Thursday: Two Girls One Ghost podcast at Miracle Theatre

Challenging fear with humor, best friends Corinne Vien and Sabrina Deana-Roga laugh their way through haunting tales and ghost stories on the Two Girls One Ghost podcast. Spooky Season comes to the Miracle Theatre this week when the hosts of the paranormal comedy podcast fly in on broomsticks to perform a live show. The Podcast’s ghostesses will take the audience through their latest misadventure when they set off for the haunted house of their nightmares … the Conjuring House of Hollywood infamy. A site of authentic paranormal phenomena, the Conjuring House connects you to “the other side of existence,” according to its website. Visitors can explore every part of the 18th-century Rhode Island house—still home to many non-living former residents—during the Conjuring House’s overnight GHamping (ghost camping) experiences. Corinne and Sabrina might have the right idea—what better way to spook and take away scares, stories, and evidence of actual hauntings than by holding hands with a friend? The event begins at 8 p.m. on Oct. 12 at Miracle Theatre, 535 8th St. SE. unionstage.com. $25. —Anupma Sahay

Friday: Jacq Jill at Suns Cinema

DJ and curator Jacq Jill has made a name for themself in the American underground by spinning “techno-adjacent” sets in and out of the District for nearly a decade, and they’ve shared the stage with other notable nightlife staples like Flotussin, Jon Charles, and Kotic Couture. The Texas native was even featured in Boiler Room’s 2019 North American Tour. “Being from Texas, being queer, I always want to play rooms that people see themselves in,” Jacq told the Washington Post back in 2021. This week, they’re bringing their talents to Suns Cinema with “For the Freaks,” a dance party to soundtrack your Friday the 13th. Jacq, Baltimore’s Rox Reed, BWO, and D.C. selector Mike Harvey are joining forces to share what’s being marketed as “cosmic industrial sounds that will leave you properly deceased.” Don’t miss this spooktacular, all night party. Jacq Jill performs at 10 p.m. on Oct. 13 at Suns Cinema, 3107 Mount Pleasant St. NW. sunscinema.com. —Kaila Philo

Saturday: Gilded Lily at Dance Place

Burlesque began as a way of making fun of the Victorian era’s upper class. The word burlesque literally means a play, story, or novel that makes a serious subject seem ridiculous—“lowbrow satire of highbrow society” is how Baltimore magazine put it. Centuries ago, the art form didn’t revolve around the female body and the male gaze. As times changed, burlesque developed into the classic images that we think of today: female performers wearing crystals and mink coats, and costumes made for striptease. The dancers performed under pseudonyms, and the shows were designed for men. Comedy was still present, but burlesque was, obviously, no longer appropriate for families. Censorship and the growing film industry relegated burlesque to strip clubs and porn theaters by the mid-20th century. But Baltimore has seen a burlesque rebirth in the 2000s. This go round, the art form is more about self-empowerment and taking back authority of one’s own body—and the Gilded Lily Burlesque troupe is at the forefront. Like the Moulin Rouge-style dancers of old, these performers use feather boas, stockings, pasties, and jewels in their choreography. But they’re playing with these stereotypes so that they can break them down. This weekend Gilded Lily brings Return to Glamour, the troupe’s first live show since the pandemic, to Dance Place along with eight performers from D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Return to Glamour begins at 8 p.m. on Oct. 14 at Dance Place, 3225 8th St. NE. danceplace.com. $10–$30. —Mary Scott Manning

Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: Call Me Dancer at Edlavitch Jewish Community Center

Dance films, especially the fictional ones, tend to focus on an individual, emotional story arc. The dancer might be contending with external things: the impending audition and the doubters, injury, or complicated romance. But the films present their greatest obstacles as internal: fear, pride, lack of focus or motivation. We love these stories, but for actual dancers dealing with rent payments and social media and family obligations and health insurance, these films don’t always feel true-to-life. The new documentary Call Me Dancer offers a counterpoint. Manish Chauhan, the main character, deals with internal obstacles, too, as he builds his career in professional ballet. But the documentary presents the real-life dynamics that always deeply factor into a dance career and how far one can go in it. As the Village Voice notes, it’s a work that engages the politics and economics of the dance world. Chauhan’s lack of family support, his late start in ballet, and his chance connection with a famed ballet teacher all affect his career. So does his relocation from Mumbai to Israel to New York, and the politics of each place. Realistic as it is, Call Me Dancer is also feel-good—and you can catch a screening of the film, produced by Leslie Shampaine, as part of JxJ, the Edlavitch DCJCC’s music and film program. The film screens at 7 p.m. on Oct. 15 and at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 17, 18, and 19 at the Edlavitch DCJCC, 1529 16th St. NW. jxjdc.org. $12–$14.—Mary Scott Manning

