A Language We All Understand

jbaz Leave a comment

bichini-bia-congo-dance-image

Every Monday, the Trotter Multicultural Center offers a Bichini Bia Congo Dance Class taught by the University’s own Professor Biza Sompa. He started his dance‐choreography career in 1970 with the Ballet Damar and the Congolese National Dance Company in Brazzaville, Congo and toured across Europe. In 1979, he founded the Bichini Bia Congo Dance Theater Company based here in Ann Arbor.

My friend and I decided to broaden our dancing abilities and try a new style of movement. Once we arrived in the studio, Biza Sompa greeted us with an enthusiastic welcome. Also in the studio were three other beginners, one regular Congo-class attendee, and a drummer. To begin, we loosened up to a few energetic Congolese songs. I braced myself for the actual instruction because the warmup by itself required ample stamina. Next, we learned a routine. Though it was not easy, it was so fun! Not only did we learn a Congolese dance, but we also heightened our understanding of the African culture through dance, music, song, and drum. Instead of dancing to the sound of a stereo, we found our rhythm with the beat of two “mother” drums that gave birth to music and helped “embody the value concepts and social philosophies of the Congolese people: man’s harmony with God and nature, group unity, and the celebration of life.” The pounding of the drums facilitated creative fluidity while the clapping of the hands maintained an inspiring energy. To conclude the session, we came together in a circle to thank everyone and everything that enabled us to share this dancing experience.

It’s amazing how dance and body language can often speak with greater power than spoken or written language. Through one common aspect of culture, we are unified. Though we might not all speak the same language, as Stevie Wonder once said,

“Music is a world within itself with a language we all understand.”

No matter who you are or from where you come, people have “an equal opportunity for all to sing, dance, and clap their hands.”

A Turning Point.

Benjamin Rosenstock Leave a comment

It’s 10:10 P.M. on November 8th, 2016. For the past two hours, I’ve been trying to think of what I could write about for this blog post. The clear Event of the Day has been the U.S. presidential election, but I was determined not to write about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, partly because I don’t know that much about politics, partly because politics aren’t that artistic, and partly because there isn’t really much more that can be said at this point.

But it’s 10:15 now and I can’t think of anything else, because it’s increasingly looking like Trump is going to win the presidential election.

I’ve always been very confident that I’m on the right side of history. I still think that. When I imagine our ideal society, maybe a couple centuries from now, I imagine widespread tolerance for LGBT people, no discrimination against people of other races, no sexism. I imagine a humble leader. This whole thing isn’t making me question my political opinions; I’ve never once wondered if maybe I was wrong. I mean, what would that even mean? ‘Maybe Mexicans really are rapists’? ‘Maybe the best possible choice is someone who’s never had any experience in politics, who pulls everything out of his ass’? No, obviously seeing these results aren’t making me believe in Trump.

But even as this is happening, I do feel my perspective changing about things. This whole time, I had this core belief that when it came down to it, everything would work out in our favor. Hillary would pull through. That seemed obvious from the beginning, but it felt really sealed back when the “grab ‘em by the pussy” comment happened. I didn’t even have a doubt! Even when the race inexplicably got closer in the past couple weeks, I still didn’t worry much. I woke up this morning knowing this would be a historic day, but I thought that it’d be historic for the right reasons.

I am a fundamentally optimistic person, who believes that people are fundamentally good. But I feel my beliefs slowly…not disintegrating, but eroding a little, maybe.

This is like a sports game. We’re watching this live like it’s SportsCenter. Except the outcome will actually shape our lives. Maybe that’s the thread that ties this to art—I still find myself viewing this all as a narrative, just one that’s existing in real time, in real life.

It continually stuns me to even imagine how actual oppressed peoples must feel right now. I’m terrified, and I am the apotheosis of privilege: white, heterosexual, male, upper-middle class.

It’s 11:40, and watching this live is so torturous. Part of me wishes I just waited until I got the actual results and had time to process it all at once. Seeing this all happening so slowly is so horrifying. CNN’s “new projection” screen triggers a Pavlovian response in me; my heart just starts racing.

