The picks

Tonight (Wednesday, April 10) at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival: “Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin.” A loving and illuminating biography of the great fantasy/science fiction writer and creator of Earthsea. Director Arwen Curry combines narrative, interviews, and animation to explore Le Guin’s life, work, and expansive imagination. Interviews with authors including Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon and Neil Gaiman hint at her profound influence. 9:45 p.m. Also Friday at 4:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. FMI including trailer, times and tickets ($15/11/8).

Friday at Mixed Blood Theatre: Double Sided: A Literary Reading. This sold out long ago, but turnbacks happen, and April snowstorms, so you never know. Jana Shortal will host a literary evening with rapper, singer and essayist Dessa, poet Donte Collins, science writer Maggie Ryan Sanford and writer and performer Shane Hawley, with a mystery musical guest. 7:30 p.m. FMI. 612-338-6131.

Friday at the O’Shaughnessy: Ragamala Dance Company and Brooklyn Rider: A Shared Evening. The Bharatanatyam dance ensemble and the string quartet won’t perform together. But they know and respect each other, and they feel they are similar in aesthetic mission, so they’re doing a split-bill evening. Ragamala’s co-artistic director Aparna Ramaswamy explained, “We both use family as an incubator to absorb and re-create our artistic lineage” and “we both believe our respective mediums are not museum pieces.” We recently saw another split-bill evening, BRKFST Dance Company and Kaleena Miller Dance at the Cowles, and it worked brilliantly. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets (adult $34; other pricing available).

Saturday: Record Store Day. Looking at the list of indie record stores taking part in this year’s Record Store Day, we see several that have hung on for decades, through vinyl and 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and back to vinyl again, through Napster and torrents and what’s been called the collapse of the music industry in the first decade of the 2000s, to the consolidation and homogenization of radio and the rise of streaming. And, for Electric Fetus, the 35W construction. Talk about resilience. Raise a tonearm or your vintage Walkman to the Fetus, Know Name, Down in the Valley, Homestead Pickin’ Parlor, Hymies, Roadrunner and Cheapo as you shop for your chosen RSD exclusive releases. Maybe you’ll come home with the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s “The Spiritual” from 1974. Or Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks – Original New York Test Pressing.” Or Aretha Franklin’s “The Atlantic Singles 1967.” Or (wow!) “John Cage Meets Sun Ra” on 7″ vinyl and DVD. Not all stores will carry all releases, but you already know that. FMI.

Saturday at Orchestra Hall: Minnesota Orchestra: “Inside the Classics: Amy Beach – American Pioneer.” Sarah Hicks conducts and violist Sam Bergman hosts a program about the first American woman to compose a symphony. The first half will explore the life, technique and legacy of Beach (1867-1944), with excerpts performed by the orchestra. The second half will be Beach’s complete “Gaelic Symphony,” which the orchestra last performed in 1917. On Tuesday, Bergman tweeted, in part: “If you’re someone who, like me, thinks orchestras need to be doing more concerts that get away from the same fifteen dead white male composers, this is the kind of show we NEED you to buy tickets for.” He’s right, you know. 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20-50).