If for any reason you’re beholden to a school schedule, then you know that we’re coming right up on Spring Break. But whether you’ve got a reason or not, we encourage you to treat yourself to something fun – like one of the events on our best bets. Keep reading for our full list, including lots of dance, theater, and music offerings.

It’s a night of premieres at Houston Ballet when the company’s latest mixed repertory program, Bespoke, opens at the Wortham Theater Center on Thursday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. Stanton Welch’s Bespoke and Jiří Kylián’s Overgrown Path will both be making their Houston Ballet premieres, while the third ballet on the program, Tim Harbour’s Filigree and Shadow, will be presented for the first time at the Wortham. The ballet, described as “an almost cinematic experience that builds to a frenetic climax,” actually made its Houston premiere back in 2018, when the company traveled to George R. Brown Convention Center during their post-Hurricane Harvey hometown tour. The program will also be presented at 7:30 p.m. on March 9, 15 and 16, and 2 p.m. on March 10 and 17. Tickets are available here for $25 to $45.

Performing Arts Houston will bring the famed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to Jones Hall on Thursday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. Additional performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 8, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 9, with the company bringing two programs to perform over the four performances. The first program, to be performed on March 7 and during the 7:30 p.m. show on March 9, will feature Ronald K. Brown’s “Dancing Spirit,” Alonzo King’s “Following the Subtle Current Upstream” and Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations.” The second program will be shown on March 8 and during the 2 p.m. show on March 9, and will again include Ailey’s “Revelations,” as well as Jamar Roberts’s “Ode” and Kyle Abraham’s “Are You in Your Feelings?” Tickets can be purchased here for $29 to $159.

Four white people try their hand at crafting a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play in the aptly titled The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse, which 4th Wall Theatre Co. will open on Friday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. 4th Wall’s Artistic Director Philip Lehl recently told the Houston Press that the comedy, the first Broadway-produced play written by a Native American woman, is “a satire on white people's liberal wokeness,” and that the show is for anyone “interested in having a really great laugh at some very serious issues that are confronting our country right now.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and March 18, and 3 p.m. Sundays through March 23 at Spring Street Studios. Tickets can be purchased here for $28 to $63, with pay-what-you-can pricing available for the March 18 show.

The Pilot Dance Project’s 4th Annual Texas Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival returns this year for three nights of dance celebrating Latinx choreographers and identity. Roberta Paixão Cortes of Group Acorde will open the festival on Friday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. with her piece “Belonging (or not) Abroad,” a piece the choreographer has described as “a very personal story” about her immigration to Houston from Brazil. Dance artists such as Pilot Dance Project’s Adam Castan͂eda, University of Houston dance professor M. Gabriela Estrada, Sam Houston State University graduate students Andrew Smith and Estefani Valle Cruz will also be featured over the course of the festival, which will continue at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 9, and Sunday, March 10 at The DeLUXE Theater. Tickets to individual nights are available for $15 and three-day festival passes for $35 here.

Back in 2005, Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times that even those familiar with Martin McDonagh’s “blithe way with murder, mutilation and dismemberment” would “be jolted by the events described and simulated so picturesquely” in The Pillowman, which at the time had just arrived in the Big Apple. On Friday, March 8 at 8 p.m. Dirt Dogs Theatre Co. will open the play – a celebration of “the raw, vital human instinct to invent fantasies, to lie for the sport of it, to bait with red herrings, to play Scheherazade to an audience real or imagined” – at the MATCH. Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and March 18, and 2 p.m. Sundays through March 23. Tickets are $30 (with pay-what-you-can pricing for Sunday and Monday shows) and can be purchased here.

Experience the world premiere of “Mass in Exile,” composed by Mark Buller and commissioned by the Houston Chamber Choir, on Saturday, March 9, at 7:30 p.m. when the choir performs at South Main Baptist Church. The Apollo Chamber Players and baritone Timothy Jones from the University of Houston will join the choir for the 45-minute piece, which features a libretto by Leah Lax. In addition to “Mass in Exile,” which marks the choir’s third world premiere this season, the program (also titled Mass in Exile) will include two more works by Buller – “Overboard,” also with text by Lax and commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, and “The Passion of St. Cecilia,” commissioned by the choir in 2021. Tickets for the performance can be purchased here for $10 to $45 or you can get livestream access for $25.

Michele Brangwen Dance & Music Ensemble will visit the MATCH this weekend to perform Brangwen’s latest work, “Faces of Sun and Wind.” The piece, which will be making its Houston premiere on Saturday March 9, at 8 p.m., explores climate activism through movement and set to the original music by Jon Irabagon. Brangwen’s “Unending” will also be featured during the evening, as well as a short film by composer and vocalist Angela Wang titled Allure, filmed in collaboration with choreographer/dancer Lindsey McGill. The program will be performed a second time on Sunday, March 10, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $35.