The Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts saved the last dance of the season for DANCE, the controversial 1979 work by Lucinda Childs.

A re-creation is planned for 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 3, on the Jackson Hall stage, complete with the black-and-white film backdrop showing dancers in sync with the live performers. Visual artist Sol LeWitt created the film and Philip Glass wrote the music.

When DANCE debuted at the University of Minnesota, some members of the audience walked out, outraged at the piece’s experimental nature.

A preperformance talk by Ruth Rosenberg, artist engagement coordinator at the Mondavi Center, is set for 7 p.m., also in Jackson Hall. The program also includes a post-performance question-and-answer session, moderated by Professor Della Davidson of the Department of Theatre and Dance.

More at the Mondavi

• Buddy Guy — The guitar-playing blues legend, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, a living link to that city’s halcyon days of electric blues, and a chief influence to such rock titans as Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Rolling Stone puts Guy 30th on the magazine’s listing of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. In 2008, at the age of 71, he made the Rolling Stone cover for the first time — in connection with “Stone Crazy,” ranked 78th among the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time. Guy received a National Medal of Arts in 2003 and a place in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. He is the recipient of 29 W.C. Handy Blues Awards, five Grammy Awards and the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement.As Guy’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame biography notes, “He’s renowned for his raw, blistering vocals and high-voltage guitar playing … employing feedback, distortion and extreme string-bending.” 8 p.m. toiday (April 22), Jackson Hall.

• David Sedaris — Humor writer, in the Distinguished Speakers series. 8 p.m. Thursday, April 28, Jackson Hall. Sold out; check with the box office about the waiting list for tickets.

• Roby Lakatos Ensemble — Crossings. Part gypsy violinist, part classical maestro and part jazz improviser, Roby Lakatos is the rare musician who defies definition. Featured regularly in the great halls and festivals of Europe, Asia and America, Lakatos brings a vibrant, bohemian energy to his shows as he connects the works of Liszt, Brahms and others with their gypsy roots. 8 p.m. Thursday, May 5, Jackson Hall. Preperformance talk by Henry Spiller, associate professor, music, 7 p.m., Jackson Hall.

• Henry Louis Gates Jr. — Harvard University professor, head of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Studies, in the Distinguished Speakers series. In a talk titled "African American Lives — Genealogy, Genetics and Black History," Gates will address research and DNA analysis and poignant family stories in a lively discussion on individual lineage and African American history. 8 p.m. Monday, May 9, Jackson Hall (postponed from an earlier date).

• Tony Bennett — He has been leaving his heart in San Francisco for decades, and now he can leave it here, too, performing there for the first time at the Mondavi Center. 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, Jackson Hall.

• Alexander String Quartet — Beethoven's String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, and String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135. This is the last of the quartet's four concert dates in the Mondavi Center's 2010-11 season, and brings to a close the quartet's three-year Mondavi Center cycle of performing all of Beethoven’s string quartets. 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, June 5, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Postperformance question-and-answer session with quartet members. The 2 p.m. concert is sold out; check with the box office about the waiting list.

• Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — The “greatest large jazz ensemble working today,” according to the Chicago Tribune, draws from an extensive repertoire, including original works by Marsalis, Ted Nash and other members of the group. Marsalis, trumpeter, and the orchestra’s leader and music director, received the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1997 — becoming the first jazz artist to be so honored. He earned the prize for Blood on the Fields, a commissioned work for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the orchestra’s parent organization (with Marsalis as artistic director). 8 p.m. Saturday, June 18, Jackson Hall.

• Pink Martini — A 12-member band that draws inspiration jazz, classical, old-fashioned pop and the romantic Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and ’50s — with a more global perspective. As Pink Martini bandleader and pianist Thomas Lauderdale said, “If the United Nations had a house band in 1962, then hopefully we’d be that band.” Pink Martini’s latest album is Splendour in the Grass, described as a virtual carnival of musical influences, with one grand purpose: to rebuild a culture that sings and dances. 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 5, Jackson Hall.

Tickets are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787. Box office hours: noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday.