Rasputina

Rasputina

If you’re curious what happens when you cross goth rock with baroque chamber music – or if lingerie-clad cellists trip your trigger – do check out Rasputina. The current incarnation of the band features two cellists (Melora Creager, Zoe Keating) and drummer Jonathon S. TeBeest. Their collective sound skews more toward the Edgar Allan Poe side of “goth” – likely the reason the trio has appeared alongside Belle and Sebastian as well as Marilyn Manson. Rasputina joins Dame Darcy and Alacartoona at 8 p.m. Sunday at The Granada, 1020 Mass.

Aubrey

Given the glut of nü-metal and pop schlock occupying the iPods of today’s youths, it’s refreshing to see that good taste perseveres in the hands of young local bands like Aubrey. Cellos, keyboards and harmonies all figure into the Lawrence act’s palatable palette, which echoes bands as diverse as Coldplay, Sigur Ros and Air. The group recently put the finishing touches on its impressive debut album “Honey & the Shame.” Aubrey joins Bixby Lane and Ghost in the Night at 10 p.m. today at The Jackpot Saloon, 943 Mass.

NormanOak

NormanOak

Chris Barth is NormanOak. Best known as the frontman of The Impossible Shapes, Barth has released “Born a Black Diamond,” in which he takes a similar free-spirited, hippie-wanderer approach that psychedelic forefathers like Donovan and Marc Bolan’s T-Rex took a decades earlier. The album delivers a wind-chipped, folk meditation on the universe’s creation, mycology and a bit of Aleister Crowley mysticism. How that translates into a live setting will be on display when NormanOak joins Lord Frye, AuroraDoreyAlice and Keith Martin at 10 p.m. Sunday at The Replay Lounge, 946 Mass.

‘A Kansas Nutcracker’

'A Kansas Nutcracker'

Now in its fourth year, “A Kansas

Nutcracker” has fast become the Lawrence area’s newest holiday

tradition. The adaptation of the classic holiday ballet transforms the stage into an 1850s Kansas prairie fantasyland. It’s Christmas Eve at the Stahlbaum house, but the Stahlbaums are a free state family that has just finished

building a barn in the Kaw Valley.

They celebrate with a barn-raising/Christmas party, where guests include the likes of abolitionist John Brown, temperance women and border ruffians. Conversations about weather, crops, mice in the barn and slavery in the first act come to life in Clara’s dreams in the second act. The show plays at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday, and Dec. 16-17, with matinees at 2 p.m. Sunday and

Dec. 18 at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.

'Beyond Origami'

‘Beyond Origami’

Growing up in China, Lawrence artist Nancy Bjorge occupied her free time folding animals, flowers and other shapes from paper. Sometimes she did it for fun; other times she was creating objects for ceremonies to pay respect to her ancestors. Either way, the

techniques stayed with her. After high school, she came to the United States and obtained college degrees in math and then jewelry design. Today, when she’s not busy selling house as a real estate agent, she still finds time to fold paper. But now she’s crafting one-of-a-kind sculptures that rival any paper crane or jumping frog. “Beyond Origami,” an exhibition of Bjorge’s work, opens with a reception from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.