Category: Lifting Voices

Review: The Lute

audreymg 1 Comment

It is so cool that the Chinese opera came to Ann Arbor this past weekend and, while I don’t think I’ll become an avid fan of the art form, I’m really glad that I can say I’ve had the experience. I didn’t realize that this performance is in honor of the Confucius Institute ending its ten year contract with Umich. Apparently the University is planning on better incorporating the study of Chinese culture and history into its academics in lieu of a continued partnership with the Institute. However, I find it hard to believe that the University will be able to do so to the extent of the Confucius Institute and its programming, such as going to Chinese Americans’ homes for traditional cooking and cultural exchange. The director also stressed the difficulty in planning the opera’s visit to Ann Arbor during opening remarks Saturday night which makes me wonder if the current state of US-Chinese politics has something to do with it.
The performance itself was vibrant and expressive. While the singing wasn’t quite my cup of tea, I loved the costumes made of beautiful mixes of bright and pastel silk, interesting hats, and jewel encrusted headdresses. I especially appreciated that the performance featured a translation which was projected onto the back wall of the stage throughout the show. In my experiences with European opera you’re usually expected to know the German/Italian or just follow along based on the acting and music.
My expectation that the storyline would feel different from the typical European opera was correct. When I read the description of the story before seeing the performance I expected the opera to follow Cai Bojie’s trip to the capital and his first wife’s struggle to care for his parents then end with their reunion. Instead, the performance started with Cai Bojie finding his wife’s painting of his parents in the temple and focused mainly on hum reuniting with his first wife and the second wife coming to terms with the situation. While it felt a bit abrupt, like we had started in the middle of a story, it tracks with what I’ve been told and experienced in non-western storytelling as this opera focused on the human relationships and emotions rather than a grand quest.

Image courtesy of the Michigan Theater.

REVIEW: Aldo Leopoldo Pando Girard Poetry Reading

Minna W Leave a comment

I really enjoyed Aldo Leopoldo Pando Girard’s poetry reading at Literati. He was charismatic and well-spoken, and the audience was very supportive. The reading itself was very interactive: people responded through snaps, claps, and cheers.

 

Girard read from his book Self Portraits, Mixed Media, published by Red Beard Press. His poetry was vulnerable, political, and skillfully crafted. The poems were often conversational and contained clever linguistic surprises. Some of the themes in his poetry included seasons, college, sadness, identity, race, bilingualism (specifically Spanish and English), queerness, the cosmos, and politics. Girard seemed very comfortable in front of a crowd. His background in slam poetry was evident when he came alive with gestures and facial expressions, and how he manipulated sounds and rhythms in some of his poems. It was a delight to see the performance side of his work.

 

Some of my favorite lines I heard him read:

“My whole body is woven with stories”

“Fall up into the stars”

“My ribs are an earthquake”

 

His reading was followed by a Q & A and book signing. During the Q & A, he talked about his role as the 2018-2019 Ann Arbor Youth Poet Laureate, a position I was not familiar with. As a Youth Poet Laureate, he is conducting a social justice project, mentoring teens at the Neutral Zone, leading workshops on poetry performance and editing, and educating people about the diversity and power of poetry. He is also putting together a chapbook featuring works by youths of color in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area. The chapbook will be released at the end of May.

During the Q & A, Girard also talked about his creative process as well as the differences between spoken word and page poetry. He usually determines whether a piece is meant to be spoken or not during his editing process. For his spoken pieces, he utilizes double meanings and wordplay, and he edits them so they can be easily understood when read aloud. Whereas for page poetry, he allows the poems to have more complicated meanings, which may only be deciphered through closer readings.

For poets who are just starting out, he recommends reading a lot because the field of poetry is diverse. Referencing other people’s work can expose you to unique ideas on what is defined as “poetry” and what “poetry” can do. He also says that “editing is most of writing” and that it is crucial to find a community through which you can receive feedback about your work.

