REVIEW: Yule Ball

I attended the Michigan Quidditch Team’s Yule Ball with the idea of evaluating how well it brought the magic of Hogwarts into a Muggle college world. As a result, this post is not about the success of the ball as a social event and fun excuse for dressing up; it is about the success of the ball as an artistic interpretation and translation of Hogwarts.

As I understand it, the purpose of the Hogwarts Yule Ball was to provide a formal setting for the students to enjoy themselves and interact with other students. I think the UM Yule Ball could have done better on all three fronts – my overall comment is that it was a little disjointed. For one, instead of producing a Yule Ball experience, they attempted to provide a more generic Hogwarts one. Their decorations included a chess set with knee-high pieces, a Sorting Hat photo booth, and two sets of Quidditch hoops festooned with string lights. While successfully evocative of Hogwarts, these pieces didn’t do much to convey the sense of elegance I would have expected of a Yule Ball. Naturally, the Michigan Quidditch Team doesn’t have the same budget Hogwarts presumably has, or the ability to create decorations out of nothing. However, having planned similar events myself, I do believe it would absolutely have been possible to come up with an equally photograph-worthy set of elegant decorations that didn’t exhaust the budget, especially since this is something the Quidditch team holds every year and therefore the purchases they make could be seen as long-term investments.

In accordance with that, I think it was unclear exactly how formal the ball was intended to be: while most people did dress formally, there were others wearing casual clothes and even within the formal clothes there was a wide range of formality. I rather imagine Professor McGonagall would not have approved.

It was interesting to note, however, that teenagers have not changed much. I was reminded of Harry and Ron sitting on the side refusing to dance with their dates, partially courtesy of the number of phones that were being looked at while their owners slouched at the periphery of the League Ballroom, completely disengaged from the rest of the happenings. So as a venue for “fraternizing,” as Ron put it, there was very little of that happening either. Even in Hogwarts people were more willing to ask other people to dance (recall both Parvati and Padma Patil being asked to dance by boys from Beauxbatons), whereas here there wasn’t even that much dancing. The only real enthusiasm came with the select few songs people obsess over (like “Africa”). A major contributing factor to this was probably the fact that the playlist appeared to have been crowdsourced, so nobody had curated a list of dancing-appropriate songs in an order that made sense. This added to the overall disjointed nature of the event – at the Hogwarts Yule Ball, the Weird Sisters performed for the entire duration of the ball.

For a more faithful interpretation of the Hogwarts Yule Ball, the UM Yule Ball could have done with a little more vision. A cohesive conception of how they wanted the ball to go, and some added structure in how they set about achieving that conception, would have improved the experience of the Yule Ball considerably.

PREVIEW: VSA’s Annual Đêm Việt Nam Culture Show 2019

On Saturday, the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) is hosting their annual Vietnamese Culture Show. The event is called Đêm Việt Nam (A Night in Vietnam) and is entirely student run. The show features guest performances, as well as 120 students performing eight different dances. This year’s theme is “Write Your Story.” The show will tell a story about an aspiring, young Vietnamese-American writer as Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, approaches. Along the way, he learns that a person’s story is alive in their culture, themselves, and those who are willing to listen.

All the proceeds from the show will be donated to Children of Vietnam, an organization that assists children, families, and communities in breaking the cycle of poverty, disease, and homelessness. The organization also provides immediate aid to children and families in crisis.

Tickets are selling out fast. Come support VSA!

Location: Lydia Mendelssohn Theater

Date, Time: Saturday, 7-9pm

Tickets: $5 presale, $8 at the door for UM students, and $10 for general admission. Tickets will be on sale at the Posting Wall in Mason Hall from Tuesday, January 22nd to Friday, January 25th from 10AM – 4PM.

Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1033862943468313/

REVIEW: The Great Tamer

As I approached the Power Center, I was surprised that its glass windows were not completely tinted black after all. As the color of the sky darkened well past the setting of the sun, I could see the golden glow of the inside of the auditorium’s atrium from the outside, my destination. I rushed inside to escape the cold and to arrive at what would become the entire experience of The Great Tamer, from the very beginning to the very end.

The Great Tamer drew people of all ages and from numerous backgrounds; some you could tell were university students who chose to live their Saturday nights in a unique way, some were elder folk who were likely experienced attendees of artistic productions like this one. In essence, this production attracted the appropriate crowd as it consisted of artistic elements, universal morals, and common humor that would appeal to the different sides of many people.

The production began before everyone was seated. Even after calmly rushing up the concrete stairs to the balcony and being one of the first people in the auditorium to take their seat, I noticed that there was already a man lying on stage with his shoes off next to him, presumably dead. As people continued to enter, he stood up, put on his shoes, and stood facing the crowd, expressionless yet observant. When the production began, his character came to life in an intricate storyline.

The entire performance consisted of humans using simple props, strong body language without direct gestures, color and the lack thereof in their clothing and in the setting, and panels that made up the stage floor to communicate various vignettes in what seemed to be a metaphorical way. It was probably not entirely correct of me to think of every action that occurred as a metaphor, but I felt that it was easiest to understand the purpose of a specific scene as an analogy to what occurs in real life, such as death and grasping onto life, letting go of a loved one, being overthrown by one’s own kind, the equity or lack thereof between man and woman.

