Tag: arts ink

Looking Forward: 2021

Lucy Freeman Leave a comment

Happy Friday, everyone!

I hope you’ve enjoyed a relaxing couple of weeks off. I’m taking the time to soak up this last week with my roommates before the semester starts.

I arrived back in Ann Arbor a couple of days ago and I have to say it feels like a different place than when I moved here three and a half years ago. Businesses have closed down, the movie theaters are still dark, restaurants and bars are limited to take-out-only. When I walk down Main Street, I no longer see lines for concerts at The Ark or jazz at the Blue Llama. And while I would love to sit in Hill Auditorium and see a Gerswhin show, I know that all of this is to protect our community. 

The past semester felt dark, at times, especially being so rooted in performing arts, but this blog has been a shining light. It has allowed me to speak with some incredible people and hear hopeful stories of how the arts are surviving on campus. I’ve been in awe over the creative ways that academic departments, student organizations, and campus resources have adapted to the challenges this year has presented. They have not only found a way to continue their missions amid a global pandemic, but many have addressed students’ mental health and wellbeing as well as critical social justice issues. We have shown up for one another, and that is a beautiful thing. 

This blog is all about looking towards the future, and the new year is all about that prospect. Of course, we know that 2021 is not a fresh start that will magically solve all the world’s problems, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot also recognize the hope that this year brings. So let us hope that 2021 brings us more community, more creativity, and more compassion. I am so looking forward to having new conversations with resources and organizations on campus, and to hearing how students are “looking forward” this year. 

Til’ next week, 

Lucy

P.S. If you have any suggestions for organizations/people I should interview – please leave me a comment below!

Looking Forward: Writer to Writer

Lucy Freeman Leave a comment

Hey arts, ink readers!

I hope exam season is treating you well and you’re finding ways for self-care in the midst of all of it. This week, I spoke with Aylin Gunal, Editor-in-Chief for Writer-to-Writer. I asked her about the publication, how the organization has adjusted to this semester, how she perceives creativity on campus this semester, and how students can get involved. It was a wonderful conversation I’m excited to share with you all!

If you don’t already know, Writer to Writer is a student publication that began in the Minor in Writing program. The twice-yearly collection is open to students across campus and encourages multi-modal writing submissions (videos, photo essays, etc.). The organization’s staff is made up of students, many of whom are in the Minor in Writing program, though others are welcome. 

Thanks to technology, not a ton has changed for Writer to Writer this semester. Aylin told me that they’ve been pretty successful adjusting their regular programming to be online, including their weekly meetings. Additionally, they’ve begun to incorporate more events like writer’s workshops, which have served as community-builders within the organization. This has been especially important, as Aylin realized how valuable the small chat before meetings and between discussions was once it was significantly reduced due to zoom. In order to address this, they’ve been incorporating more intentional community-building activities this semester, including a minor-wide book exchange for the holiday season! Although it’s not quite the same as hanging out in North Quad every week, it’s a way for writers to expand their skills and make friends during this crazy year. 

When I asked Aylin how she saw creativity on campus adjusting this semester, she told me that she really missed the chance encounters that being on campus in typical semesters allows. You can walk through the Diag and see a group of students playing handmade instruments, pass the art museum and see a new exhibit, or walk by a pillar filled with fliers and learn about an acapella concert happening that weekend. Now, the information you get is much more based on following the right people or being on the right newsletters, which can limit what you’re exposed to. Hopefully, however, we find ways to bring some of these simple reminders of “normalcy” back to campus next semester. 

If you’re interested in getting involved with Writer to Writer, you can submit your work to their blog or publication here. If you’re interested in being on the staff, you can email writer-to-writer@umich.edu and attend the next weekly meeting. You can also stay up to date with their activities, including a soon-to-be-announced campus-wide writing competition, by following their Facebook or Instagram pages. 

That’s all from me this week! Good luck to everyone on finals and remember to take some time to take care of yourself! I’ll technically be on hiatus until classes return but keep an eye out… you may get a special post or two 🙂

-Lucy

Looking Forward: APG Presents

Lucy Freeman Leave a comment

Hey arts, ink readers!

Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a chance to recharge over the break, whether you celebrated Turkey Day or not. The holidays look a little different this year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the best out of them and still find ways to connect to friends and family (albeit virtually). 

This week I had the chance to talk to Katie Lorenz, a member of APG (Arbor Promotion Group) Presents, about how the org is adapting to the year as well as how she views the arts scene on campus acclimating to the health and safety guidelines. Read on to learn more!