I’m oscillating between feeling dead inside—not talking at all, zoning out a little, feeling drained—and feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with too many things: sadness, disappointment, mostly incredulity. And once I start to think about any of the little particulars of this election—people voting third-party instead of voting for Hillary, or the FBI looking into Hillary’s emails with a week left before the election, or any of the stupid fucking people excusing anything that Trump has done—I get so, so enraged. I imagine Barack Obama’s face and I want to cry, because he was the epitome of grace, because for any faults he may have had, he was a real president. I imagine Hillary’s face and I want to cry, because it’s so absurdly unfair that she has to lose, so unjust that I couldn’t even imagine it happening, that I still can’t imagine her not being president, even as increasingly ridiculous things happened to ensure this was the outcome.

It’s 12:05 A.M., and overall I have the feeling that this is a turning point. I don’t know what that means, exactly. I’m not sure how much a Trump presidency will affect my own life. Maybe it will; like I said, I don’t know much about politics. But I’m scared imagining how it could affect others’ lives. People around the world, but even people in my little personal bubble, my LGBT friends, my friends of color, my female friends.

Tomorrow, there is going to be a shared understanding that things are different. My friends will be quiet. My professors will have to acknowledge what happened, if only because it’ll be all that’s on anyone’s minds.

I know, intellectually, that this isn’t the end of everything. As a critic I follow on Twitter said a moment ago, hope and humor aren’t dead; they’re just rare. I know that we can make things right, and I still believe history will work out in our favor. To be honest, I’ve never really had to be a politically active person before. I’ve voted, but I’ve never really protested, never gotten as involved as I should’ve. I regret that now. I will really, really try to change that.

Here is the picture of this historic moment: I sit on my living room couch. My roommate Kimmie and our friend Sean sit on the couch with me. My roommate Kyle sits on the armchair to our left, and our friend Emily on the floor near him. My roommate Erica went to her room, maybe to sleep or maybe just to have some time alone. The rest of us are all watching the computer screen live-streaming on the table in front of us, but we aren’t huddled with anticipation like we were before. Our comments—“oh, it’s tied in Michigan again”—are said in a halfhearted way, like it’s all incidental. It’s 12:23, and we know the outcome.

“If anyone says their vote doesn’t count again, I swear to god…” I say.

“I’ll kill them,” my friend says. “I’ll kill them, and their vote would’ve counted, but now it definitely won’t, because they’re dead.”

We all laugh more than we have in at least an hour, probably two.

I am a lucky person, because of my racial and gender privilege, but also because of my friends, and my family. I am lucky that I’ve been given enough that my optimism hasn’t been completely squashed. I am lucky that I live in a country where so many people did go out and vote, did go out and volunteer and be selfless and try to make the right thing happen.

I still believe in us. But it’s 12:56 A.M., and I am shaken.

More Motown!

Alexis Leave a comment

Last weekend I took a trip to Hitsville USA, also known as the Motown Music Museum, in Detroit. Easily recognizable by its bright white and blue color scheme, the house, that once belonged to Berry Gordy and housed the famous Studio A, sits on Grand Boulevard just as it did 50 years ago.
Inside the museum it is clear that this was, and definitely still is, a house. It’s cramped and crowded as the 11 a.m. tour group waited for our guide, but when she arrived she immediately got everyone arranged comfortably – it was clear that she had done this hundreds of times.
The tour guide was the best part of my visit to the museum. Her passion and knowledge for Motown was clear as she easily gave us general information and shared stories about the singers and the house like she was there herself. Every once in a while she would start singing a Motown classic, her braided hair swaying back and forth as she moved. I was impressed with the natural ease and confidence in which she performed. At one point, she had the entire tour group join her. Tourists, both young and old, who had come from as far away as England or as close as Dearborn, began to clap and sing with her to hits like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “I heard it through the Grapevine.” Group singing, especially in public with a bunch of strangers, is definitely not my thing. But when everyone started to sing along and clap together, I couldn’t help but join. The moment, a bunch of strangers singing together in the house that made icons like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, was a true reflection of the influence of Motown music.
The tour guide described what the atmosphere was like when Motown began to spread across the country. “People were singing in the streets. They were really singing in the streets!” she said. I can picture everyone sitting on their porches, singing along to whatever hit was playing on the radio. She described the process of making the music as well. Berry believed that creativity had no hours, so artists were able to walk into the house whenever inspiration struck. As we stood inside of Studio A, our tour guide described the musical history that had occurred there. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and so many others had recorded there, and the entire studio was preserved exactly how it was 50 years ago. As she described the recording process, it was clear that it was a very authentic experience. Today, many artists will record their voice while listening to the prerecorded drums, guitar, and other instruments. But in Studio A, the band would play right alongside the singer as they recorded.
I wish that I could have been around to experience the excitement and passion of Motown music. My visit to the Motown museum made me want to sing in the streets with my neighbors and friends or listen to a song and visualize the recording room full of music. The movement of Motown was critical to modern music, and the Motown Museum is a great place to learn more and get inspired by Motown.

