Author: Abbey

Today, I finally got to try lab, a coffee, tea, and yogurt shop on E. Liberty. I’m usually more of a tea girl, but I decided to be adventurous and tried a cappuccino. I have to say it was a good choice. It was by far the best cappuccino I’ve ever had  – not too sweet, not too strong, and just the right amount of foam.  To make it all better, the cappuccino was served with a pretty design in the foam, much like that in the image above from lab’s tumblr page.

The atmosphere inside the cafe is very unique. The decorations are mostly white and grey, with some lime green accents, and there is a projector playing silent videos on the wall behind the counter. The baristas are very nice and willing to help customers navigate the menu. The shop has only a few tables and a small bar, so seating is limited, but it gives the place a cozy feel that is very nice.

With midterms coming up, this place is a great option for refueling during a study break.

Last night I went to see Dancing Americas, a dance production performed by students and faculty from the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. This was my first time going to a show focusing solely on dance, and it was amazing.

The show consisted of four distinct dance segments – each unique and beautiful in its own way. The performance began with a MinEvent that showcased modern dance and eclectic music. The musicians sat in front of the stage, and their instruments included a drill, a candy wrapper, a saw, and a cat statue. The music mixed electronic sounds, fragments of melodies, and sound effects from the various household instruments. When the curtain opened, there were only two dancers dressed in leotards on the stage holding a pose.  As the dance progressed, the number of dancers ranged from just one to a large ensemble.  In the program it said that the choreographer, Merce Cunningham, believed that music and dance “may occur in the same time and space, but should be created independently of one another,” and you could see that philosophy in the dance. The music had no real structure or beat, and the dance had no apparent correlation to the music, but somehow they complemented each other.

The second dance is entitled Towards a Sudden Silence, and was greatly different from the first.  The curtain opened on a group of dancers dressed in bright colors: some sitting on a bench, some standing, and some sitting on the ground. The choreographer, Melissa Beck, was inspired by poems by Marge Piercy, according to the program, and the performance consisted of 4 movements entitled (I) “My worst enemy is encoded in my body,” (II) “Old punishments still smoulder like a tire dump,” (III) “Of the patience called forth by transition,” and (IV) “Core memory.” A song with lyrics about loneliness accompanied part of the dance, and you could feel the idea of loneliness permeating the performance. The movements of each dancer seemed to suggest ideas of longing and fighting the self. This dance was emotionally charged in a way that invited the audience into the performance.

Tango con la Vida was the third performance of the night. Most of the costumes were reminiscent of traditional Spanish dress, and the music had a strongly Latin feel. This performance included some ballroom dance, though most of the performance was more contemporary. One detail that I found particularly lovely was that, at the beginning of the performance, several of the dancers were wearing half masks made from what appeared to be rose petals. As the dance progressed, the dancers slowly removed one petal at a time and dropped them on the stage. In the program the choreographer, Sandra Torijano, said that “Tango con la Vida is a celebration of life,” and that celebration became greatly apparent at the end of the piece. The dance ended with a dancer running up a flight of steps, jumping in the air, and being caught by the rest of the dancers. The energy of that final move really expressed the idea of celebration and joy.

The final dance of the show is called The Summit, and according to the program, the choreographer, Dianne McIntyre, was inspired by a piece of music by Dizzy Gillespie called “Kush,” “in which he recalls that ancient African civilization also known as Nubia.” This dance was quite possibly my favorite of the evening. This performance was more story driven than the others, and it began with one female dancer on stage in a large cape-type costume. The first dancer seemed to serve as some sort of power-figure in the dance’s story. The dance progressed with two groups of dancers, one group dressed in blues the other in shades of brown and red, who were apparently at odds with each other.  The original dancer brought one person from the blue group and one person from the brown group together, and the two groups seemed to cooperate for a while, dancing together, but then the two groups separated again, and the dancing grew correspondingly more hectic, until the original dancer collapsed on the stage, and the two groups had to join together again to revive her. The music for this dance seemed to play a large part in the production.  The band was set up on-stage, and the music was an interesting mix of instrumental jazz, traditional African-inspired melodies, and at the end wordless vocals. The music really complimented the dance and highlighted the emotional complexities of the story.

If you’re curious about the show, you can see pictures from the performance on the School of Music, Theatre and Dance’s website here, or, better yet, go see one of the two remaining performances for yourself at the Power Center this Saturday at 8:00 pm or Sunday at 2:00 pm. Ticket information is also listed on the SMTD’s website here.

It’s that time of year again – time for American Idol madness. I have been a watcher of American Idol for years, though I tend to stop watching full episodes part way through the season, season 8 being the one exception. The Adam Lambert vs. Kris Allen debate was a common topic of conversation with my friends and family. After the amazingness of season 8, last season was a bummer, and I’m really hoping to see some great talent this season.

Based on the first round of auditions, I’m not sure about this season. They have shown some good singers, some strange personalities, and some typically bad attitudes. I am still depressingly unimpressed by most of the singers. Two singers that have stuck out to me from the quagmire though are Jerome Bell and Naima Adedapo, both from the Milwaukee auditions. Jerome Bell’s audition was amazing; he really payed attention to every musical aspect – utilizing dynamics, tone, and expression to their full extent. Though Naima Adedapo’s vocal wasn’t as technically impressive as Bell’s, there is still something in her voice that I liked.

