take advantage of one of nature’s most powerful forces, ranging from stunt kites to exotic birds and award-winning frisbee dogs. Lucky for you, it won’t cost you a penny to experience the open space of the Trinity River (146 W. Commerce St.) and the magic of wind with these great activities starting at 11 a.m. Saturday. For more information about the festival and parking, head to trinityrivercorridor.com. - Lucas Buckels

Sightings: Alex Israel
Some days you’ll find Alex Israel assuming the role of daytime talk show host, his legs crossed, sunglasses shading his eyes as he interviews personalities with varying degrees of celebrity. Other times, you’ll find him working with Warner Brothers set designers to create paintings that resemble the sky, much like a film set. These appropriations of Hollywood culture fascinate Israel, who has spent much of his artistic career investigating the way movies influence popular culture. As part of the Sightings series at the Nasher Sculpture Center (2001 Flora St.), Israel will continue his investigation, combining a number of sculptures from the museum’s collection with his recent paintings and sculptures. His work will likely reflect his current interest in after-school specials and the genre of the teen surfing movie, which he’s using to create a feature-length film, SPF-18. See the work at 11 a.m. Saturday or through January 31. Admission is $10. More at nashersculpturecenter.org.

Art Walk West
By now, you’ve probably art walked half the square footage of Dallas — trekking across Deep Ellum, the Design District, the Cedars and the Arts District to gallery hop, linger in museums and practice your fancy wineglass-holding skills. But now there’s a new destination to add to your map app — and it’s due west. The inaugural Art Walk West explores new territory on the other side of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, with stops throughout Trinity Groves and West Dallas that will open your eyes to exciting creative endeavors on that side of town. From 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday, studios and galleries in the area will open their doors to the public, and murals and street art will be highlighted for an immersive art experience that includes pop-up shops and exhibitions from creative retailers. To cap off the experience, there will be a reception at the Erin Cluley Gallery (414 Fabrication St.) from 5 until 7 p.m. All activities are free and open to the public. - JDL

The Emerald Trio
The Emerald Trio is a string threesome, and their performance Saturday will begin with Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49. Mendelssohn was a 19th-century German conductor best known for a series of short, lyrical piano pieces. In addition to piano music he wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios and even chamber music. Mendelssohn is one of the most recognized composers of the Romantic era. Joining the Emerald Trio for this 28-minute work is pianist Andrey Ponochevny, who has won many top prizes in piano competitions all over the world, including the Bronze Medal at the XIII Tchaikovsky Competition when he was fresh out of school back in 2002. In addition to keeping a busy concert schedule, Ponochevny also teaches piano at the University of Dallas in Irving. Fine Arts Chamber Players present Emerald Trio at 3 p.m. Saturday at 1717 N. Harwood St. Admission is free. For more info, visit fineartschamberplayers.org. -Jeremy Hallock

Boo-vie Bash
Do you like movies? Do you like being outdoors? Do you like forced puns about Halloween? Then the Dallas Department of Parks and Recreation has you covered. Every year, they hold a family-friendly celebration of the Halloween holiday that doesn’t feature haunted houses run by sadists and filled with realistic depictions of torture, or costume contests full of scantily clad women. The Boo-Vie Bash at City Hall Plaza (1500 Marilla St.) at 4 p.m. Saturday will feature all kinds of activities for the whole family. It’s the most fun you can have outdoors on Halloween without knocking on strangers’ doors and begging for sugar-infused treats. You can play bubble soccer and laser tag, enjoy all sorts of foods that aren’t just candy and pick out a future jack-o’-lantern from a pumpkin patch. Then when it gets dark enough, they’ll put out a big, inflatable movie screen and show the animated, Lucasfilm-produced Strange Magic. Admission is free and open to the public. More at dallasparks.org. -Danny Gallagher

Denton Day of the Dead
Halloween is just a celebration about, well, candy. Christmas teaches us about the joy of giving and selflessness. Thanksgiving reminds us of our blessings. Halloween is about stuffing as much candy into your gut as possible, in a race against your friends to be the first to develop diabetes. Other cultures have more meaningful festivities that celebrate fall, like Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday that honors the souls of those who have died. Denton will celebrate this sacred holiday with its own Day of the Dead celebration starting at 11 a.m. Saturday in the city’s downtown square (110 W. Hickory St.). This family-friendly celebration of all things dead will feature coffin races and other games, a salsa cook-off, arts and crafts displays, a lantern-lit twilight parade and a live performance of Denton’s Halloween musical Cirque du Horror. This event is free and open to the public. More at dentondayofthedeadfestival.com. -DG

Naked Girls Reading: Fang Fiction and Scarytales in the Dark
The only way a ghost story could be more tense is if the person reading it to you were naked. Or maybe that would make it less tense? Who knows. What we do know is that Naked Girls Reading returns this weekend with a special, spooky installment at Kettle Art Gallery. Show up at 9 p.m. ready for a scare. 

Black Swan Performance and Film
This weekend, the Dallas Neo-Classical Ballet premieres two new works in conduction with a screening of the Darren Aronofsky film, Black Swan. Artistic director Emilie Skinner choreographs a piece, "Doppelgänger," inspired by the German folkloric concept of seeing your double. "Last Glimpse in the Mirror" by Victoria Tran draws literally from the film. See it all at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Texas Theatre. 

Sunday, Oct. 25
Performance as Gesture: Songs for a City Park
Do you ever stroll by a section of a park and wonder why it was built that way? Why are there Japanese gardens in Kidd Springs Park, for example? This is one of the questions at the center of Cynthia Mulcahy’s project, which culminates this weekend in Performance as Gesture: Songs for a City Park. With an evening of musical performances she hopes to shed light on the rich history of the park’s Japanese gardens, which Dr. and Mrs. Jack Edwards gifted to the city in the 1960s. Learn more factoids like that one from 5-7 p.m. Sunday at Kidd Springs Park (711 W. Canty St.). For more about Mulcahy and her project, visit mulcahymodern.com.

Expanded Cinema
Here's a thing you won't want to miss. As the final event in Dallas VideoFest, the Omni Hotel downtown will be lit up by artists with interesting displays of video art. From 7:30-9:30 p.m. Sunday, find a spot to plop down with a view of the hotel, or head to the fest's designated area at Reunion Park and bask in the lights from the hotel, which for at least one night won't be banal advertisements.