Author: Sappy

Hi everybody~ I'm a Junior majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Sweetland Writing. I like reading, playing musical instruments, and video games! Most of my reviews will be about the performing arts because I'm interested in dance, classical music, and theater. Thank you for checking out my profile and I hope you enjoy my reviews <3

REVIEW: Reading and Q&A with Ross Gay

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On Thursday, December 9th, the poet Ross Gay gave a reading and held a Q&A session at the UMMA Stern Auditorium. I haven’t been to any poem readings before so I was surprised to find that the venue was so packed there weren’t enough seats. I’m a visual learner, so I often find myself zoning out when I’m required to listen for long periods. However, my professor told me that she fell in love with Ross Gay’s writing after she went to his reading, whereas when she read his poems they didn’t have as much of an impact. I quickly found out what she meant. When Ross Gay was reading his poems, it felt like he was giving a speech or acting out lines of a play. In other words, it felt like he was reading prose rather than poetry.

Since it’s impossible to speak line breaks, I was trying to notice how he may emphasize certain phrases more than others. I’m not sure if I’m looking too hard into things, but I did notice that at some times he’d pause a bit longer or change the inflection and volume of his voice. However, everything flowed so smoothly and sounded so natural it’s hard to point out specific spots to closely analyze unlike when reading poetry. The performative aspect was what drew my attention because he wasn’t simply reading words. He interacted a lot with the crowd through eye contact and hand gestures. It was interesting to see how his passion transfers off of the page and how he expresses himself, and it was an experience that made me realize how off I may be when interpreting an author’s work.

There were a few moments where the audience laughed which surprised me, but that could’ve been because the poem he read was about basketball, which I know nothing about. I think overall I’m always picking apart texts to find a ‘deeper’ message when it could just be something unknowingly lighthearted until read aloud. It made me realize that as a reader I often project my own emotions and experiences when interpreting other people’s work, perhaps blinding myself to the obvious. I only wish I had his poems written down in front of me to look at while I listened to further explore that concept.

REVIEW: Life on Planet Pops

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On December 6, 2023, at the Michigan Theater, the Michigan Pops Orchestra presented “Life on Planet Pops.” I’ve been to every Pops concert since my freshman year, and I was especially excited for this one after seeing this semester’s poster that teased The Lion King, Star Wars (which they somehow manage to play every year), Princess and the Frog, and more. As the theme and poster suggest, all of the music they chose was related to animals, though there surprisingly wasn’t much classical repertoire. However, it was my favorite program out of all of the Pops concerts I’ve seen.

They opened with a medley of Beauty and the Beast and they sounded exactly like the soundtrack of it on Spotify. I loved the concertmaster’s solo so much it gave me goosebumps, and once the melody of Tale as Old as Time played, the strings all together really shined. The song they chose from Princess and the Frog was “Almost There” with a guest student singer from SMTD, and she was very talented. I loved how she opened with dialogue that transitioned into song and that she maintained her character’s cheerful flare throughout the performance.

After a brief intermission, they returned with Hoe Down, a piece with a fun syncopated tune. I’ve heard other orchestras play it before, but I loved that Pops included a good “Yeehaw” in the middle. To end the night, they played the William Tell Overture. I feel like it’s a piece everyone knows. Though I didn’t recognize the title, I immediately recognized the tunes, especially the latter half. 

As always, Pops includes movies to play alongside their music. This semester, they chose to film Pokémon and Jaws, and the way the actors portrayed the animals was hilarious. Pikachu was taller than Ash, his trainer, and the shark in Jaws crawled out of the fountain by the Michigan League. 

I highly recommend going to the Michigan Pops Orchestra concerts. They’re always amazing and enjoyable for people who aren’t well-versed in classical music and I always have a lot of fun at their events!

REVIEW: University Symphony Orchestra Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5

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On Tuesday, December 5th, the University Symphony Orchestra played one of my favorite classical works of all time: Symphony No. 5, op. 47, D Minor (1937) by Dmitri Shostakovich. It’s an eerily beautiful, somber, yet exciting piece. I played this in high school, so it was interesting to be on the other side and listen to the interpretation of another conductor: Kenneth Kiesler.

The orchestra started very slow in the beginning, almost lethargic, which surprised me. It’s usually played quicker to emphasize how striking the opening notes are, but I feel like this version brought out the first violin’s melody much better as it gradually crawls into higher pitches. Once the tempo picked up, however, there was a sense of anxiety and tension in the music that is often present in Shostakovich’s other compositions. The contrast between the pianissimo and fortissimo sections created a similar effect that made everything much more dramatic and catching.

My favorite movement is the third movement, the Largo. It features a lot of wind solos that are all variations of a bittersweet melody, but the different instruments all create new textures. This same theme transfers to the strings that play much more dramatically loud and fast in comparison. The constant flip-flopping between solos and soli (when a section has a solo together) is so good at creating different expressions of anger and sadness. I especially like the harp and harpsichord’s arpeggios at the end of the movement right before the orchestra as a whole comes to a stop.

Afterward, the fourth movement, the Allegro non-Troppo, begins fierce with trills and loud beats of the timpani. This movement seemed much more symphonic to me than the others because of how much more interwoven the parts are and how the notes build off and layer amongst sections. This is especially the case once the key transitions from minor to major chords, which is what composers often do to end on a triumphant note.

