Author: jbaz

I tuned in to my weekly discover on Spotify, absentmindedly listening to songs while I weeded through tangled thoughts. Midway through folding my laundry, the words from my stereo harnessed my focus into one single line of thought. I ran to my phone to check the name of the song “Praying to a God” by Mr. Probz (LUKE remix). I listened closely.

There was a story. The song writer uses euphemisms to gently describe a callous life, softened descriptions an intensely painful lifestyle surrounding drugs and hopelessness.

Then, I began pondering the meaning of the title. How curious it is that people have faith…and keep faith even when their god doesn’t respond to them or decide to let go. I dug up the novel song published in 2015 originally by the Norwegian duo Nico & Vinz. I’d heard of these guys! They did the radio hit “Am I Wrong?” that anyone with remote exposure to contemporary R&B music would know, but how come more people don’t hear this one? I always wonder what merits a radio hit. Praying to a God includes expressive language about the absence of peace and order, like what one would see without the presence of, for many people, God. Statistics show an obvious decline of organized religion. Why this is the first time in history that “no religion” dominates the results of surveys of Americans’ religious identity?

Throughout college, I’ve spoken with people who live with an absence of religion or are deeply grounded in one.

I am a senior now, trying to resist the aching nostalgia as graduation approaches. Alas, it seeps into my thoughts and provokes introspection on my years in Ann Arbor. Though the reality of growing up might sting, what a gift it is to feel so deeply and to have matters to reminisce. I think about whether or not I have lived these years to the fullest…like Erik Erikson’s ego vs despair but at the end of a collegiate Wolverine lifespan.  I remember the pool of emotions that I had my first month at the University of Michigan: the thrill of being immersed in a the sea of maize at Michigan Stadium, the overwhelm from course syllabi stacking in my folder, the joy of making a new friend, and the humble pride to have been accepted to experience all of it. To those reading this and especially to you freshmen, embrace every feeling, crying alone because you’re homesick or sloshing in the wrong shoes as your feet prune when rain came unannounced on your walk home from central. You’ll blink and then you’ll be backpacking for senior year without a student advisor hovering over your shoulder, finally knowing how to do it on your own.

The story that follows felt apropos for the debut of my posts for senior year. One decision I made as a freshman gave definition to my entire college career.

With an orientation friend, I navigated (that’s a lie; my direction was aimless) through the crowds of unfamiliar people. I felt overstimulated by the innumerable extracurriculars, each of which seemed cool to me, but nothing really brought the color to my attention. What does it mean to bring color to my attention? I perceive emotion on a color spectrum. Something that evokes a high intensity feeling will illustrate a color scheme in my mind. E.g. Somber is a palette of grays and blues. Something “colorful” to me means that I feel passionate about it as passion encompasses an array of profound feelings.

Anyway, immersed the diag, I found one table unlike the others. Most tables presented free bic pens and those rubber pockets that stick to the back of your phone, but this table offered a neatly packed case of colored pencils…and a pocket-sized sketchbook! Though the colored pencils brought a visual color to my attention, colored emotions soared through my head. I redirected my interest in art to pursue a career in Biology and Spanish, but how I missed art already. I’d longed for an artistic outlet. Admiring the subtly awesome people, I thought: who are these people and how do join their club? This was the Arts at Michigan booth.

And so applied to be a student columnist, for which I wrote an article about the sonic and lyrical ingenuousness of Bon Iver’s 22, A Million album as my formal application, and thus began my 4-year journey with Arts at Michigan. Subsequently, I had my first meeting with Joe, my boss who endlessly encourages us inksters on our artistic endeavors and reinforces that our ideas matter with the mantra “share your genius.” This job has promoted my exploration of the endless opportunities to see and to share the arts on campus through my own creative lens and to find value in them.

Hello arts, ink readers! Writing to you from across the Atlantic where I am enrolled in a University of Michigan study abroad program in southern Spain. I’m thrilled to share some of the cool experiences I have had in the borderless world of creativity. No matter where in the world you are or what language you speak, there is art. Art is language that we can all understand.

One event that I had to pleasure of seeing was the choreography of Love Chapter 2 by L-E-V Company at the Teatro Alhambra in Granada where hundreds of people gather on Calle Molinos to watch international phenomenons. L-E-V Company is an Israeli dance and spectacle ensemble created by dancer Sharon Eyal and designer of multimedia events Gai Behar.

So, the lights dim, the curtain opens, silence falls over the audience, and a steady, isolated beat commences. Six dancers appear, both men and women dressed in fitted leotards colored by a muted greenish-gray tone, and they use this steady beat as a pulse to their every movement. Their solid figures remind me of dynamic sculptures because of their evidently large mass and capacity to stay perfectly balanced no matter how their bodies moved. Their godlilke muscles are traced by the subtle overhead lights. There is a only small, selective emphasis by light techniques since the dance itself is quite elaborate and any extra effects would distract from the pure intensity of the dancers.

The single rhythm as well as the movements slowly evolve to demonstrate the feelings of love. The music has an important role in the message of Love Chapter 2. It begins simply yet mysteriously with only a drum, like when you first encounter someone or something intriguing. From that point, new sounds are layered one-by-one until the music becomes an organized web of sounds. The increasing complexity of the music mimics the increasing complexity of the dance to represent when love changes into something more intricate and more exciting as you come to know someone. Then, we see passion. This style of dance is unlike anything I have seen before. The dancers move in ways that challenge what I had imagined possible while they somehow maintain elegance in a wholistic manner, every feeling is written clearly across the dancer’s faces and throughout their entire disposition. Though they all perform the same routine, each dancer expresses his or her own slightly unique interpretation. That’s to say while there is synchrony, it is not the robotic synchrony that seems mechanical, but rather shows character and humanness…an attribute to the nature of love itself. During the show of consistently awe-striking dance, one of the six dancers would break apart from the group’s synchrony and perform his or her own unique movements. That is how the director emphasizes new, strange feelings and also the beauty of love and how each person feels love in their own way.

Above all, my favorite part is the moment that the director / choreographer comes to the stage and I see a person behind the magician of the theater.

For more information on L-E-V, check out their website: https://www.sharoneyaldance.com/en/home