The Stranger

Back at home at a thoroughly refurbished Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, the 2012 African American Film Festival offers nine days of features, shorts, and documentaries, chronicling everything from queer blues divas of the 1920s to fantastical female polygamists in contemporary West Africa to the impact of lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde on the Afro-German Movement. The 2012 fest wraps up this evening with the closing-night feature Restless City, Andrew Dosunmu’s stylish drama about Nigerian immigrants chasing the American dream in 21st-century NYC. (Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, 104 17th Ave S, for full schedule and ticket prices go to www.langstonblackfilmfest.org) by David Schmader

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Brooklyn’s School of Seven Bells create some of the slickest gothtronic, shoegazey pop this side of Zola Jesus. Now down to the duo of guitarist/producer Benjamin Curtis and silken-toned vocalist Alejandra Deheza following the departure of the latter’s sister, Claudia, in 2010, SVIIB have released three albums for the renowned Ghostly International label that are as beautiful as their members are photogenic (damn their aristocratic genes). The latest, Ghostory, swirls and surges into a ravishing, Cocteau Twins–esque ether. (Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, www.thecrocodile.com, 8 pm, $13, 21+) by Dave Segal

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I’m no percussionologist, but if Dave King of the Bad Plus (and many other bands) isn’t the greatest drummer alive, I wanna know who is. King is an esoteric jazz-head who appreciates pop, understands that improv is work (not just noodling), and knows that any great enterprise depends on people caring more about it than themselves. (Plus, he’s a charmingly happy guy.) King for Two Days hovers around a two-day concert at the Walker Art Center. The music is genius, the personalities are winning, and one attempt to play Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” in 4/4 time is a truly comical/magical moment. (Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, www.grandillusioncinema.org, 9 pm, $8) by Brendan Kiley

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Seattle Asian Art Museum’s Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats is a cross between the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition that swept the Metropolitan Museum last year and the Indian painting show that mesmerized thousands at SAAM in 2009. Ikats are vividly dyed and woven fabrics from Central Asia, and the 19th-century robes in this exhibition are a riot of mixed influences from India, China, Russia, the Arabic world, and Europe. (Seattle Asian Art Museum, Volunteer Park, www.seattleartmuseum.org, 10 am–5 pm, $7 suggested) by Jen Graves

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Powerhouse chanteuse Storm Large has got a singing voice so huge and dexterous and lovable, she could be devoid of all other positive traits and still be a star. As it is, she’s also hilarious (see her eternal classic “[My Vagina Is] Eight Miles Wide),” a successful writer (her hit solo show Crazy Enough is now a memoir published by Simon & Schuster), and totally hot shit to look at. Tonight, Ms. Large storms the Neptune for a night of songs and words and real-time diva worship. (Neptune Theatre, 1303 NE 45th St, www.stgpresents.org, 8 pm, $20 adv/$22 DOS, all ages) by David Schmader

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After a 13-year hiatus, filmmaker Whit Stillman (Metropolitan) returns with a deeply quirky comedy about a group of do-gooder girls striving to enrich the experience of everyone at an East Coast college. (Think Rushmore, in college, starring girls and hypereloquent dialogue that will make your head swim.) Leading the charge: a terrific Greta Gerwig, the “Meryl Streep of Mumblecore,” who here delivers a brilliantly stylized performance, in a brilliantly stylized movie. Never have I seen the kaleidoscopic insanity of college-age kids captured so completely. (See Movie Times) by David Schmader

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