This week, I had the opportunity to catch up with Juliet Schlefer, a junior in the School of Music, Theater & Dance majoring in Vocal Performance. You can catch her in the Thursday and Saturday shows of SMTD’s production of Die Fledermaus, which will be running at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre from March 26 – 29.
This week, I talked with Sarah Cripsey, a sophomore in SMTD’s Bachelor of Theatre Arts program. She can be found on Instagram @sarahemilycripsey and stars as Lucy in “Vamps,” a new musical from NERDS that will be performing in Lorch Hall 140 on December 6th at 7pm and December 7th at 2pm and 7pm.
On Friday evening I had the pleasure of seeing Teac Damsa’s Production of Loch Na Heala (Swan Lake). If you haven’t heard of it, it is and Irish take on the tale of swan lake, with an Irish myth and a true story also mixed into the plot. It was presented by UMS in the Power Center for two nights only, this past Friday and Saturday.
I was encouraged to go see it for one of my classes and I am so glad I did. I managed to get one of only 2 student tickets left for Friday night, which was exciting. Going into the theatre I only knew that it was a take on swan lake and that it had good reviews. But what I actually saw was much different than expected.
For probably the first half of the 75 minute show, I thought I was going to leave the theatre with a sense of disappointment in not liking it. It started in such a strange way, that I’m still not sure what it was supposed to mean. But perhaps that was point.
But as the show continued, things began to click. It turns out that the show deals greatly with themes of abuse and mental illness, and is very raw in its portrayal of each. The sparse set and small cast, many playing multiple personas, was to the shows advantage. It allowed you to hone in on those themes, and to truly see the beautiful dances performed by the cast.
Though the themes were quite dark, it managed to end with an incredible scene of catharsis. At the end of the show, the audience immediately stood up without a pause for a standing ovation, and clapped for so long that the cast had to come back out on stage three times to bow before it died down and people started to leave.
As I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about the show. It was beautiful, haunting, at times disturbing, but mainly it was something different and unique. It wasn’t some American tour of a famous broadway show. It was a work of passion for these dancers and choreographers and they were able to create something that people of all ages and backgrounds seemed to love, despite the themes that are still hardly talked about in today’s society.
That is what this is a reminder of. If you have a story, you can tell it your own way. People will listen. People will care.
Theatre can do this for some people.
And this is the kind of theatre I want to create as a theatre artist.
So because I don’t really know how to introduce this blog post, I’m just going to launch into my story..
If you’re like me, you didn’t even know p’ansori existed until last semester, and you definitely couldn’t say what it was if someone asked you. But because I saw it in a movie a couple of months ago, I kind of knew what p’ansori is. It’s a traditional folk music style originating in Korea, and it’s definitely performance art – the performance is everything in p’ansori. Typically, there’s one drummer with his drum, and one performer, either a man or a woman, singing a song that tells a story. Easily the most famous p’ansori song is the story of Chunhyang, and there is an excellent film made by Im Kwon Taek based on this p’ansori, available to watch for free on YouTube if you’re interested.
But until this semester, when I signed up for P’ansori: Text and Performance, I don’t think I really knew what p’ansori really is. I definitely didn’t know what I was in for, thinking that the class would cover the historical and cultural background of p’ansori and that we’d watch a couple of movies and filmed versions of performances. No, I knew I was wrong when on the first day of class Professor Park pulled out her own drum and started teaching us the first sori (song), Era Mansu.
But right now I’m sitting in a hotel bed in Columbus, Ohio, and I can tell you that I would have never guessed I’d be sitting here writing a blog post about a class I took to finish my Asian Studies minor. And I can tell you that I love p’ansori.
Or maybe it isn’t the p’ansori that I love. True, I didn’t love it at first, when I watched Im Kwon Taek’s other movie, Seopyeonje. I thought it sounded scratchy and harsh, not at all like I expected it to be. But taking this class has made me realize how much I enjoy and appreciate Korean culture. All of it. Not just the food, not just the K-pop idols, not just the nice people I meet. I love everything about it. And I love the people I met because of it.
