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This weekend, along with hundreds of others, I experienced art at its most complex, gutsy, and visceral.  I saw, listened to, and contemplated Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach presented by UMS.  This was the first time the opera had been performed in twenty years.  They call this piece an opera, but it breaks any formal structures, including narrative.  The show is devoid of narrative.  This is something both the composer, Glass and director, Wilson, speak to at length and wish for the audience to embrace.

I heard Glass and Wilson speak at the Michigan Theatre last week as part of the Penny Stamps lecture series (which I will be attending again this week to see Daniel Handler a.k.a Lemony Snicket!).  Hearing their thoughts about art and performance were inspiring but also hard for me to wrap my head around.  As much as I try to be open to the avant garde and understanding art outside of my own experience, no matter what I do, my framework for understanding is the theatre.  I have a hard time hearing a director say it’s okay if audience members walk out in the middle of a performance, as Wilson said of Einstein.  Beyond that, he encouraged such behavior.  However, I understood and embraced his point: theatre should be like art, it should be available at all times to be observed as the viewer sees fit.

After hearing the two men speak and seeing snippets of previous productions, I was eager to see the marathon four and a half hour opera performed at the Power Center.  My ticket was for Sunday, so I had heard plenty from friends who had seen it the previous nights before venturing into the theatre, perched in the balcony of a packed auditorium.  No matter how much I had heard, I went in with an open mind, not knowing entirely what to expect, only knowing that it would be different than anything I had ever seen before.

That much was true.  I sat through almost the entire four and a half hours, getting up only once for a bathroom break.  My mind wandered as the repetitive music played on and the words spoken by those on stage merged with other sections and mutated into other phrases.  The most interesting part for me was knowing that while we were all watching the same performance, every single audience member had a different experience.  In this way, the piece was much more like art than theatre or opera.  I wish I could explain what I saw there, but it was almost like a dream.  I was present, I was awake, but everything seemed to be happening on some other plane.

Later that day, with the images and music still fresh in my head and my brain still reeling from the cerebral work-out, I discussed what I had seen with a group of theatre majors, some who had seen the show, some who had not.  One of the girls who hadn’t seen the show sat there silently for a while, and then she finally said, “I didn’t see the show, but it is so funny to hear people talk about it.”  And it’s true.  It is one of those things where your opinions become questions.  If you ask anyone what they thought of Einstein on the Beach, someone who wants to say, “I liked it” will actually end up saying, “I liked it?”  You can’t trust your own mind, and you’re still not sure if this is the type of thing that one likes or dislikes.

Days later, I am still questioning my experience, mulling everything over in my head, hearing the actress repeating, “If you please, it is trees.” I am still beyond impressed by the physical, emotional, and vocal stamina of those actors who perform nearly non-stop for four and a half hours every day.  I wonder what their experience is, what their understanding is.  I wish I could have been in the room to hear how an opera with no meaning or plot is made.  Every scene was disconnected but the experience was felt as a whole.  The experience is the point, and while I may never entirely understand why I watched a blindingly bright beam of light rise from a horizontal position to a vertical one with a nonsensical aria scoring the movement for probably ten minutes, I appreciated it.  I appreciate art that I may never understand.  It was executed with uncommon courage.  I am inspired to push the bounds of my understanding and my own creations.

What has glowing lights, reaches about ten feet high, is rumored to cost 30,000 dollars and has absolutely no purpose on this planet? That’s right, you guessed it! The Rainbow Wall in the basement of Couzens Hall. Fortunate enough to be placed in the brand new, hotel-style dormitory on the Hill for my freshman year of college, I was ecstatic to see how beautiful and high-tech all of the facilities were in my dorm, but I was also puzzled when I first walked into what now is referred to as “The Rainbow Room.” Like most of the convenient and fully equipped study rooms in the basement, the Rainbow Room has an assortment of tables and chairs conducive to working and socializing. This room is unique, however, because it is also home to a monstrous wall with a giant screen on the front that does nothing but display a lazy combination of swirls of colors in every shade of the rainbow. It has three or four set patterns of movement, and shuffles through these every hour of every day. It actually does nothing else.

