The Edge starts tonight

The Edge Performance Festival starts tonight (April 15), with Solo Explorations and Main Stage Dance. Each will be repeated one or more times over the festival's nine-day run.

The festival is new this year from the Department of Theatre and Dance. But some of the elements are familiar: Solo Explorations (by graduating Master's of Fine Arts candidates), Main Stage Dance (new choreograohies by first-year gradute students and eligible undergraduates) and Undergraduate One-Act Plays.

The festival also includes the Festival Cabaret (music, poetry and much more, showcasing undergraduate and graduate student talent in unique and exciting acts of the performers’ own devising) and two sing-along showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show — at midnight, of course!

Tickets: $30 for a festival pass, which covers admission to all events except The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Single events, including the movie showings, are $10 (including Picnic Day). Tickets are available in advance and also will be sold at the door; the prices are the same. Advance tickets are available online (click on “Purchase Tickets Now!”), or in person or by telephone at the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787.

Read more about the festival and see the complete schedule in last week's Dateline UC Davis: "Theatre and dance takes us to the Edge — and beyond (to Rocky Horror land)."

Musical triple-header

The Department of Music presents a triple-header this weekend:

• Gold Coast Trio — Susan Lamb Cook, faculty affiliate in cello; Rachel Vetter Huang, violin; and Hao Huang, piano. Program: Martinu, Trio in D Minor; Zwilich, Trio; and Brahms, Trio in C Major, op. 87. 8 o'clock today (April 15), Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. (A previously announced Beethoven selection has been dropped from the program.)

• Symphony Orchestra — Free noon concert on Picnic Day (April 16) in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center. The program: Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, with Lois Brandwynne, piano.

• Empyrean Ensemble: Meanwhile in Europe — UC Davis' ensemble in residence, specializing in new and contemporary music. 7 p.m. Sunday, April 17, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. The program:

• John Stringer — Disquiet
• Bent Sørensen — Phantasmagoria
• Gianvincenzo Cresta — Sospesi — Anonimi, Diseredati, Poeti
• Petr Bakla — For Eduard Herzog
• Steingrimur Rohloff — The Sinus Experience II, an Empyrean Ensemble commission for flute, clarinet, vibraphone, violin, viola, cello and piano (2010-11).

Tickets for the April 15 and 17 concerts are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787. Box office hours: noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

Davis Feminist Film Festival

The two-day Davis Feminist Film Festival concludes tonight (April 14-15) at the Veterans Memorial Theatre, 203 E. 14th St. The program starts with a no-host reception with food and beverages at 5, and the films begin at 6.

Tonight's program includes:

• Overnight Stay — A beautifully hand-painted film that explores human nature through an elderly Jewish woman’s reminiscence about a small act of kindness in Krakow, Poland, in 1941.

• Long Haul — Three dynamic, female truck drivers share their views on working in a male-dominated occupation and how the job affects the women's lives and families.

• Attached to You — This film uses claymation to illustrate the varied experiences of parenthood, from pregnancy and birth, to parents seeing their children grow up, to letting go — all while emphasizing the lasting bond between parent and child.

• Pro-Homo — A rap video in which teens espouse staying true to one's self in expressing idetity.

Tickets at the door: $10 for students and $15 for general admission.

More information, including descriptions for all of the films.

The music matters in Der Untertang

Hitler's final days are depicted in Der Untergang (Downfall), the last of the 2010-11 Focus on Film series at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

For 2010-11, the center chose films telling intimate stories about men at the most crucial times in their lives, with music that transcends the "soundtrack" tag — instead taking a central role in the aesthetic experience. Der Untergang features music by Stephan Zacharias.

The Mondavi Center's presentation is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, April 21, in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Der Untertang is in German with English subtitles.

Jaimey Fisher, an associate professor of German, and acting director of the Film Studies Program, is scheduled to give a talk at 6:30 p.m., also in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

The film, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, tells of Hitler's final 10 days,during which he raged against his powerlessness to stop the fall of Berlin, and with it, World War II and the Third Reich.

Housed in an underground bunker, he cajoled his generals and isolated himself with his mistress, Eva Braun, as the situation left him increasingly unhinged. An intense, award-winning performance by Bruno Ganz as Hitler is the centerpiece of the film, which is based on numerous books, most notably the firsthand account of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries.

The film runs for 156 minutes and is rated R (for “restricted”), a national rating that says children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

Tickets are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787. Box office hours: noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

ARTfriends plan bus trip to Picasso exhibition

The Nelson ARTfriends are planning a bus trip to San Francisco's de Young Museum to see an exhibition of Picassos from the permanent collection of Paris’ Musée National Picasso.

According to the de Young, the June 11 to Oct. 9 exhibition will comprise more than 100 works — paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints drawn from every phase of the Spanish artist’s career. The works are available for the exhibition only because of the Paris museum's temporary closure for extensive renovations, according to the de Young. More information on the exhibition.

The Nelson ARTfriends field trip is scheduled for Saturday, June 25, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Participants will be on their own for lunch.

Thirty-five spaces are available. The cost is $50 for current members and $75 for nonmembers. The price is reduced $25 if you are a member of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Nelson ARTfriends organization is making five spaces available for students, for $25 each.

Reservations are due by April 28 to Katrina Wong, assistant to the direcor of the Nelson Gallery. Contact here by phone (530) 752-8500 or e-mail, kliwong@ucdavis.edu.