You can purchase his book of poetry, Self Portraits, Mixed Media, as well as I Name This Body Mine (which features some of his work) both at Literati for $12. Also, be sure to read the reviews on the backs of the books, several famous writers have great things to say about Girard’s work. 

Upcoming Events featuring Aldo Leopoldo Pando Girard:

  • Ann Arbor Youth Laureate Commencement Performance: https://aadl.org/node/388703
    • Downtown Library
    • 5/23/19, 7-8:30 pm
  • Poetry Workshops: Mondays 4:30-6pm @ the Neutral Zone

REVIEW: FLINT

audreymg Leave a comment

Let me start off by saying that I am from Flint, Michigan. I was born and raised in the city and had lived there my entire life until I came to Ann Arbor. When the water crisis started I was in my junior year of high school and we knew something was wrong but had no idea of the magnitude and the problems to come. I still call Flint home and go there often to visit family and the community I love. First semester freshman year in college is hard enough as it is but my experience was made even more complicated when the water crisis broke international news. Suddenly it was my hometown in the news, spread across my facebook news feed, and as the subject of conversation everywhere. When people found out where I was from they would ask in horror how my family was, as if my city had survived the latest natural disaster. Many people, with both good and not so pure intentions, were focused on producing media around the issue and holding fundraisers. It often felt like my hometown was being sensationalized as a pitiable, suffering place. I have become incredibly cynical about outside activism centered around my city and our crisis due to these experiences; that is why I was very skeptical when I first learned about FLINT being produced on our campus.
In spite of my skepticism, FLINT blew me away. I am still processing the weight of the production. A couple scenes from the play really stuck with me as they resonated with my experiences or taught me something new. In the first half of the play one scene depicted a conversation of Umich students and faculty from Flint discussing their complicated relationships with the city. They spoke truths that I have been mulling over since I came to Ann Arbor, the fact that we identify as being from Flint, call it our home, but also acknowledge our privilege as members of the Umich community here. Another scene that stuck with me was the nurse character’s perspective as a health professional in this health crisis. While her impressions of the crisis itself were powerful, the part that really got to me was when she said exactly what I’ve been saying and feeling for years; things were bad before the water crisis, and no one cared about us then. Though the water crisis has shook my community, we were struggling long before it due to a government which does not care about poor, rustbelt, communities of color. We were abandoned long ago, making the water crisis almost inevitable. What I was not necessarily expecting was to learn about my city and its experience with this crisis. Flint is home to the Michigan School for the Deaf, but I was completely shocked by the scene detailing the experience of the daughter of deaf parents. I never thought about the role this sub-group plays in my community and the different ways it affected them.
Another unexpected experience that I had watching this play was nostalgia. I did not know any of the characters represented in this play, but they felt familiar. I recognized the traits that Flint instills in a person and the places which they occupied. Pictures taken in everyone’s favorite diner, Starlite; a prom scene set in Northwestern high school the spring before the school closed. I knew it was a play about my hometown when I could single out the places and experiences they described in the most vague of terms. I know better than anything not to go in the Flint River, I remember when they found a dead, frozen body in it one winter. The new, exciting bookstore opened downtown is called Totem Books and I’ve passed it in the car a million times, heard all the buzz surrounding it with little recognition for Black-owned bookstores in other parts of the city. I’m worried about the gentrification I’ve spent my life watching expand through the downtown area, just like that barber. This play didn’t include my narrative, but it was about me, my family, my community, and my hometown.

Picture courtesy of SMTD.

REVIEW: Der Kaiser von Atlantis

Natan Zamansky Leave a comment

Considering the circumstances under which Der Kaiser von Atlantis was written — (it was written in the Theresienstadt concentration camp with the musicians available, and was rehearsed but not allowed to be performed because the Nazis thought the title character seemed a bit too much like Hitler) — it seems reasonable to consider it something akin to an unfinished work. The piece starts out with a really interesting idea which it doesn’t really have the space to explore. The libretto is crudely formed, and reads more like the work of a poet than a dramatist. Each individual moment works splendidly as an exploration of its own theme, but the parts fail to gel into a particularly coherent whole. The title character of Kaiser Overall gets a strong starting point, and a strong ending point, but not the development that brings him from point A to point B.