So the reason why I’m in a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio is because our class, typically taught at Ohio State by Professor Park and taken in Michigan via webcam, was able to travel to OSU in order to participate in the 2016 Wind & Stream performance, a combination of a few different types of traditional Korean arts.
Yes, yes, I know – we crossed over into enemy territory. And I was hesitant at first. Sure, it was nice to get a day off of classes and work to go somewhere new, but there was three of us (four including our procter/friend Megan), and a lot more of them. And they were Ohio State. Surely they would hate us, or maybe just ignore us.
That wasn’t the case at all. Not only were all the students and faculty and special guests friendly, they went out of their way to make sure we were welcome. More than once one of the students would tell us that they were so happy that we were able to come, that they couldn’t believe we drove all the way there just for the performance. Over and over they told us “good job” or something like that, during rehearsals and after they show. They gave us the most amazing food for free, and even the other faculty, the seongsaengnim that came to support their students, encouraged us too and even told us to come get even more amazing food after the show (they provided kimbap and tteok, the most delicious thing you will ever eat).
So maybe it wasn’t necessarily the p’ansori that I loved so much. Maybe it was the fact that when I told my professor I’m trying even harder to learn Korean, she just smiled and said “of course you’ll learn it, just like that!” Or when I asked for a picture with one of the guest artists, Kim Eun Su, she took the hand at my side and held it close, like we were friends. Or when leaving the performance area we’d been cooped up in for seven hours straight, I wasn’t happy. Or maybe the fact that I feel like I just made 10 new friends and I already have to leave them.
No, maybe it wasn’t the p’ansori, but it was because of p’ansori that we were able to come together and make an amazing performance, and a precious memory that will last me a lifetime.
There are many things I love about growing a beard / facial hair.
1) It looks damn good;
2) I look even older (sophisticated and sexy) than I already do and am mistaken for a grad student (since they’re all sophisticated and sexy #lol), even in my own classes (awkward);
3) My face has a built-in blanket for the cold, terrible winter months; and,
4) Face goosebumps are the best goosebumps.
However, these face goosebumps (not facial goosebumps because that sounds too weird) only happen in rare, beautiful occasions. “Rare†in that I don’t get myself to concerts that often and even then, only classical music gives me full body goosebumps where I feel like I have stopped living and am inhabiting transcendence itself. Aka that means nothing but I feel everything.
Last night I was able to attend the UM Symphony Band’s first seasonal concert at the majestic Hill Auditorium. Every time I step into Hill I forget that I pass it daily as I sprint, late, to class; I forget how I hate how big society is (although I do love cities . . .); I forget that I live 3 minutes down the road and that I can touch most ceilings with my hand if not head. Going to this venue is going-out in its finest sense–I dress up, cleanse my mind, and the seat I choose becomes my reason for living for 2-4 hours. I don’t have to worry about my thesis, I don’t have to think about my paper due tomorrow (now today), I don’t have to cope with dramatic boys, I don’t have to do a lot of things. The only thing I have and want to do is to sit and listen, absorb and reflect, and be in a state of becoming-child (#Deleuze).
Hill Auditorium is itself distracting when inside it. It’s so big. Every time I choose my seat I stare all around myself and I think that I need to update my glasses prescription. I think about how the space that I can’t discern is going to be filled with music and its mind-blowing. It’s overwhelming. It makes me . . . get goosebumps on my face. (First case, amazing buildings and space.)
Then I remember that this concert is free. (Second case, I love free things–face goosebumps follow realization.)
AND THEN I REMEMBER THEY ARE ABOUT TO PLAY MY FAVORITE PIECE, movement two from Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony, “Profanation.†(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGVRaUj-YLk) GOOSEBUMPS GOOSEBUMPS GOOSEBUMPS.
