Get your weekend on, New Orleans!

Written by ADAM KARLIN

Zebras and ostriches and beers, oh my. Heads up, New Orleans: exotic animal racing is returning to the Fairgrounds on Saturday.

You’ll want to hit the fairgrounds in the evening on Saturday; the exotic animal race is part of their twilight program. General admission is $15, which isn’t too bad when you consider you get to access to good chicken wings, lots of beer and the sight of jockeys getting their asses bounced around by chickens on steroids that are an evolutionary step removed from a Deinonychus.

Tonight, head to Gasa Gasa on Freret for the Revel with Recrear fundraiser ($20 admission), which goes from 6-9pm. There’s free food for the first hour, live gypsy jazz, a set spun by the inimitable local DJ Browntown and dancing by BUKU Dance Krewe. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Recrear, in their own words, is “a non-profit organization comprised of young social innovators from around the globe. Our mission is to ensure that young people are actively involved in the development of their communities, because we see young people as essential catalysts and agents for impactful sustainable development.”

Also on Saturday: from 5-7pm Nola Mix is having their opening party at 1068 Magazine St (Suite B). This is an all ages sort of event; Nola Mix provides DJ and Music Production classes to students of all ages and skill levels.

Finally, at 8pm Saturday and 9:30pm Sunday, Mike Spara will present Conversations with Body Language, a silent sketch comedy show, at The New Movement Theater (1900 Burgundy). ‘Silent sketch comedy’ sounds pretty cray, but we’ve seen Mike perform before; he’s talented and hilarious, and we’re sure the show will live up to those standards.

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The Arts Council of New Orleans is a private, non-profit organization designated as the City’s official arts agency. The Arts Council serves as one of eight regional distributing agencies for state arts funds and administers available municipal arts grants and the Percent For Art program for the City of New Orleans. The Arts Council works in partnership with the City of New Orleans, community groups, local, state, and national governmental agencies, and other nonprofit arts organizations to meet the arts and cultural needs of the New Orleans community through a diversity of initiatives and services.

WWNO, the NPR member station for New Orleans, serves southeast Louisiana and parts of southwest Mississippi by broadcasting balanced news, thought provoking analysis, classical music, jazz and other musical styles, intelligent entertainment, and unique local content. We broadcast on 89.9 FM, and KTLN 90.5 FM in the Houma-Thibodaux area as a public service of the University of New Orleans. All of WWNOâ€™s programs, including its growing local news coverage, are available online at WWNO.org.

WWOZ 90.7 FM is the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Station offering listener-supported, volunteer-programmed community radio. WWOZ covers many events live in and around the city and across the United States, and broadcasts live from the famed New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival annually. WWOZ’s mission is to be the worldwide voice, archive, and flag-bearer of New Orleans culture and musical heritage.

Preservation Resource Center (PRC) has been preserving, restoring, and revitalizing New Orleans’ historic architecture and neighborhoods since 1974. Throughout its history, PRC has acted as an advocacy agent on a local, regional, and national scale, spreading the word about the city’s rich architectural heritage and the economic importance of preserving this heritage. PRC also takes a hands-on approach to preservation, with a history of successfully restoring over 1,400 properties. The center strengthens and revitalizes New Orleans in a way that is forward-looking and sustainable, yet sensitive to the city’s past and its heritage.

As a nexus for the arts in New Orleans, NOMA is committed to preserving, interpreting, and enriching its collections and renowned sculpture garden; offering innovative experiences for learning and interpretation; and uniting, inspiring, and engaging diverse communities and cultures.

The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to preserving the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South. Its holdings comprise more than one million items from more than three centuries, documenting moments both major and minor. Its four exhibition spacesâ€“the Williams Gallery, the Louisiana History Galleries, the Boyd Cruise Gallery, and the Laura Simon Nelson Galleries for Louisiana Artâ€“faithfully depict the multicultural stories of the region, from permanent displays exploring the evolution of Louisiana to rotating exhibitions showcasing history and fine art.

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum is a nonprofit living history organization dedicated to the discovery, understanding and celebration of the food, drink and the related culture of the South. While based in New Orleans, the Museum examines and celebrates all the cultures that have come together through the centuries to create the Southâ€™s unique culinary heritage. The Museum is also home to the collections of the Museum of the American Cocktail, the Galerie dâ€™Absinthe, and a demonstration kitchen.

The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities to all Louisianans.

The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’ mission is to provide all Louisianans with access to and an appreciation of their own rich, shared and diverse historical, literary and cultural heritage through grant-supported outreach programs, family literacy and adult reading initiatives, teacher professional development institutes, publications, film and radio documentaries, museum exhibitions, cultural tourism, public lectures, library projects, and other public humanities programming.

Get your weekend on, New Orleans! | NewOrleans.Me