The opera begins with a prologue, which takes the form of a conversation between Death and the clown Harlekin. The characters converse on their melancholy state. A drum-major announces that Kaiser Overall has declared a universal fight to the death. Everyone will take up arms and kill each other. Death feels quite frustrated by this; he feels overworked, and thinks Overall is being disrespectful of him. So Death goes on strike, and in the ensuing bloodbath, no one can die. In the second scene, Overall gets updates on how the murdering is going, and is distressed to find out that no one is dying. In an effort not to be seen as weak, he tries to turn the situation into a positive, by saying that his soldiers have been given a formula which makes them immune to death.

In Scene III, we meet a soldier and a maiden who are unable to kill each other, so they fall in love instead, casting death aside. And in Scene IV, everyone’s pretty upset about this no-one-being-able-to-die thing — not least the people who are stuck with mortal wounds that should have killed them hours ago. Death shows up, and tells Overall that he will get back to work, but Overall must give up his life first. Overall agrees, and promptly dies, followed by everybody else. A quartet sings a hymn to death, and the opera ends.

I’m not really going to dig into a full dramatic analysis of the opera. It’s a very surreal opera, a very philosophical opera, and not a very complete opera. I don’t think it’s really my place to tell you what you’re supposed to get out of it. Peter Kien’s libretto is vague, doesn’t really apply itself as any specific allegory, and very open to interpretation. Ullman’s score employs a good deal of pastiche and reference, and evokes a variety of composers of the era, including Shostakovich, Szymanowski, and even Kurt Weill. On a moment-to-moment basis the opera is most effective.

Der Kaiser von Overall was presented tonight at the McIntosh Theater in the Earl V. Moore School of Music, directed by Matthew Ozawa, and performed by students in the School of Music, Theater, and Dance. It will be presented again tomorrow, April 7th, at 8pm. Admission is free, and the opera runs approximately one hour. Supertitles in English are projected above the stage.

The singers all gave wonderful performances. Louis Ong as Kaiser Overall and Zachary Crowle as Death imbued their characters with immense gravitas, which Lucas Alvarado and Kayleigh Jardine, as the Soldier and the Maiden contrasted with a lovely tenderness. Daniel McGrew, Jenny Cresswell, and Logan Dell’Acqua had the most abstracted roles, as Harlekin, the Drummer, and the Loudspeaker respectively, and though their characters were not very defined, their performances were definitive. The fourteen-piece ensemble, lead by Timothy Cheek, gave out a sound almost twice its size — though I regret to say an electric keyboard is still no substitute for a real harpsichord.

The production is directed by Matthew Ozawa, and though the theater itself is not very conducive to a tightly-focused dramatic treatment of the work, a lot is done with lighting (also by Ozawa) to carry the piece. There was a lot of apparent symbolism which at places I felt bogged the production down, and there were moments where the sheer size of the stage proved distracting, but I cannot count this against the opera. Der Kaiser von Atlantis is of sufficient interest for its history alone, and any production therefore worth an eye or two.

REVIEW: That Brown Show

Neha Srinivasan 2 Comments

I was very excited to see That Brown Show, and so, it seems, was everybody else in the audience, because they were much more boisterous than usual. In most other settings, this would have been somewhat irritating (in some parts, the audience cheered so loudly that I could barely hear the music), but after attending so many Indian student performances, I’ve accepted that this exuberance is simply part of the show.

