Paper Toys With a Hip-Hop Beat

There is origami. And then there is Shin Tanaka.

With a style that is closer to street culture and hip-hop than it is to paper cranes, Tanaka has made a career of cutting, folding and (gasp!) gluing together cutesy but super-unique Japanese toys -- the kind enthusiasts snap up for, oh, about $300 a pop.

For a five-inch doll that will cave in if you hold it a smidge too tightly.

Good thing Tanaka is an egalitarian.

Tuesday, the Japan-based artist will do the honors of kicking off the Kennedy Center's " Japan! Culture and Hyperculture" festival with a free Millennium Stage performance. He will create his art live, then host a workshop in which the audience can make their own Tanaka toys. (Note: Cute is complex, apparently. The templates look harder to decipher than Ikea instruction manuals, so consider this exercise not for your 2-year-old.) Tanaka has also long made templates of his works available online for the public to download, build and decorate themselves.

Once constructed, the "T-boy" toys and "paper sneakers" Tanaka creates look a lot like the pop, designer Japanese toys that are all the rage these days. He was indeed inspired by the designer toy movement, though he chose to construct his out of paper to be unique (it didn't hurt that paper also makes for a far better surface on which to paint and add his personal touches). Graffiti art informs the colorful hues, and when Tanaka creates his toys, he listens to hip-hop, with the beats and rhymes informing his art, he says through a translator in an e-mail interview from Japan.

Whatever you do, don't call Tanaka's work origami; he says his toys break the cardinal rule of the traditional Japanese art -- to be origami, it has to be made through folding alone.

Free. 6 p.m. Tuesday. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600.

Save the Date

ON STAGE: What Brings Star Jones, Jeannie Jones and Sherri Shepherd Together? Vaginas. The Lincoln Theatre again plays host to a celeb-filled production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," the collection of musings on what it is to be a woman, and this time around, the event features the aforementioned media personalities, plus Dawnn Lewis and Karen Malina White (from the "Cosby Show" spinoff "A Different World"), Vanessa Williams (from "Soul Food") and Justine Love (like WKYS's Jones, she's a radio personality, though for WPGC). The show is Feb. 16. $35-$100. 8 p.m. 1215 U St. NW. For tickets, visit http://www.vdaytour.com or go to the Lincoln box office (open Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.). For information, call 202-328-6000.

CONCERT: Chrisette Michele The Def Jam cutie had an "eh" show here at the Black Cat some months ago, but you know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, tour, tour again. And so she does. Promoting her record "I Am," the now Grammy-nominated Michele brings her bold R&B stylings to the 9:30 club Feb. 21 (it'll be her third show in Washington since the summer). $23. 7:30 p.m. 815 V St. NW. 800-955-5566.

CONCERT: Los Amigos Invisibles The Venezuelan rockers infuse pop and electronica with Latin grooves and conga-line beats. They're at the Black Cat with fellow New Yorkers Pistolera, folkies who channel the traditional Tejano sound. Wear comfortable shoes, because this show is about dancing. $22. Feb. 16. 9 p.m. Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. 202-397-7328 or 202-667-7960.

The District

Today

EXHIBIT: "A Thousand Kisses: Love Letters From the Archives of American Art" With Valentine's Day approaching, the archives, which collects the personal effects of artists, has rolled out a show of the dirty little secrets -- oops, we mean loving correspondence-- of the likes of Frida Kahlo and Rockwell Kent. Not all the letters, illustrated poems, collages and drawings in the collection express romantic love; there are also notes from parents and others, but love is the underlying theme. Free. Through May 30. 11:30-7 p.m. daily. Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery, 1st Floor, Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art, Eighth and F streets NW. 202-633-1000.