Supposedly, its function is to serve as a giant speaker, and the light displays are supposed to align and match the beats of the music. Have you ever used the iTunes visualizer? Or maybe you remember those old mac screensavers that bounced light around in different designs? Essentially, this wall is a huge screensaver that bobs to music. We are more than halfway through the school year, and I have only seen someone use the rainbow wall’s speaker system once. The lights didn’t look any different with music. The University spent 30K on a two-hour dance party for seven people. That’s probably worth it.

Of my many reasons to be outraged by this installment to our dorm, the first is its cost. While I have not confirmed the price, the general rumor admits that it cost around 30,000 dollars to install. Here’s a list of things we could have used 30,000 dollars for, instead of an oversized light-brite: two semesters of in-state tuition at the University of Michigan, practically one semester of out-of-state tuition at that same University, a non-profit striving for any sort of positive change (of which there are literally thousands in this country), researching cures for terminal illnesses, the construction of another homeless shelter in Ann Arbor (as of November, 2011 there was only one in operation), fixing the appalling recycling system in the dorms, turning more of the Michigan busses into the new hybrid, clean-energy busses and countless other altruistic causes. Instead, the Housing department decided to spend its additional cash (which more likely that not came in part from students’ tuition) on the Rainbow Wall.

Once we look past the atrocious amount of money we spent to get the wall inside the building, we now can focus on how much money and electricity we are wasting to keep it running at all times of the day. I’m not sure if people still think we have an infinite, unlimited amount of electricity on our planet, but I regretfully inform them that this is, in fact, a myth. We are rapidly using up our sources of energy, and should not be using what limited resources we have on colored lights. Want to look at a rainbow? Walk outside after it rains or turn on PBS.

My third and final complaint is of the Housing department in general. They constructed the wall in the first place because they place an enormous emphasis on presenting an affluent, technologically advanced décor, but also claim to of consider practical, environmentally friendly alternatives. My entire dorm is decorated in this plush, pseudo-wealthy fashion that tries so hard to exude affluence, when it is actually made from recycled materials. Which is great, but then there are also between seven and ten flat screen TV’s that rarely get used. Meanwhile, students are struggling to pay back loans and debts and unemployment levels are still high. In the grand scheme of the school’s massive budget the Rainbow Wall is probably insignificant, but it still represents Michigan’s ambition to flaunt an elite, technologically advanced pretense that is completely unnecessary and undeniably wasteful. The Rainbow Wall is a heinous, ugly, unconscionable use of money, and I sincerely hope that there are not plans for similar atrocities in the upcoming renovations to East Quad, Alice Lloyd, and Baits I. There is simply no need to waste that much money on something that offers no real benefits. If the University is indeed trying to “Go Green” I suggest they put forth their full efforts, instead of backing up recycled carpet with three screen projectors in one single room.

The fog appears early in the morning, a sea mist rolling over the water somewhere beyond, creeping over land, covering it. By the time people are rolling out of bed, yawning, putting on the coffeepot, the world has already been transformed. Predawn blue glows faintly, as it always has, bathing everything in seemingly sourceless light. But today, it somehow has more… body. It is as if each individual particle of water, suspended there, had not merely obscured the light, or refracted it, or anything half so logical, but instead imbibed it.

Somewhere behind layers and layers of cloud the sun has begun its slow ascent. Conversely, the fog only seems to thicken, dampening down into a matte grey veil that swathes the landscape in monochromatic gradients. In other places, such fog would have burned away in a matter of hours. But here, warm currents and cool air have set up shop, where it will proceed to churn out fog for the rest of the day. When the wind lifts, one need merely wait. One feels rather than sees the fog rolling in, a subtle stirring of the air, a quiet approach of a low cloudbank that rides almost insubstantially upland.

It is wet, and it is cold. The damp clings everywhere. Glass panes and signposts and leaves are encrusted with beads of condensation. Mosses and lichens drink in moisture, bright splashes of green and yellow against the black slick of stone paving. Others are less pleased. A single figure has made his way down towards the wharf, grasping the railing for a moment, then releasing it rather quickly. Already his oddslot coat is becoming covered in a fine breath of pearly mist. He shoves his hands into his pockets– clammy hands are no good, and at least his pockets are still dry. (There’s another mile yet along the seafront and back up the road, to breakfast and the morning paper, perhaps.)