Sitting in a Library

Corrina Lee 1 Comment

It’s quiet in the Hatcher Library Reference Rooms today. But it’s never silent. Not even the strictest rules could prevent the variety of sounds that echo throughout the library. The door clicks as a new acolyte enters the sacred temple of books and laptops. Of all the students sitting in neat rows down the length of room, few even look up. The soaring white ceiling and murals are sadly ignored, as much as the shelves of books that line the walls. The amazed stares and slight gasps have been abandoned long ago in favor of resigned yawns. Most have their headphones plugged in. We may be sitting together but we are all in our own separate worlds, lost in swirls of half understood equations and tedious texts. Today, mine revolves around writing this blog post and the math homework I’m postponing. I’m sitting next to a girl with a knitted grey sweater and blonde hair braided neatly. Her feet move relentlessly under the table. I wonder if she has somewhere else to be.

There’s always somewhere else to be at the University of Michigan. Besides the uncompromising schedule of class after class, students often have many other obligations. Responsibilities to clubs, a can’t miss fraternity party, sports practices. That is why there is always a sense of urgency sitting here in the library. Homework must get done, so that we may all rush off to our next responsibility. The Hatcher Library even removes any social distractions. No need to spare any time on a few wasteful words. Concentration is forced upon us, silence envelopes us. The library allows me an opportunity to gain a singleness of mind that is rarely achievable in any other environment. Even walking outside, my mind rushes faster than my steps. What do I have to do next? Am I forgetting something? Of course, I’m forgetting something. But here in the library, I can savor the feeling of usefulness. The feeling that I am being productive, I have achieved something here today.

I wish sometimes that I did not need the library to force me to work. I wish that I could create quiet spaces anywhere just for me, myself, and I. I wish I could stand still in this moment. But my mind can’t and won’t. Often, it feels like being a helpless passenger on a runaway train or constantly dodging never ending obstacles in some sadistic video game. You are never in control. Most of the time, I ignore this reality. It is simply too emotionally exhausting to consider every singular stress in my life. So usually I put on my headphones and my favorite Spotify playlist. Yet, the library offers me a place of quieter reflection, a place beyond the everyday problems to look at the big picture. It seems to me, that as students, we spend too much time worrying about the homework, the classes, and the parties without considering exactly why we do things. Life is greater than a couple of assignments. That is why as I sink into the only open armchair and close my eyes, I can relax if only for a few fleeting moments.

When I open my eyes again, the world hasn’t changed. It is still only a room. I’m still only a student. But the library is a special place for me, always has been. When I was a kid, it was my wonderland. When I was a high schooler, it was a refuge from the drama within and without. Now, in college, it has become a study hall. But always, it is where I go to be alone but not lonely.

What Animal Do You Want to Be? (The Lobster)

WillJang Leave a comment

So a woman is driving down the road. She stops, gets out, and we see her through the front window as she shoots one of three donkeys grazing in the rainy field. As she leaves the other donkeys crowd around the dead one.

This is the opening scene from the 2015 film, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, called The Lobster. The film follows David (Colin Farrell) as he checks in at a hotel where the primary purpose is to find a mate. Should you fail to do so in 45 days, you will be turned into an animal of your own choosing. Interestingly, David brings a Border Collie with him, he tells the staff that it is his brother who had failed to find a mate at this hotel in the past. There are other instances of quirky dark humor spattered throughout the film. But instead of specific moments, the comedy of the film is developed through the details/world building (and boy is it bleak). The patients take part in hunts where they go into a nearby forest to search for guests that ran away, should they find someone, they shoot the “loner” with a tranquilizer. Should you find runaways, you are rewarded with an extra day for each person captured.

I know the whole single versus couples thing is overplayed on Valentines day, so I decided to talk about this movie months in advance. The film is quite obviously critiquing modern notions on what love and more precisely, contemporary emphasis on the importance of sticking to a couple based society. It is incredibly rigid. To fit into society A, you must follow rules 1-100 and to fit in society B, you must follow a new set of rules 1-100. So inevitably, should you choose to run away from the hotel and live your life amongst the “loners” then you have to exchange an old set of rules for entirely new ones. In other words, escape does not equal freedom in this world.