Founded in 2018, APG Presents is one of the more recent groups to enter the music scene on campus. They have two main focuses: producing and promoting live events, and helping students in the organization with professional development. In a typical year, they help put on shows at Necto and other venues around campus, bring in speakers from the industry to talk to members of their organization or the larger UofM community, and help with resumes, internship searches, and interview prep. They currently have over 50 members, with leadership opportunities for those interested in learning more hands-on about the industry. 

This year, APG Presents has had to pivot, as all of us have, but they’ve done a great job of maintaining much of their usual programming. They’ve moved their weekly meetings to be virtual, as well as their professional development programs. Their live music events have also been moved virtual, but have been able to shift to include things like artist Q&As as well. Katie explained that, although it’s obviously a bummer that they can’t all be together and produce their normal concerts, there have been bright sides to the changes, too. “Virtual experiences do a great job for [these] events of bringing people to us who might not have been able to, like, fly to us directly, people all across the world… So I think that’s been working in our favor kind of this year.” If you’ve read other posts from Looking Forward, this is a theme that a lot of people have come to notice over the pandemic – the musical theatre department, the Shapiro Design Lab, and now APG Presents. The limitations of geographical barriers seem to be non-existent now, and it will be interesting to see if that trend continues once things start returning to “normal”. 

I also asked Katie to share her thoughts on the state of the arts on campus right now. She told me that she sees creativity and the

10/1/20 UMMA Ibrahim Mahama Exhibit installation (via UMMA website)

way that arts organizations on campus have expressed themselves during this time as being really interesting – people are finding new ways to commit to their ideas and what they stand for. One example she brought up is the UMMA showing support for the Black Lives Matter Movement. If you’ve walked by the UMMA recently, you may have noticed that half of it is covered in stitched-together canvas sacks. This is by artist Ibrahim Mahama and is meant to “[celebrate] the often-invisible labor of Black and brown people behind global exchange and commerce while acknowledging the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world,” (from the UMMA website). Personally, I found this interesting because although I had walked by this installation many times, I didn’t really understand what it was saying. Katie’s comment reminded me that there is always something to uncover about the arts on campus, always something new to experience, and that gives me a lot of hope for the year ahead. 

If you’d like to learn more about APG Presents and stay up-to-date on their future events, be sure to follow their Instagram @APGPresents and their LinkedIn page. If you’re interested in joining the organization, you can email Talia Rizika at trizika@umich.edu. 

If you wanna read more about the UMMA installation I mentioned, you can check it out here. 

 

That’s all from me this week. I hope you have an amazing rest of your week and stay safe! 

Lucy

Looking Forward: MUSIC Matters

Lucy Freeman Leave a comment

Happy Friday, arts, ink!

I hope you’ve been getting through the week alright – we’re practically on break already! Today I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about MUSIC Matters, a student organization on campus that I am fortunate enough to be co-president for this year. 

MUSIC Matters’ mission is to utilize the unifying power of music to drive social impact in the community. This is usually achieved through a variety of events each year, including local talent showcases, battle of the band competitions, and our capstone April event, SpringFest, which features live music, food trucks, student organizations, corporate activations, and more. In addition to these events, MUSIC Matters spearheads three of their own social ventures: the CoMMunity Partnership grant program, the Michigan Overnight Experience for Detroit-area highschoolers and the Big Thinkers Scholarship.

In response to the context of the past few months, MUSIC Matters has adjusted much of its programming. Over the summer, we made donations to the Henry Ford Hospital and to a campaign through another student organization, Heal Move Shift, to help first responders during the COVID Pandemic. In support of the protests against police- and government-sanctioned violence against BIPOC, they arranged a benefit concert and donated the proceeds to the Detroit Justice Center. They have also pivoted our local talent events to be virtual, utilizing Instagram Live to stream these performances. As for SpringFest, the MUSIC Matters team is working extremely hard to make it the best it can be while prioritizing the health and safety of everyone involved. Stay tuned for updates by following our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. 

If you want to get involved in MUSIC Matters, you can still join! Go to our website, then under the “About Us” title go to the “Get Involved” tab. Here, you can find the application for 2020-2021, as well as check out more information on each of the committees and initiatives. 

That’s all for this week! Hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving week (even though it may look a little bit different this year) and find some time to reset. 

 

Stay well + stay safe!

Lucy

Looking Forward: Creatives of Color

Lucy Freeman Leave a comment

Happy Friday, arts, ink!

This week for Looking Forward we are learning about a student organization on campus: Creatives of Color! Tiffany Harris, president of the organization, shared with me a little more about what they’ve been up to, how she views the arts on campus right now, and how students can get involved. 

Creatives of Color is a relatively new group on campus, starting in 2018 with the hopes of creating a space where people of color could come together to perform and meet other creatives on campus, regardless of their experience level. Collaboration is at the center of many of their programs, for instance, they have a yearly showcase where artists of different mediums – dancers, filmmakers, musicians, etc – are paired together and create something to perform. Artists who participate have complete creative control – something Tiffany emphasized as one of her favorite parts of Creatives of Color. 