I think all the ensembles did a very nice job, but I know I’ve seen much better from some. Sahana Music could have been a little more balanced – the vocalists didn’t perform much, while there were several percussion solos – but I loved the harmonium solo. Taal is capable of far more than what the piece they performed let on. The storyline of their dance, Robin Hood, could have been more connected to their choreography. The choreography itself seemed more fit for a nightclub until they started incorporating movements inspired by Indian classical dance, which they performed much more gracefully. It is possible that this was a deliberate juxtaposition between the more graceful Merry Men and the decadent King Richard, but if so, a more obvious difference would have helped. The Michigan Bhangra team had, as always, a very energetic performance, and their movements were crisp and unified, even those of the handkerchiefs they were flicking around. I wish they hadn’t had a video playing in the background, because after I noticed it all it did was distract me. Michigan Manzil had a really cohesive performance, and I was amazed at the unison they displayed despite the throng of people onstage. Their storyline for the dance – 21 Jump Street – worked really well with their performance, and their style and energy remained consistent throughout even when they were blending moves from different genres of dance. Sahana Dance was my favorite: they did a beautiful job of blending the three styles of dance that were represented onstage. Often, they take turns highlighting each dance style, but this time they managed to dance at the same time, and it worked really well. And they had some really unique music choices (that transitioned well) and some beautiful geometric formations. Michigan Izzat, as per usual, had a really tight performance with their hallmark crisp movements and a very well implemented storyline. Someday, though, I’d like to see them do more lyrical movements. I think it would add a lot of range to their repertoire, and I know they’re skilled enough to perform them. Lastly, Wolveraas had some really lovely musicality and very consistent energy, and they didn’t let that slip even despite a couple minor mishaps. This year, TBS was a competition – why I don’t know, and I hope it isn’t actually going to happen annually – and Izzat won the audience’s vote.

Strangely, Hill Auditorium as a venue didn’t seem to help anyone. Somehow the sound seemed muffled, not as bright as usual, and that leeched energy from everybody’s performances. This was not helpful, because these performances require a lot of energy, and I realized then that not all of that can come from the performers. But that couldn’t really be helped. My last note, though, is something that can be fixed: I really wish they would get their tech together. There were some hiccups with videos, sound editing, and sound balance that seem to happen at every show, and I know those are things that are so easily fixed with some minor attention to detail.

REVIEW: Tillirnanngittuq

audreymg Leave a comment

Why is the UMMA so difficult to navigate?? If you aren’t looking at one of the main exhibits it is just a maze of half levels and random staircases. However, if you manage to find your way through and follow the signs for the Buddhism exhibit, you will find the Power family’s Inuit art collection. It is a fairly small collection, filling on room comfortably. Everything is one of two media, prints or sculptures. The first piece I saw entering the exhibit was a sculpture of two intertwined narwals with their bodes carved out of a beautiful, blueish granite and their horns out of ivory. This was probably the largest of the sculptures and certainly held a place of honor. I really like multi media sculptures; Degas’ dancer sculptures have always been favorites of mine as he uses ribbon and tulle to create a more realistic, and textural representation of his subjects. The Inuit sculptures utilized a similar technique by using ivory and horn to represent tusks, teeth, and horns on their sculptures. This added something extra to the art and made it feel connected with the real life animals that they represented.
The other art form featured in the exhibit was prints. The gallery wall featured some twenty, framed prints of various hues and subject matter arranged on one wall together. Next to the gallery wall was a stone print block for one of the prints on the wall. I generally think of prints being carved on wooden blocks or maybe a plastic like vinyl but many of these prints were carved into stone or ivory. The prints on the wall mainly featured animals and fed into the general hue of the room as many were printed in black or shades of blue while the sculptures were mainly carved out of stone on the black and blue color spectrums. The prints were interesting individually but also as a collection altogether. Many of the prints featuring birds were at the top while polar bears were at the bottom. To my mind, they were roughly arranged so as to put predators at the bottom and prey at the top. Two prints in particular were placed alongside each other creating a story. One print featured a flock of birds while the print next to it featured a smaller flock of similar birds and a hunter with a bow pointed at the birds above them. This interplay between the prints really displayed the beauty of good curation as those prints did not seem to be made by the same artist or necessarily intended as a pair but added something to the gallery when featured as such.