The thing I hate about the audition episodes is that they seem to go on forever, but they don’t really tell us anything about the artists we’re going to be watching for the next several months. It’s easy to pick out the singers we think we’re going to like and to laugh the terrible singers out of the room, but we never really get to see what kind of music we can expect out of each contestant in the future. I’m already bored with the audition phase and ready to see the real music competition get under way, but it looks like we still have another two weeks of boredom left.

The new judges are adding an interesting new dynamic to the show. Much to my surprise, I think Jennifer Lopez may prove to be my favorite female judge ever on the show. She’s almost like a mix between the Kiara DioGuardi’s tough, musical judging style and Paula Abdul’s silly sweetness. She seems able to deliver a real critique to the contestants while maintaining a sense of composure and politeness, which I think is nice. The jury is still out on Steven Tyler for me though. He brings a fun element of comedy to the judging table and often delivers good critiques, but he also frequently creeps me out with the way he’s speaks to some of the younger girl’s in the competition and annoys me by randomly showing off his screeching vocals rather than talking.

All in all, I’d say it’s been an interesting and hopefully promising start to the season. (Please let it be a good season!) When this show has some real talent, I can’t help but love it, but when it’s overrun with nothing but mediocrity, I’m compelled to hate it. I suppose only time will tell; we’ll just have to watch, hope, and see what happens.

I would like to devote this week’s post to \”A Very Potter Musical.\” I’m not sure why, but the topic of AVPM and “A Very Potter Sequel” have both come up in several conversations I’ve had this week, but inevitably, in each of these conversations, at least one person participating had not heard of either of these two StarKid productions.

AVPM and AVPS are musical, theatrical spoofs of the Harry Potter series. Both of these productions were written and performed by  UofM students, and they are brilliantly done. I feel these two performances should not be missed, so I encourage everyone to check them out on YouTube!

The acting in these two plays is enjoyable and comedic.  The sets are imaginative, and the humorous pop-culture references, clever story re-imaginings, and exaggerated characterizations make the time spent watching these videos well worth your while.

Welcome back to a new semester. Just four months stand between us and summer, and hopefully that time will be full of learning, creativity, and growth for all of us. To help jump-start the creative part, I would like to propose a small project to anyone interested.

When I walk around campus, it seems like most of the people I pass have put up barriers against the outside world – walking around with headphones constantly in or a phone glued to their ear. I am frequently guilty of these same practices myself, and the result is that I pay much less attention to my surroundings. Everyday sights blur into a single image that never seems to change, even though it must be different in some way every day. Therefore, the project I am suggesting is an observation log. Force yourself to actively search and engage your environment to find those small and strange details that can provide inspiration in your life and which remain completely hidden to a passive observer. Maybe you’ll hear a snippet of conversation you find interesting, recognize a pattern you never realized existed before, read a strange fact, or something else you consider worth remembering.

I found my old Observation Log today and some of my favorite entries include:

1)  “I don’t need boyfriends or girlfriends; I’ve got squirrelfriends!”

2)  Every human spent about 30 minutes as a single cell.

3)  “I don’t want to be buried in a cactus!”

“I think you mean casket.”

4)  According to some sources, the paper sticking out of the top of a Hershey’s Kiss is called a niggly-wiggly.

5)  I saw a girl step on worm.  She then did a little hop, looked down, and apologized to it.

A couple of my observations have stuck around in my memory, but I had completely forgotten several of them, and it was fun to reread them. I ended up using some of my entries for creative writing projects last year, while others remain simply as oddities I’ve collected and are still waiting to be used. When I did this project before, the goal was to write down at least three things a day. The great thing about having an observation log is the next time you’re stuck in an uninspired state, you’ll have a file of interesting notes, thoughts, and extemporanea to feed your mind and promote your creativity.

Good luck this semester!

This week one of my professors sent my class on an exploration through the art museum. Our assignment was to find a work of art that we felt represented the work of Emily Dickinson in some way, write about it, and then gather together and discuss our chosen piece of artwork. Walking through the UMMA’s collections with such a specific goal in mind was a very different experience from my usual wanderings through the museum. It forced me to really look at the art and try to see more in it than just something pretty hanging on a wall.  The assignment also took me in directions I didn’t expect to go.  I had anticipated finding something that I felt represented a tone or scene in one of Dickinson’s poems, but instead found in Simon Dybbroe Møller’s “BRAIN I” a physical representation of the process of working through a Dickinson poem.

When reading a Dickinson poem, it’s easy to try and oversimplify what’s happening in the poem – to simply give it a passing glance, recognize the obvious, and move on. But, slowing down and really examining the poetry nearly always reveals possibilities that were previously unapparent in that initial cursory glance. You’ll discover obstacles and nuance in the poetry that didn’t seem to exist before, because they were transparent or un-seeable in a superficial reading. This is the experience that Møller’s exhibit brought to life for me. When I first walked in to the exhibit, I didn’t feel that there was anything to see, but as I spent more time in the exhibit and really examined it, I began to notice details that weren’t initially obvious, for example, two paintings in the exhibit are identical (one a miniature of the other), the modeled layout on the television is actually an exact replica of the exhibit, and there is a painting hiding under a pile of boxes. Each of these details were hidden to me until I took the time to pause and really look around me. Even the clear walls in the exhibit held meaning for me in relation to Dickinson, because they felt like those hidden obstacles that one can discover in Dickinson’s poetry – though it’s difficult to see the walls, they’re just as impossible to walk through as an unmissable, solid plaster wall.

This project was such a unique experience that I would love to try it again with a different writer, or perhaps someone or something completely different, in mind. If you get a chance, you should give it a try.  You might be surprised at what unexpected comparisons you can draw.