Night & Day Events

25 Thursday
The Couples Massage Clinic tonight from 7 to 9 at the Lenexa Community Center, 93rd and Pflumm, is neither as weird nor as kinky as it might sound. Participants learn techniques for stress reduction and relaxation. Attire should be loose-fitting and comfortable. The only part of the regimen that sounds even remotely suspect is the self-massage segment, which should work out pretty well for participants who sign up as singles rather than as couples. The clinic costs $40 for couples, $30 for singles. For more information or to register, call 816-541-0209.

Also tonight, KU Opera opens its spring season with The Emperor’s New Clothes and Gianni Schicchi at 7:30 in Swarthout Recital Hall on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence. In a show that lasts less than an hour, the notoriously naked emperor will finally get dressed — unless this whole “new clothes” thing is still just one big hoax. For more information, call 785-864-3436.

26 Friday
Tonight’s Electromediascope screening in Atkins Auditorium at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak, begins a series called “The Lives of Images Reverberate in Time.” Although most of the screenings focus on historical images, Irit Batsry’s These Are Not My Images, showing at 7 p.m., takes place in the near future, interweaving elements of artistic genres as different as painting and documentary filmmaking in order to, Batsry says, “question the way we see and show reality.” The work is a narrative journey through India with the filmmaker, a disillusioned westerner. When Batsry meets a local filmmaker, she confronts a moral dilemma about telling the story of a culture not her own. Batsry will discuss her work after the screening. For more information, call 816-561-4000.

27 Saturday
Today is the first day of KiSwahili and Yoruba classes sponsored by the David-Wright Institute for African Studies. The courses last for four months at a variety of locations, but enrollment forms are available at the University Academy, 5605 Troost, room 141; the session costs $200. If that’s a little pricey to satisfy your curiousity about African languages and cultures, wait until tomorrow, when the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick, shows three African videos on ceramics: Seni’s Children, Yoruba Potters: Mothers and Daughters and Vessels of the Spirits: Pots and People in North Cameroon from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., though viewers are unlikely to pick up any languages during those three hours. For more information on the classes, call 816-235-6115. For more information on tomorrow’s installment of “A Century of Ceramics on Film and Video at the Kemper,” call 816-753-5784.

28 Sunday
It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Anyone who cares already knew that a long time ago. But anyone who doesn’t care may have awakened to a big surprise this morning. People are yelling things, mysterious things, about teams and yard lines and end zones. For anyone who might wonder if there is an escape from today’s national religion of football, there’s always organ music. That’s right, organ music. For once, it’s the heretics who are going to church. Dr. Janet Kraybill brings both familiar and experimental works to the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, 1001 W. Walnut in Independence, at 3 p.m. In addition to playing works by the Buxtehude, J.S. Bach and Charles-Marie Widor and the Toccata played at many weddings, she’ll welcome newEar Contemporary Ensemble for the Midwest premiere of Dunhuang Fantasy by the UMKC Music Conservatory’s Chen Yi. The Temple’s Casavant organ is one of the largest in the Midwest, and given the day, we’d like to call it the Super Organ. For more information, call 816-521-3045.

29 Monday
Washington Post correspondent David Broder was supposed to come to Kansas City in December to talk about the recent presidential election and its implications for future elections. He’s just now making it here today, not because his idea of punctuality is way off the mark but because the course of events surrounding that election kept him too busy reporting to make it out of Washington for his own lecture. Having covered the American political scene since the mid-1950s, Broder ought to have a unique, researched point of view. The lecture will take place at Pierson Auditorium at UMKC, 51st and Rockhill Road. Admission is free. For more information or tickets, call the Central Ticket Office, 816-235-2700.

30 Tuesday
The glass works by Josiah McElheny, on display at the Carlsen Center Gallery of Art, aren’t just pretty glass bowls and carafes for viewers to envision sitting atop their own dining room tables; the works are displayed as entire presentations, with the contexts already supplied. McElheny makes the shelves and other display pieces part of the work. Viewers can put an end to daydreams and start considering the works as the artist sees them. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. For more information, call 913-469-8500.

31 Wednesday
Evil Beaver, a duo that produces levels of power and volume that most groups twice its size can only fantasize about reaching, headlines a dam fine lineup at The Hurricane tonight. Bassist/vocalist Evie Evil pounds out the massive metal-tinged low-end melodies, while drummer Laura Ann Beaver marks the group’s frequent changes of pace with a manic percussive flourish. The songs are so complex — and the bass’ haze of distortion so deceptive — that even critics have absentmindedly referred to guitars in their reviews, despite having already established that this group is composed solely of a rhythm section. For more information, call 816-753-0884.