I’m always looking for more opportunities to listen to my favorite pieces. I’m so happy I got to hear this symphony live again, and the USO gave an amazing performance of it.

REVIEW: The Polar Express

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On Sunday, December 3rd, as part of their free holiday classics series, the Michigan Theater had a showing of The Polar Express. It was my first time watching The Polar Express, and it was very different from what I expected. Since it’s based off of a children’s book, I was picturing something along the lines of Elf, a goofy and silly movie. Instead, the film features animated human characters that reminded me of the video game Detroit: Become Human. Furthermore, the colors were very muted and the background lacked vibrancy. Overall, it had a somber atmosphere unfitting for a children’s movie, especially a Christmas movie. However, it’s possible that the directors created it like that intentionally, because the movie is about a little boy who doesn’t believe in Santa.

Spoiler alert (but also not really): the main character comes to believe in Santa after riding The Polar Express to the North Pole. I thought they designed the North Pole beautifully; I really liked the layout of the city and although the colors were still muted, it was the brightest setting in the whole movie. It was also the most cheerful with what appeared to be hundreds of elves doing tricks like black flips and working hard to make Christmas a joyful holiday. My favorite part was the ending. I found it very bittersweet because it addresses how people eventually grow up to lose that childhood innocence. On the other hand, as the people around him grow older and stop believing, the main character never stops.

I didn’t find myself particularly enjoying the movie; there were a few moments where I was very frustrated. I’m curious how children like it, though, since I’m obviously not the target audience. Perhaps it’s the perfect tale to convince non-believers to continue believing.

REVIEW: Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra Handel’s Messiah

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Handel’s Messiah is undoubtedly one of the most well-known choral repertoires, and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and UMS Choral Union’s performance of it was very lovely. As Handel’s Messiah is a Christmas tradition, there was a bed of red and white flowers circling the stage that was a nice visual addition. It was packed with a large choir accompanied by a small chamber orchestra, which also had a harpsichord and organ.

I enjoyed listening to the harpsichord because it added a playful quality to the music. The harpsichord is the predecessor to the piano but has a string-like quality, so the sound stood out amongst the rest of the instruments. When the organ played it took me aback because of how loud it was, but I loved the heavier atmosphere it layered onto the orchestra. The strings did a really good job recreating the baroque sound, which is much more airy and uses trills to emphasize notes whereas romantic music uses lots of vibrato.

When Hallelujah played, the audience all stood up to sing along, and the singers around me were very talented, perfectly blending in with the choir on stage. My favorite part, though, was the 48th Air which featured a trumpet solo that traded off with the choir soloist. I don’t think I’ve heard a trumpet solo that was unaccompanied before. The trumpet had a very clear bell-like sound that traveled well through the large hall. I was also a big fan of the ending of the Messiah; it immediately captured my attention with the organ’s entrance and had a wonderful buildup that demanded the audience’s attention.

I’m not religious and wanted to attend this event purely for the music. I do think it’s more targeted towards vocalists than instrumentalists, but it was still fun to see a different side of the strings that had that baroque quality since many baroque pieces played now have adapted a more romantic style. It was a super long concert: almost 3 hours long, so I don’t think I’d attend another playing of Handel’s Messiah. However, I’m really glad I had the opportunity to see it live once.

REVIEW: Imogen Says Nothing

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Imogen Says Nothing by Aditi Kapil is a spinoff story of the character Imogen in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. She’s a character some have interpreted as a typo because she says nothing. However, Kapil turns this character, who serves no purpose in the original, into the main character of a “revisionist comedy in verse and prose” that SMTD describes on their website as a “feminist hijacking of Shakespeare that investigates the voices that have long been absent from the theatrical canon and the consequences of cutting them.” It highlights how women have historically been only seen as an image and deprived of their words. The play not only puts a big emphasis on the power of speech but the power of writing too. 

The premise is a bit confusing: Imogen is a bear disguised as a woman and has been living as a woman for a few years. She travels outside of her small village to the bigger cities and along the way gets dragged onto the stage in the middle of a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. In Elizabethan England, all female characters were played by men because only men were allowed to act. As a result, Imogen has to pretend to be a man playing a woman, and that woman is Imogen herself. In other words, she’s a bear disguised as a woman who pretends to be a man acting out a woman.

It has heavy themes of violence and animal abuse and there are explicit drinking and sex scenes. Furthermore, Imogen is constantly degraded for being female and fat; she even says that her only talent is “whoring”. When she is praised, it’s for her ability to make others laugh but it’s usually because she’s mocked for her background and intelligence. 

Nevertheless, it’s still a comedy and masks the darker content with humor and fun character dynamics. My favorite character was Nicholas Tooley; in the beginning, others always teased him because he was so innocent and pure, but in the end, he was so sassy and dramatic. It was also really funny when there were modern versions of objects on set. For example, for the alcohol they used White Claw, and when checking their contact information they would pull out their cell phones. 

Overall, I highly recommend watching it. It’s a play that’s hard to grasp but fascinating, especially the ending which was the best part. It took a sudden abstract twist that circled back to the underlying message with a single chilling line directed at the audience: “Exit man.”