Exhibit to raise funds, awareness

Friday, Dec. 1, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

Positive Vegas, a newly organized HIV/AIDS support group, is celebrating its launch with Art4AIDS, a fundraising art exhibit near the Commerce Street Studios.

The exhibit at First Friday coincides with World AIDS Day.

Several local artists are contributing or painting works that reflect their interpretation of AIDS in this one-night-only show. Mike Wardle, Jennifer Main, Denise Duarte and Daniel Pearson are among the participating artists.

"Rather than use the 'red ribbon' (the traditional symbol of AIDS awareness), I asked to focus on their interpretation of what HIV means to them, whether it's strength or fear," Positive Vegas director Tony Polimeni says. He founded the group after he was diagnosed as HIV-positive six months ago.

The exhibit, he says, keeps alive the discussion of what AIDS is and "what it looks like today," 25 years after the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

Polimeni, who is not an artist, is contributing a piece to the exhibit: a mirror with the words, "Does HIV look like me?"

The exhibit is a partnership of Positive Vegas and the nonprofit group Nevada AIDS Project. Polimeni says proceeds from the sale of the art will be used by Positive Vegas to establish its nonprofit status.

Details: 6-11 p.m. Friday, 1541 S. Commerce St., www.positivevegas.org

Waters a special guest

One of America's favorite filmmakers will be in town this week to deliver an abbreviated version of his Christmas monologue and serve as special guest at Beauty Bar's "Drop Dead Gorgeous Beauty Pageant."

Having John Waters (writer and director of the cult classic "Pink Flamingos" and the more tame "Hairspray") co-host the pageant at the downtown Celebrity bar adds another notch of camp to the tongue-in-cheek spoof on traditional beauty contests, which will have 12 women and one drag queen from Beauty Bars in Las Vegas and other cities vying for first place.

"It's not about big hair or Miss Congeniality," Beauty Bar owner Paul Devitt says. "It's our downtown hipster girls, the tattooed, pierced nontraditional beauty. It should be fun. "

The finalists will be photographed Friday and Saturday at the local Beauty Bar for pin-up calendars to be sold beginning Jan. 1 at all the Beauty Bars - a chain of retro hot spots designed to resemble a vintage beauty salon.

This weekend's pageant will bring in Kato Kaelin (who's still stretching his 15 minutes of fame from the O.J. trial) as one of the judges. Raunchy rapper and former hustler Mickey Avalon will perform. Waters will open the show and introduce the pageant. The after-party will be at Beauty Bar.

Details: " Drop Dead Gorgeous Beauty Pageant"; 9 p.m. Saturday; Celebrity, 201 N. Third St.; $10-$15; $10 at the door and available at www.ticketweb.com and "Drop Dead Gorgeous, the After Party," 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Beauty Bar, 517 Fremont St., 598-1965.

Pull out the stops for holiday

So many holiday concert choices, so little time. The Las Vegas Philharmonic performs its traditional holiday celebration Saturday and Sunday, but if you're looking for the triumphant joy of a von Beckerath pipe organ, check out the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists' "Music for Advent and Christmas" on Sunday.

This is a dedicated group of performers who will kick out classics by Johann Sebastian Bach, Jean Langlais, Jefferson C. McConnaughey, Louis Vierne and Sigfrid Karg-Elert.

Details: "Music for Advent and Christmas" organ concert; 7 p.m. Sunday; Doc Rando Hall, Beam Music Center; UNLV; free; 895-3332

Las Vegas Philharmonic's "A Holiday Tradition"; 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday; Artemus Ham Hall, UNLV; $27 to $69; www.lvphil.com

Holmes to narrate story

What do Sergei Prokofiev and Clint Holmes have in common? Nothing, really. But Holmes will meet the 20th- century composer via his musical tale "Peter and the Wolf," which Holmes will narrate for the Las Vegas Philharmonic at its Family Concert on Jan. 13.

"This is something I've never done before. It's a great piece. To narrate it would be just a great treat."