Sunday @ Paramount Theatre

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition is noted in the annals of history as one of the greatest survival stories of all time. Shackleton and his men survived upon an ice floe for more than two months after their ship went under. That incredible story is told through live performance, dance, marionettes, puppeteers on stilts, visual art, and film in the ArtsEmerson-presented 69°S. [The Shackleton Project]. The unique, evocatively inspirational performance is staged by New York theater company Phantom Limb and runs for six nights only. Read more

Sunday @ John F. Kennedy Library and Museum

Based on actual occurrences, Peter Maxwell Davies’s gripping and distinctly unsettling opera The Lighthouse — which tells the chilling story of three men who vanished from a Scottish lighthouse in 1900 — hasn’t been staged here in Boston since Peter Sellars and the Boston Shakespeare Company presented it back in ’83. Tonight, the operatic mystery (Davies’s most famous) is staged in the most fitting venue imaginable, overlooking Boston Harbor at the JFK Library and Museum. David Angus conducts. Read more

Sunday @ Institute of Contemporary Art

New York’s Stephen Petronio Dance Company has a penchant for collaboration, pairing their cutting-edge modern choreography with the efforts of others at the forefront of their industries. Such is the case with the company’s latest project Underland, a sexually charged combination of modern dance and visual projections, set to the music of Australian balladeer Nick Cave. Phoenix critic Debra Cash gives a pre-show talk and, opening tonight only, the company sticks around post-performance for a Q&A panel. Read more

Thursday @ Boston Conservatory Theater

New dance director Cathy Young brings fresh energy to the Conservatory, and the kids look great. The winter rep includes Young’s tribute to Ellington plus works by Doug Varone and Daniel Pelzig. Beforehand, catch the installation by Christine Fricker with dancers from Prometheus Dance and the Elders Ensemble. Read more

Thursday @ Wilbur Theatre

Thursday @ Harvard Law School

Who says movies can't change the world? Or at least the contents of our refrigerators. Last September saw the release of local filmmaker Kristin Canty's documentary Farmageddon, which explored the health benefits of raw milk and the safety regulations restricting its consumption. Now Harvard Law School is hosting a public debate on the issue that will include Fred Pritzker, of the Pritzker & Olson Law Firm and Dr. Heidi Kassenborg, Director, Dairy & Food Inspection Division, Minnesota Department of Agriculture on one side, and David Gumpert, author of The Raw Milk Revolution and Sally Fallon Morell, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation, on the udder, er, other. Read more

Thursday @ Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Jazz takes its maiden voyage in the Gardner Museum’s new Calderwood Hall — the jewel of architect Renzo Piano’s design for the new wing. The honor goes to veteran Boston drummer (and Berklee prof) Ron Savage and his trio with pianist Sharik Hasan and bassist Alex Toth. This is the first of the resumed “First Thursday” concerts at the reopened venue. Read more

Thursday @ House of Blues

Thursday @ T.T. the Bear's Place

Former theater kids and would-be filmmakers, local indie duo You Won't found their footing in music. Ryan Reed talks to You Won't frontman Josh Arnoudse. They're joined by Slowdim, Friendly People, and the Suitcase Junket tonight at TT's. Read more

Friday @ Symphony Hall

There’s a lot of excitement about the young Canadian conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, who seems to have turned the Columbus Symphony Orchestra around in his first season as music director. The Handel and Haydn Society has invited him back to lead one of the most exciting and demanding symphonies in the repertoire: Beethoven’s Eroica, on a program with Beethoven’s dramatic Egmont Overture and Haydn’s rarely heard Symphony No. 48. Read more

Friday @ Symphony Hall

There’s a lot of excitement about the young Canadian conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, who seems to have turned the Columbus Symphony Orchestra around in his first season as music director. The Handel and Haydn Society has invited him back to lead one of the most exciting and demanding symphonies in the repertoire: Beethoven’s Eroica, on a program with Beethoven’s dramatic Egmont Overture and Haydn’s rarely heard Symphony No. 48. Read more

Friday @ Institute of Contemporary Art

Bright colors and fleshy forms embody artists’ thoughts about our bodies in new ICA curator Janelle Porter’s debut show here. Sue Williams creates a cyclone of collaged red, white, and blue human organs. Kathy Butterly fashions droopy, cartoony ceramics. Felix Gonzalez-Torres piles up candies equal to the weight of the artist and his lover lost to AIDS. Roy McMakin fills a room with gray furniture recreated from memories of his parents’ and grandparents’ homes. Read more

