What to do in Philly this weekend

MUSIC

Kierra Sheard will perform at Sounds of Inspiration at Penn's Landing. / Provided Kierra Sheard will perform at Sounds of Inspiration at Penn’s Landing. / Provided

Sounds of Inspiration
Saturday, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Great Plaza, Penn’s Landing
101 S. Columbus Blvd.
Free, 215-922-2386
www.delawareriverwaterfront.com

This gospel blowout, with singers ranging from contemporary to traditional, is one of the most popular summer concerts at Penn’s Landing. Highlights of the 2014 lineup include Smokie Norful, Kierra Sheard, VaShawn Mitchell, Micah Stampley, Brian Courtney Wilson and Anita Wilson — and that’s not even half the list. Expect a joyful noise to emanate from the general vicinity on Saturday evening.

Jacco Gardner
Thursday, 8 p.m.
MilkBoy Philly
1100 Chestnut St.
$10-$12, 21+, 215-925-6455
www.milkboyphilly.com

Jacco Gardner is a Dutch psychedelic chamber pop wunderkind who sounds like he hopped in a time machine in acid-soaked London in 1969, briefly stopped to catch a Belle and Sebastian show in 2002, and finally wound up here. His painstaking fidelity to this classic sound is remarkable, but even more remarkable is his ability to make it feel nonetheless contemporary.

Major Van Winkle
Sunday, 7 p.m.
North Star Bar
2639 Poplar St.
$10, 215-627-1332
www.northstarbar.com

“A bunch of samples intertwined, don’t feel like naming all of them. Please don’t sue me,” writes musical collage artist Major Van Winkle beneath one of his YouTube videos. His chilled-out but engaging beats reveal a deep listener — it doesn’t surprise us at all that in his bio, he claims to have had Mozart playing by his crib as a baby.

TOURS

Hotties of Laurel Hill: Dead, Gone, and Extremely Handsome
Thursday, 6:30 p.m.
Laurel Hill Cemetery
3822 Ridge Ave.
$15, 215-228-8200
www.thelaurelhillcemetery.org

Laurel Hill Cemetery’s Antemortem Society gives a new meaning to the term “dead sexy” with this tour, stopping at the graves of some of the (formerly) best-looking people buried on its grounds. Along the way, you’ll hear snippets from romantic letters and saucy tales that put into question the notion that Victorians were all “repressed.

ARTS

‘Then and Now’: Works by Anne Minich
Through Sept. 21
Hooloon Art
53 N. 2nd St.
Free, 215-560-8167
www.hooloon-art.com

This collection of mostly drawings by Anne Minich has a minimalist intensity. Many of the images are of anonymous female torsos; sometime male ones appear, too, but we see no faces. Sexuality is shown, sometimes humorously, in its alienating, ambivalent dimension. To look on the most striking of these images is to see your own body as an eerie stranger.

THEATER

‘Confessions of a Mormon Boy’
Through Saturday
Adrienne Theater
2030 Sansom St.
$25, 215-627-1088
quinceproductions.tix.com

In this one-man show, part of Quince Productions’ GayFest, Steven Fales recounts the true history of his life as a gay man growing up in — and eventually being excommunicated by — Mormon culture, and how he recovered from the public and private shame that resulted, to once again wear his “Donny Osmond smile” with pride, and just a hint of snark.

GOING OUT

Cooking Up Couture
Friday, 7 p.m.
Front and Palmer
1750 N. Front St.
$75-$95, 21+, [email protected]
www.cookingupcouture.com

This benefit for the hunger-fighting nonprofit Philabundance — specifically its Philabundance Community Kitchen, which provides culinary training for disadvantaged individuals to get a leg up in the food service industry — brings together the worlds of food and fashion, with a runway show and food served up by several award-winning chefs, including Nick Elmi of Laurel and Brad Spence of Amis.

MOVIES

‘Star Trek III: The Search for Spock’/’‘Dune
Saturday, 8 p.m.
International House Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut St.
$10-$15, 215-387-5125
www.ihousephilly.org

This sci fi double feature presents two weird, undervalued selections from the ’80s. True, “The Search for Spock” doesn’t beat its predecessor, “The Wrath of Khan”, but it progresses the plots and themes of “Khan” in fascinating ways, while David Lynch’s “Dune,” however lacking it is in narrative cohesion, remains a work of impressive visual imagination — and Sting is in it!

COMEDY

‘Trey Parker and Matt Stone vs. Mike Judge Burlesque’
Saturday, 9 p.m.
PhilaMOCA
531 N. 12th St.
$13-$15, 800-838-3006
parkerandstonevsjudge.brownpapertickets.com

This neo-burlesque show’s theme pits the two great poles of crude-yet-intelligent comedy against each other. In one corner, you’ve got the twin minds behind “South Park” and “The Book of Mormon” (now at the Forrest Theatre); in the other, the creator of “Beavis and Butthead” and “Office Space.” In both corners, you have campy humor and sexy dancing. Sounds like a win-win.

MUSEUM

“Pinned! Insect Art, Insect Science” is open at the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. / Christopher Marley

‘Pinned! Insect Art, Insect Science’
Through Nov. 9
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
1900 Ben Franklin Pkwy.
$14-$16, 215-299-1000
www.ansp.org

Among insect species are some of the most colorful living creatures. Artist Christopher Marley took advantage of the rainbow of insect pigmentation to create the mosaics in this exhibit, which are composed entirely of pinned insect specimens. It’s accompanied by additional specimen from the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and info about the entomological practice of bug pinning.

‘Suited for Space’
Through Nov. 14
Chemical Heritage Foundation
315 Chestnut St.
Free, 215-925-2222
www.chemheritage.org

It’s so common nowadays to hear about people going into space that it’s easy to forget what a technologically complex undertaking it is. This traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution details the features of space suits and the evolution of their design with many authentic historical and contemporary examples.