The ten performers were masters of sleight of hand and melodramatic theatre; I would follow the movement of one particular character in a scene and suddenly witness him or her consistently pull an item out of the air that they couldn’t possibly have carried behind them or in their shadow. They carried a sporadic and vibrant essence throughout the performance, using the black floor panels to disappear and reappear in an instant, to portray the absence of a physical object in space, and to reconstruct different settings.

The final scene resonated with me the most; after some commotion, one man remained. He had a square of gold and silver foil, tossed it in the air, and kept it suspended by constantly blowing air up from beneath it. The stage was dimming, you could see him moving impossibly to keep the foil floating, and as the stage darkened completely, he gave one final breath and it was over. In this moment, I was stunned by the caliber of the performance I had just witnessed and almost felt that there would be no way to explain or justify it in the words I would write for this post. Even so, I am ecstatic that I was able to give even a glimpse of this performance to the public with this post and hope that Dimitris Papaioannou will continue to touch the psyche of many with performances like this.

REVIEW: SMTD Collage Concert

Advertised as an evening of non-stop performances, SMTD’s 42nd annual Collage Concert certainly lived up to expectations. Featuring Symphony Band, University Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Choir, Orpheus Singers, Digital Music Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, and numerous other groups of students from within the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, I was thoroughly impressed by the professionalism of the production.

For one thing, if you’ve ever been to a collage-style concert before, you may be picturing a performance where half the time is spent waiting for set changes or performers to get to their places. This could not have been farther from the truth. The evening was truly exhilarating in the fact that there were quite literally no open spaces, or even a space to breathe, within the program. It was a wild ride of performance after performance, rapid-fire, with no breaks save intermission. The concert opened with a work called “Sound Piece” performed by the Digital Music Ensemble, and before the last note had finished ringing in Hill Auditorium, or before I could even realize what was happening, Symphony Band had already dropped the down beat of “War” from War and Peace by Michael Daugherty. The logistics and planning that go into the production of Collage must be mind-blowing, and yet it was pulled off without a hitch. The lighting changed, performers switched places on stage, and instruments were moved, all without the audience taking note.

I particularly enjoyed that the concert showcased the full range of SMTD’s performing arts spectrum – music, dance, musical theater, and theatre. The Collage Concert was an opportunity to experience the offerings of groups that I might not otherwise hear or see perform.

One of the most impressive, and entertaining, performances was Melissa Coppola and Annie Jeng’s rendition of Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.” The penultimate performance, it was the one act for which the audience broke out in applause, despite the request in the program to “please hold applause until the end of each half!” Not only was it a virtuosic performance, the entire piece was a theatrical production in which Ms. Coppola and Ms. Jeng comically gesticulated and shoved at each other. At one point one shoved the other off the piano bench and onto the floor. Near the end of the piece, there is a section of repeated ascending scales in which one performer played a scale, went running from the end of the piano bench, around the piano, and to the other side of the bench, all while her counterpart played the next scale, only to arrive to the bench again to smoothly play the next scale while the other performer ran around the piano, and so the cycle continued. At the conclusion of the piece, the two high-fived at the playing of the final chord. Perhaps most impressive was that amid all the show and staged chaos, the piece was being played smoothly and expertly, such that it would have been stunning even without the theatrics!

Another of my favorite pieces performed was “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. An orchestral classic, it is melancholy, thickly orchestrated, and a pleasure to listen to.

I expected a great concert, but the Collage Concert far surpassed my expectations. It was a fantastic evening that I thoroughly enjoyed, and the two hours that it ran for passed in the blink of an eye!

PREVIEW: SMTD Collage Concert

Want to go to a performance, but not sure you want to commit to several hours of the same thing? Join the School of Music, Theatre & Dance for the annual Collage Concert, which will take place on Saturday, January 19 at 8 pm in Hill Auditorium.

“The event’s design is unique, featuring all ensembles and departments of the School performing one arresting work after another in rapid-fire order.” This means that you can expect to experience some amazing performances of classical music, jazz, theater, musical theater, vocal music, dance, and more.

Don’t miss this SMTD tradition. Tickets may be purchased online, or at the Michigan League Ticket Office (open 10am – 1pm on Saturdays). Seating is reserved, and tickets are just $12 for students, or $34 or $28 for non-students, depending seat location.

PREVIEW: Yi-Chun Wu: East in Motion

From now through Friday, November 30, is 2018, stop by the Michigan League to see some incredible photography by Yi-Chun Wu! East in Motion is an exhibition that “showcases Photographer Yi-Chun’s dance photography works, presenting “eastern” bodies and movements that transcend boundaries of nations and races.”

Yi-Chun Wu is an esteemed dance photographer, and she has worked with numerous dance companies and organizations throughout the world. I am particularly intrigued by her ability to capture light and motion in her photography. For a slideshow previewing this exhibition, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=409&v=Iyvk5kWqbJ0 Additionally, the artist’s website can be found at www.yichunwu.com/.

The exhibition is scattered throughout the main corridor and lobby of the League, and so it is easy to stop in between classes. It’s completely free, and all you need to do is take a walk into the building to enjoy some amazing art!