Every (other) song the band performs is great. It’s rare that I listen to new (classical-ish) music and fall in love. There was so much love, however. And then, of course, they decide to play the Bernstein post-intermission and I feel as if I will simultaneously pee myself, vomit, and pass out all until the beginning notes of this masterpiece are played. Since I’ve heard this piece before live (and have studied the score . . .) I know which parts are difficult and every time the trumpets don’t frack a note my heart starts to soar higher. Every time everyone is syncopated at the same time I feel myself letting out an “AHHHHHH†and I fall deeper into my seat as if the earth is opening up just to save me from this moment of pure joy.
I never want it to end and for me it never will. This concert is everything I wanted. It acts as an escape from some parts of life and lets me relax and involve myself in music. Being in music is all I really ever want. And on these select nights, my dreams do come true.
[To think that my face goosebumps could be also called face goosepimples. I cannot.]
An academic talk, I assume, will have a standard format: “Here’s what I’m going to do, here’s me doing it, here’s what I did, questions?†The do/did/done is usually particular research, lots of (beautiful) jargon (#HomoNationalism, #Schizoanalysis, #FungibilityAndAccumulation), and a take away that blows something (my mind, not something (just blows), etc.). I am used to this format. This format gives me comfort. There is a certain formula/art, if you will, to the standard talk.
When the normal academic talk is disrupted, however, by queer-black-dance identity, I know this talk isn’t just an art form but art itself. Here are some signs:
1. There is a Wii controller that, when it moves, adjusts sounds that I’ve never heard before–whirrs and chants and whizzes and vhroooooongs.
2. Every so often the mouse on screen ventures into the unknown, seemingly jumping from the screen onto the board to drag another window (invisible) into plain sight. As if all computer windows are always open but invisible to the naked eye, all information like atoms, tucked away into the smallest depths of reality, the mouse dragged j-stepping videos into plain sight. J-step over here and over there, and all of a sudden the talk stopped to only watch a video (all with accompanying Wii controller controlled sound).
3. Before long all windows flashed away from the screen and a lone Word document lay in our midst. The cursor blinks in a terrifyingly regular way, more steady than my own heart or the internal metronome keeping the Wii controller controlled. Words, fragments, phrases, and identities appear. Are corrected. Disappear. Move on.
4. There is silence. Between words, sentences, remarks, sounds. He stares back at our staring eyes.
Some talks have audio-visual components, but again–â€I’m playing this for you, here it is, wow, I just played that–cool.†“OH MY, I’m going to play this video for you, BAM, here it is, AH! it just played.â€
This academic talk was less talk more performance art. Hinging on creative interests and experiences as an artist, dancer, queer person of color, it was no surprise that Tomm(ie/y) would disrupt our notions of an academic talk to center himself along the edges, cracks, and space in order to create something that was original and unique. Something that wouldn’t just talk about “Dancing [Black|Queer] Diasporas†but be dancing, black, queer diasporas.
Blackness and Queerness disrupt most things in civil society, if not all things. In my experience they (it, since I identify as Queer) do so in a beautiful way by allowing for more possibilities than first realized.
The talk finished, the questions answered, and then we danced.
We were to dance Black dance insofar as Black dance is an aesthetic style appropriated by some, embodied by some, and rendered (un)intelligible by some. The beat to 212 (by, yes, Azealia Banks) started to play and I knew that this was some pivotal moment in my life. We were beckoned to stand up (if able) and an individual led us through several dance moves that involved hip and bum movement, dropping it low, and sidestepping. We laughed and danced and became community all while the beat beat beat beat beat.
Coming back to campus, coming (back) to academia, and coming back to beloved spaces, it was nice to have a Monday night interrupted with dance, art, performance art, and a big queer audience of which to be a part.
The world said “welcome back†to Ann Arbor and we replied “I guess that . . . gettin eatin.â€