Back down towards the water, rows of boats bob quietly in little choppy waves. Even here, sound seems dampened. Insulated. A forest of white masts recedes into the fog. There are tens, surely, perhaps even hundreds. Fog conceals, but it carries with it a sort of potential. While it lasts, anything might be possible, might be true. While the fog lasts, there could be thousands of boats, even, stretching out into the boundless sea.

Like most students who have been at U of M for a couple of years, I’ve discovered a few things at the school that deserve more recognition than they get, my favorite being the Special Collections Library on the 7th floor of the Grad. I was first directed to this collection last year when writing a research paper, and have since used it for much more firsthand research, but probably mostly just for my own interests. There are several sections of the Special Collections Library, but my favorite is the Labadie Collection. The Labadie Collection is one of the largest collections of radical political documents from 19th-21st Centuries in the world, and has pretty much anything you can imagine in that genre. Last year I was doing a research paper on a random political cartoon from 1873 France and they had an original copy of it in their archives. You can spend hours (and I have) just looking through their extensive collection of pamphlets and posters, even if you aren’t a radical anarcho-communist trying to smash the state (but you go to U of M so obviously you are). The Special Collections Library also has an awesome selection of medieval documents and facsimiles, which are wonderful for seeing all of the details and small intricacies that you would never be able to see by just looking on the internet. They also have scrolls, which is another experience that can’t be reproduced over the internet or looking at a book copy. There also many other sections of the Special Collections Library that have amazing documents of history, including an actual document written by Galileo, and I really suggest exploring this stuff while you are still at U of M (you commie).

It is with much sadness that I write this blog post.  Our small, close, family-like department recently suffered a loss.  Professor Glenda Dickerson passed away this past week, and it is a death that we all feel deeply.  The theatre department is like a family both in size, love, and relations.  I never had Professor Dickerson, but the mere principle of losing “one of our own” resonates in my heart.

Professor Dickerson was always a sort of mysterious figure to me.  I was finally going to have a class with her this semester, but another professor ended up taking that class over.  I was thrilled to meet this woman who was renowned within the department for her intellect and experience.  These were qualities I heard generally alluded to but never fully researched until Professor Dickerson fell ill and I found myself searching for what I had missed out on.

Once I began unearthing Professor Dickerson’s accomplishments, my remorse over never having spoken to her grew tremendously.  She directed on Broadway.  She won a Peabody award.  She wrote and co-wrote many books.  Her knowledge seemed boundless, particularly on the subjects of African-American theatre and the art of directing.  This woman had a varied and successful career that anyone would be envious of and seems to have had the courage, vision, and smarts to back it up.

For me, personally, Professor Dickerson’s passing completed the “cycle of threes” that death is supposed to run in, all of which occurred in the past week.  This has led to much reflecting, ruminating, and honestly, steeping myself in art that both comforted me and led to a deeper examination of my relationships and emotions.  I found immense solace in Jason Robert Brown’s “Hear My Song” from Songs for a New World.  My grief was expounded, examined, and ultimately, comforted by “I’ll Fly Away.”  I was also able to use my theatre community and my own personal work to help me move on and make good out of so much bad.

The three people who passed away who touched my life, directly or indirectly, have inspired me to continue on the route I am currently headed.  Each of these individuals accomplished incredible things throughout their lifetimes, which ranged from far too short to impressively long.  They faced adversity, stared it in the face, and overcame their personal obstacles.  I strive to do the same.  While grief can sometimes be overwhelming, it is important to come to a place of understanding the best we can.

For me, that comes by pushing through and creating something new.  Of course a play I write will never replace the loved one I have lost, but by rendering something new I am forcing myself to move on.  I hope that others in my department will do the same.  Important and impressive art has emerged from the deepest tragedies.  Think of Angels in America, one of the greatest American plays, which was inspired by the AIDS epidemic and how it affected the playwright specifically.

There is a great line from the aptly titled song “Move On” from the musical Sunday in the Park with George, “I want to know how to get through, through to something new.”  I think that “getting through” for me both represents the artistic breakthrough that is so desirable in the midst of a project, as well as “getting through” the hardships you face to get to a place where you can create again.  I intend to move on, and I hope to continue the legacy of these people who have touched my life.