Saturday @ Great Scott

When you’ve been at the forefront of Boston’s punk revival since 1995, a one-night-stand just won’t cut it. So Jason Messina, Douglas Sullivan, and Mark Lind — collectively running through the skatepunk streets as the Ducky Boys — take over a Great Scott weekend to unveil sixth studio album Chasing the Ghost (State Line), a 17-track collection of fist-in-your-face punk anthems that really don’t care if the world ends in 2012. Read more

Saturday @ Lizard Lounge

One night in November, Stephie Coplan emailed an MP3 of her snarky new piano-pop single, “Jerk,” to Paul Driscoll of WFNX. An hour later — after he dutifully edited out all the swears — Driscoll premiered the relentless track on the “Nightly News.” Coplan recorded her reaction for YouTube — all schoolgirl giggles, “holy shit!’s,” and euphoric appreciation — and a star was seemingly born overnight. Now based in New Jersey, Coplan spent five years living in Cambridge/Somerville and attending Tufts University, so between that factoid and Winthrop-native drummer Shane Considine, Boston demands this trio move back. A national breakout pick for 2012 with unlimited potential. Read more

Sunday @ Shubert Theatre

Boston isn’t privy to the abundance of first-run productions with which New York is glutted, something theater-heads sometimes bemoan. In the case of the The Addams Family, however, second-time-around’s a charm. After the tepid — and some downright cool — reviews given to the original Broadway production featuring America’s favorite anti-happy little family, the show was re-worked, re-cast, and re-vamped . . . to successful ends. See for yourself tonight, when Morticia, Gomez, and company bring their morbid delights to the stage. Read more

Sunday @ Opera House

The Boston Ballet opens its Spring 2012 season with not one, but three fine ballets in one program. Simply Sublime is indeed a rather sublime way to kick off the ballet’s new season, including George Balanchine’s intricate and exhilarating Symphony in Three Movements, Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia (a romantic comedy of sorts set to ten Ligeti piano pieces), and Michael Fokine’s one-act, non-narrative romantic work Les Sylphides. Read more

Sunday @ Royale

Sunday @ Middle East Downstairs

Monday @ Museum of Fine Arts

The ancient Greek love goddess is the subject of 160 sculptures and vessels from the MFA’s collection of classical art as well as 13 loans. MFA Director Malcolm Rogers says, “I am excited to welcome visitors to the realm of the sexy goddess Aphrodite and hope that her powers are still potent and present, as well as her wise ancient ways.” Read more

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 @ House of Blues

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 @ Brookline Booksmith

New York comedian and author Sara Benincasa's new book Agorafabulous! chronicles her --little known--struggle with mental illness, and the crippling disorder that kept her confined to her home. All with her signature wit and candor, of course. Thomas Page McBee recently spoke to the very funny lady Read more

Thursday, February 23, 2012 @ Sanders Theatre

Music Director Benjamin Zander has a high-octane program called “Breaking Free of Chains” lined up. The beloved British cellist Alexander Baillie returns for a rare performance of the great Witold Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto, a piece Baillie has made his own. More heroism arrives in the form of Richard Strauss’s autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben (Strauss as his own hero), and Beethoven’s grand Leonore Overture No. 3. Come early and join the crowds for Zander’s pre-concert talks. Read more

Thursday, February 23, 2012 @ House of Blues

Thursday, February 23, 2012 @ Paradise Rock Club

In advance of the February 7 release of Tramp — Sharon van Etten’s third full-length, and debut for Jagjaguwar — the critically-acclaimed Brooklynite is bringing her inspired songwriting on the road with dreamy folk-rock vets Shearwater. If Tramp’s first single, “Serpents,” is any indication, this tour’s songs — and the entire new album, which was produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner — will be as emotive and introspective as ever, and likely her most expansive work to date. This is a hot ticket. Read more

Friday, February 24, 2012 @ Middle East Upstairs

Fort Point Recordings’ eclectic roster has its many bases covered, from the bluesy garage rock of Viva Viva to the underground hip-hop styling of Mister Jason to the skygazing soar of Endless Wave. But busy at the label’s bar ordering drinks for the ladies while everyone else is distracted is In Like Lions, a radio-destined pop-rock band whose new Through Red and Blue — recorded over 84 hours back in February — is a romantic homage to the long-lost heyday of the FM dial. Read more