EXHIBIT: "Let Your Motto Be Resistance" This show at the National Portrait Gallery has been up for some time, but if you haven't yet seen it, what better time than now? The first exhibit of the planned Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture ("Motto" is at the Portrait Gallery, because construction hasn't even begun on the new museum), the show features about 100 photographs, from as far back as the 1850s, illuminating the African American experience through abolitionists, artists, writers and historical and entertainment figures, from W.E.B. Du Bois to Jimi Hendrix. And there's just one more month left to see it. Free. 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. daily. Through March 2. Eighth and F streets NW. 202-633-1000.

ON STAGE: Hip-Hop Festival Dancers from local troupe Culture Shock DC and New York's Arch Dance Company are joined by hip-hop performers for Black Expression's dance-centric festival, now in its fifth year and ending tomorrow at Dance Place. $17-$22; ages 17 and younger $8. Today at 8 p.m., tomorrow at 4 p.m. Dance Place, 3225 Eighth St. NE. 202-269-1600.

Wednesday

ON STAGE: Dave Barry How is the Miami Herald's funnyman ever going to tear himself from the campaign trail? (It's true, he's been covering the primaries with his real "journalistic skills," offering dispatches about the political climate in South Beach.) Nonetheless, the "History of the Millennium (So Far)" author is scheduled to perform/talk at Lisner on Wednesday, for a whole "Evening With Dave Barry." $27-$125; limited number of $21.60 tickets available to George Washington University students at the Lisner box office (202-994-6800). 8 p.m. 730 21st St. NW. 202-397-7328.

Maryland

Today

CLOSING: "Committed" Today is the last day to see Fraser Gallery's three-artist exhibition highlighting obsessive artistic processes -- splatter paintings these are not. Instead, Fiona Ross's loop-de-loop sumi-ink drawings, Stephanie Booth's photographs and Dawn Gavin's map-based wall installation are all about intense, painstaking method. Free. 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. today. Fraser Gallery, 7700 Wisconsin Ave., Suite E, Bethesda. 301-718-9651.

Monday

FILM: "Souvenirs" This documentary by Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat -- which captures Cohen's father's confession that he may have fathered a child while stationed in the Netherlands during World War II, and the subsequent father-son search for the lost family members -- won the 2007 Silverdocs Audience Award. The Israeli film, which is in English and Hebrew, is screened Monday at the AFI Silver. 7 p.m. $6.75-$9.75. 7 p.m. 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. 301-495-6720.

Wednesday

ON STAGE: Theater for the Literary Set: "The Book Club Play" Talk about name-dropping. This new play by Washington's Karen Zacar¿as, opening at Round House Theatre on Wednesday, mentions everything from "Wuthering Heights" to "Fear of Flying" to "Harry Potter" (no, really: everything) as it follows a book club of 30-somethings whose friendships are tested when a new member joins the group. The play opens with a pay-what-you-can performance at 7:30 (tickets available at the box office an hour before). Various times though March 2. Round House Theatre-Bethesda, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. 240-644-1100.

Northern Virginia

Today

CONCERT: Anybody Up for a Faire? Grab your crystals and check your chakras. All things New Age are celebrated in the fifth Brigid Faire Winter Festival today at the shop Esoterica in Leesburg. The family fest includes refreshments and bands performing music ranging from folk-core to alternative metal -- with "operatic vocals." Huh? Free before 4 p.m., $5 after 4 p.m. 1 p.m.-midnight. 25 S. King St., Leesburg. 703-777-4642.

Tuesday

THE SCENE: Clarendon's Mardi Gras Bash Fat Tuesday is almost upon us. We're a bit far from New Orleans, but you could try observing the last hurrah before Lent at Clarendon's annual street fair. The event is intended to feel like a small-town Louisiana celebration, and this year it will include floats, the Arlingtones Barbershop Chorus, the stomping Ballou Senior High School marching band, an all-female Brazilian marching band and other attractions, and about 50,000 real New Orleans Mardi Gras beaded necklaces (but leave your tops on, for the love of God). Free. 8 p.m. Wilson Boulevard from Veitch Street (at Court House Metro) to Irving Street (near the Clarendon Metro). 703-812-8881 or visit http://www.clarendon.org.