“It’s usually people that I have never met before across campus but it’s like a cool experience because you’re all, you know, black creatives creating something together and just really having the freedom to do whatever you want. You’re not being told by me as the president or by someone else in our E board what to do, you just have the freedom to kind of create whatever you want to. So I think that is what makes creatives of color so interesting.”

Of course, this semester they haven’t been able to perform for large crowds as they usually do, but that hasn’t stopped them from finding creative ways to spread the arts. Earlier this term, they streamed their “Creative Expo” from the basement of one of their board members. They limited those around to only the artists and essential filming crew, all of whom wore masks and maintained their distance, but they were able to stream the event on Twitch. They’re also currently working on their annual collaboration with EnspiRED, another student organization that focuses on fashion and modeling. 

Tiffany also stressed the importance of the types of conversations Creatives of Color hopes to help grow on campus:

“I think for the future just bridging those gaps between orgs [of different racial makeups] and like, obviously Creatives of Color is going to be people of color, you know, that’s in the name. But I think that I really want to make everyone feel comfortable, even white people in our spaces. I want them to want to come to our events and feel like they can participate because they can. I think a lot of people get afraid you know, ‘this is the black space, I don’t want to come into that space,’ but I really want to open that up to more people, so that, you know, we can have more conversations with other orgs, we can partner with more people instead of just blackboards, and we can have conversations about race and not, you know, not be weird and we can have conversations about systemic racism and difficulties in the arts for black people specifically that a lot of people don’t really focus on. So like for example, black women in our industry being over-sexualized and black men maybe if they deviate from the typical version of, you know, rap and hip hop, then they’re seeing as not authentic. So that sort of thing is just like, what Creatives of Color does is we have a really good dialogue, and I hope that we partner up with more organizations like Maximize and other organizations that aren’t necessarily geared towards people of color so that they can understand our experiences. “

Having these types of open conversations, although they can be daunting or scary for some, is so necessary if we are going to move forward to a better world where we can understand and support each other’s experiences. Creatives of Color is doing amazing work here, and I cannot wait to see what types of creative programming they come up with for the Winter semester. 

If you’re interested in joining Creatives of Color or participating in one of their events, be sure to follow them on Instagram @coc_umich. They often have a Google Form in their bio where you can sign up as a performer for future events or workshops, and they post about upcoming programs as well. If you have further questions or ideas for future events, you can also email Tiffany at tnha@umich.edu. They have virtual events every few weeks or so, so definitely keep an eye out for future programming!

That’s all for me this week! I hope you have a fun weekend – stay safe!

 

Lucy

waves: walking

smitty 2 Comments

another thing i really enjoy writing about is connection. and while this is a very broad topic that tons of people enjoy writing about, and many people in general strive to understand, it still has its interesting aspects. there’s so many ways to approach understanding connections, and we can find ways to translate these methods and processes of thought over to many (if not, all) other displays of connection that are seemingly unrelated.

i’ve realized that i often times glorify perfect human connection, and this forces me to neglect entire aspects of my relationship with another person, work of art, myself, etc. i often times try to assign blame to myself, the other person, or both for the flaws that exist in the relationship, when in reality, trying to foster perfect connection is virtually impossible. we can get lucky in our lives and find people we “click” with, or overcome obstacles in our relationships that enables them to grow for the better, but what does it really mean to connect?

i feel that a connection isn’t just about similarities, but it’s also about the ways in which you challenge them and they challenge you; butting heads, trying to get past each other’s walls, the things we empathize with and the things we could never understand. it’s becoming increasingly interesting to think about in the context of 2020, and the ways in which i think about the people, institutions and systems (created by people) that harm people with my identities.

anyway — that’s all a part of it. that’s why i believe there are infinite ways to connect with someone or something. this concept gave way to this poem, in which i approach my relationship with my mom from a place i never have before with a experiences that i’ve ever thought about deeply until recently.

taken in the law quad last year. by me.

~~~~~~

the cramps come dance on my mama’s legs at night

setting light in her thighs, she stomps them out in the hallway.

 

when the cramps throw a dagger at her, my door flies 

open. the bat signal we negotiated with having said nothing. 

 

my hands pressure the bed. my hands, a servant to thee.

i came running from the shadows, the forest of my dreams

 

to hook my arm in yours in this hallway drenched in drowsy silhouettes and walk.

i pledge to rid the body of all that is wrong right next to you. 

 

this is how i’ve figured to give my love to thee:

one, two, and—if needed—another step times three. 

 

walking