Monday: The Bride of Frankenstein at Angelika Pop-Up

Loneliness is a scary thing. At least, that’s the linchpin of Universal Studios’ 1935 follow-up to its wildly successful sci-fi horror picture Frankenstein, about the macabre progeny of a scientist playing God. Nearly all key figures from the original production return for the sequel, guided by the masterful director James Whale, complemented by John P. Fulton’s breathtaking special effects, and elevated by Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the weathered and tormented creature. Seamlessly transitioning from where its predecessor left off, The Bride of Frankenstein brings the Monster back into the fold, despite villagers believing he had perished. Left to his own devices and devoid of any guiding presence, the Monster begins to ruminate on his isolation, eventually developing a yearning for friendship and companionship. Running parallel to this plotline is Henry Frankenstein’s remorse over bringing the creature to life, which is entangled with the coercive schemes of Doctor Septimus Pretorius, who wishes to resurrect a female body with an artificial brain. This leads us to Elsa Lanchester’s elegantly eerie, and surprisingly brief, turn as the Bride. To this day, remnants of this iconic character endure. Emma Stone’s upcoming film Poor Things has an unmistakable affinity with Lanchester’s Bride, who now serves as a conduit to delve into contemporary ideas surrounding womanhood and male desire. The character of the Bride herself is a product of patriarchal ambition, created to be the perfect mate for the Monster, embodying the idea of a woman as an object of male satisfaction. When viewed from this lens, Bride reveals a greater depth and richness than it did back in 1935. The Bride of Frankenstein screens at 2 p.m, 4 p.m., and 7 p.m. on Oct. 16 at the Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market, 550 Penn St. NE. angelikafilmcenter.com. $10. —Ryan Oquiza

Monday: Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway at Lost Origins Gallery

In 2005, long before people had access to phones with high-tech cameras, Hisham Mayet, co-founder of the U.S.-based music label Sublime Frequencies, visited the historic Jemaa el-Fna plaza in Marrakesh, Morocco, and other Moroccan locations to film charismatic street musicians and the large crowds they attracted. At that time, there was little footage available of the performers who were also known to block efforts to record them unless they got paid. The result was a film, Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway. The DVD release of the movie is sold out, and it is not available for streaming, but Mayet and fellow Sublime Frequencies label head Alan Bishop will be showing it and talking about it at the intimate Lost Origins Gallery in Mount Pleasant this week. Musical Brotherhoods offers a sensory overload with its camerawork: close nighttime footage of musicians playing buzzing sounds on stringed instruments like the pear-shaped oud, percussionists banging noisily on handheld drums, and vocalists singing or chanting, with dust in the air and the only lighting coming from small lanterns placed at the musicians’ feet. This one-hour effort also briefly shows food stalls, merchants, and people getting intricate henna designs on their palms. The documentary, however, only lists the names of musicians such as Troupe Majidi at the end closing credits and has no narrator or interviews with the performers. It also has no guests explaining the lyrics. Mayet tells City Paper that this was intentional: “I was aesthetically focused on not doing it. I wanted the audience to see what I was seeing.” The film screens at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 16 at Lost Origins Gallery, 3110 Mount Pleasant St. NW. lostorigins.gallery. $20. —Steve Kiviat

Thursday: Curtis Chin at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library

In his coming-of-age memoir, writer, director, and activist Curtis Chin details growing up in Detroit in the 1980s as a gay Chinese American kid. Everything he learned, he says now, happened in the Chinese restaurant his family owned, Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine. Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is structured like a menu, broken into sections such as “Appetizers and Soups” and “Main Entrées.” Chin’s memoir started as a personal project for his siblings, nieces, and nephews. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit and anti-Asian hate increased, Chin decided to take the project more seriously. All told, the memoir is 10 years in the making. Chin and his family don’t live in Detroit anymore and Chung’s has since closed, but, fittingly, he misses the food the most, he says. Chin is visiting 30 cities in support of the book, due out Oct. 17, and D.C. is third on the list. Curtis Chin speaks at 7 p.m. on Oct. 19 at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW. dclibrary.org. Free; books available to purchase. — Kaela Roeder