What is particularly interesting to me about this world however is that despite the lack of choices, there is an odd moment of freedom amidst the film and the title lets us know right away. David chooses to be a lobster, just like his brother chose to be a dog. Imagine if you believed in reincarnation and your preference actually mattered in what you came back as. Obviously, this choice is given in the contextual parameters of doom and gloom. But is it all that bad? For some reason, I felt it such an odd form of punishment. The hotel manager suggests in the film that becoming an animal is a second chance at love. However, other than the donkeys living together at the beginning, there is no evidence of animals living together in any social manner. In fact, when we see the forest, we see lone animals wandering about – like a camel that just casually walks in the background of one of the more important narrative scenes.

In that sense, I suppose being turned into an animal is terrible, given that all evidence seems to point towards the fact that once you are alone, you will always be alone. Also, although it is not quite clear, I believe you retain your human consciousness as an animal (in which case becoming an animal is a horrible notion). But if you do not retain any semblance of human cognition, then perhaps I’d want to be some form of predatory bird, because who does not want to fly?

But invariably, the animal we choose is highly reflective of who we are. The hotel manager even notes how everyone picks a dog, and that is why there are so many dogs in the world. The primary way that people select mates at the hotel is through “defining characteristics.” For instance, if a man has a limp, he must find a woman who has a limp. So if picking a dog is being a predictable and rather boring individual, is that particularly defining if so many people do the exact same thing? I’d imagine that the hotel manager would say, “Well that is why they are alone.” I guess the choice does not really matter in the end.

But who does not like dogs? Fuck this movie. Just kidding I love this movie.

Let’s Potter It Up.

Marius Lex Leave a comment

Last Thursday I promised that there was a bit of Harry Potter in the story of how I lost my first job and after explaining how Peter Jackson got me there in the first place, it is now time to potter it up:

The beautiful landscape passed by the window and left me speechless. Lakes reflected the yellow sunlight and entire forests swayed in a crisp autumn breeze. I was on the way to my new home. I had made a friend already. Ron was sitting right next to me. Since he didn’t have too much money, I had bought some candy. I just came from a place where the people are grumpy and you are not accepted for who you are: Germany. And as cool as it would have been, I do have to admit that my new friend’s name wasn’t Ron but Nico and I hadn’t bought candy for him. Technically he wasn’t even my friend at that point. But we were on the same bus and that was the start of something special…

When the bus pulled into the station and the passengers streamed out of the doors and through the steam, towards the bright, warm brick building, the sun had set and left the outside cool and dark. As my feet touched the ground I heard a loud voice shouting through the hustle and bustle. I walked a little further down the platform to look for where the voice was coming from… It was shouting my name. Not only mine, a couple of other names, too. I grabbed my backpack and as the voice got louder and louder, the silhouette of a massive, black-bearded man emerged from the darkness. He was wearing a moleskin overcoat and was about twice the size of all the people around him. Ok, actually the guy wasn’t screaming our names but had sign with our names written on it. And he wasn’t wearing a moleskin overcoat but a Merino-Sweater. And he wasn’t exactly a huge guy, but a skinny, old lady with grey hair and a funny face. And obviously there was no steam, come on, where is the steam supposed to come from at a bus station?  So basically we got out of the bus and this lady with the sign just stood there, waiting for us. We hopped into her car and she took us to the place we would live at from now on. Our new home.

Shimmering lights glimmered through the darkness of the driveway. They became increasinly bright as we climbed the hill our residence was located on. Getting closer I could see narrow, high towers and walls made from stones which seemed to have watched over the valley to our left for many hundred years. It was a castle. An old, beautiful castle. We passed a gate with two majestic boars sitting on each side, watching over whoever entered the grounds they were guarding and… You see where I’m going with this. There was no castle. I’d say you could even barely call it a house. It was four walls with a roof on top and far too many people inside. It was in a valley, not on a hill and it smelled. It was my and my companions new home, though. The old lady gave is numbered keys and pointed towards the ‘house’. I looked for my room number. When I finally got to the number plate with the number “13” on it, I realised someone else was right behind me, waiting for me to open the door: Nico, my not yet friend for a lifetime. He nodded at me. I nodded at him and we both entered the room that would change our lives forever…

Next week, a mystery will be solved in a way, that would make Miss Marple proud. It includes Nico, me and… a knife!

See you next week and remember to be the weirdest you can possibly be.