An on-stage explosion of dance, music, and art will transpire at St. Ambrose University on September 15 and 16 as the professional talents of Ballet Quad Cities present their season-opening presentation Paris en Pointe – a multi-media collaboration featuring area musicians and singers, and one held in conjunction with the Figge Art Museum's forthcoming exhibition French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1950-1950.

For the first public engagement in the organization's 2018-19 lecture series, the World Affairs Council of the Quad Cities (WACQC) will, on September 18, offer Bettendorf Public Library visitors insight and information on a largely misunderstood religion in Introduction to Sikhism: Contributions and Challenges of the Sikh Community in the United States, a 90-minute presentation by the Sikh Coalition's Community Development Director Dr. Rucha Kaur.

Original works from more than 80 juried regional and national artists, children's activities, a Tabor Wines tasting, gourmet food, live music with Whoozdads? and other area performers, and additional treats will be on hand at the September 15 and 16 Riverssance Festival of Fine Art, with MidCoast Fine Arts' 31st-annual Lindsay Park event finding Rachel Mullins Steiner this year's recipient of the esteemed Harley Award in recognition of her visionary leadership in creating an area arts culture.

A two-day celebration of a most dexterous musical instrument, the area's inaugural Shockingly Modern Saxophone Festival – taking place at Augustana College's Larson Hall September 14 and 15 – will treat lovers of the sax to master classes, workshops, discussions, and recitals, with the fest's guest artist, renowned saxophonist/composer Nick Zoulek, described by the Wall Street Journal as “stunningly virtuosic, whatever the genre.”

Touring in conjunction with the September 1 release of her sophomore album A Million Miles Away, singer/songwriter/guitarist Elizabeth Moen serves as the headliner for a Moeller Nights concert on September 15, with the Iowa native's gifts inspiring The Culture Trip to write, “Elizabeth Moen is one of those rare artists whose voice, from the first moment you hear it, consumes your entire being, doing away with all previous thoughts and concerns, and leaving you short of breath.”

It's almost inconceivable, and a little perverse, that the same actor who was so convincing as a Jewish bookkeeper in Schindler's List, the heroine's father in Anne Frank, and freakin' Moses could also be wholly persuasive as Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect behind Hitler's Final Solution. But considering his additional screen roles have ranged from Mahatma Gandhi to gangster Meyer Lansky to film pioneer Georges Méliès, Ben Kingsley has always demonstrated a virtuosic talent for playing ethnically diverse real-life figures – a skill that's both the chief pleasure and biggest moral hazard in the engaging, slightly infuriating post-war thriller Operation Finale.

Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a 2006 Tony Award for star Cynthia Nixon, David Lindsay-Abaire's moving, haunting, unexpectedly funny family drama Rabbit Hole enjoys a September 6 through 8 staging at St. Ambrose University's Studio Theatre, the New York Times praising the work for its “honesty, accuracy, and humor” while adding that the show “inspires such copious weeping among its audience that you wonder early on if you should have taken a life jacket.”

A quintet of superb artists, working in a variety of mediums, will collectively showcase their works in the group exhibition Earth Wind & Fire, on display from September 1 through 28 at the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy, and boasting new pieces of Dean Kugler, Bill Wolford, Bonnie Grebner, Heidi Grandt, and Karen Brinson.