Category: Lifting Voices

REVIEW: Women, Queer, & BIPOC Art Fair

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

11:30am • Saturday, December 3, 2022 • Michigan Union, Pendleton Room

This weekend’s Women, Queer, & BIPOC Art Fair, hosted by What the F, was a fun and rewarding experience for all involved. What the F is a student organization centered around art and intersectional feminism which produces a magazine each semester, as well as a podcast, blog, and arts events like this one. The event took place in the lovely Pendleton Room on the second floor of the Union, where artists set up shop at small white-linened tables distributed market-style across the room. The space was a big step up from last year’s fair, which if I remember correctly was held in the Anderson room on the first floor. The Pendleton Room was grander and more immediately visible to guests, which lent the fair a more official and celebratory atmosphere.

As a vendor, I was present from the beginning to the end of the event, and I loved seeing how the fair served as a social, community-building space. Even with exams looming ahead, it was heartening to see how so many students gathered to celebrate one another’s art and connect with one another. From about 12pm onward, the fair was full of guests meeting up with friends, interacting with the artists, and exploring the room. As the event began to wrap up, What the F had to make an announcement to the still-very-full room that the fair was closing, and guests were still approaching artists as they packed up their work to make last-minute purchases.

A few of my favorite shops from the event included Michelle Knapp‘s table including work from her Etsy shop, MousemadeCo, and Sivan Ellman‘s table where she was selling some of her very cool collage prints. I also loved the adorable printed totes Maya Moufawad was selling at her table. One of the unique aspects of What the F’s fair is that the organization does not charge artists to participate, which creates a uniquely accessible opportunity for student artists to put their names out, when other fairs might charge upwards of $80 dollars to table. Because of this, artists are not pressured to sell work, but can use the art fair as an opportunity to exhibit the pieces they are most proud of without incurring extra costs.

I look forward to the return of the What the F Women, Queer, & BIPOC Art Fair next semester, an event which, with luck, will be longer with perhaps even more artists present.

REVIEW: Spring Awakening

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

8:00pm • Friday, December 2, 2022 • Arthur Miller Theater • Spoilers 3rd paragraph

Last Friday I had the honor of being one of the first audience members to experience the new student musical theater organization on campus, In the Round, as they presented Spring Awakening at the Arthur Miller Theater. First, I must confess, I approached Friday night’s performance with some trepidation. I’m from a small town with a smaller art scene, and when I hear “new theater company,” my mind is drawn to uncomfortable hours spent watching community theater groups stumble through off-key musicals. Within the first few minutes of this performance my fears were assuaged: the brilliance which In the Round exhibited in this production redefined for me, as a non-art-student, what it means to attend a school with some of the top music, theater, and dance students in the world.

Photo credit: Juliet Bornholdt.* From left: Luke Mannikus (Moritz), Sam O’Neill (Melchior), Juliet Freedman (Wendla). Wendla wears a purple sash to reflect the harm done by her community.

The highlights of the performance, for me, included the heartbreaking duet “The Dark I Know Well,” performed by Leslie Meloni as Martha and Bianca Garfinkle as Ilsa as well as the wildly impressive ad-libs of Chad Marge as Georg during “Touch Me.” Beyond those shout-outs, I appreciated the thoughtful handling of the underlying messages and themes in the show. In the Round chose to use the color purple throughout the performance, gradually incorporating the color into each character’s costume to symbolize the moment “the community irrevocably harms them” (In the Round). At the end of the show, purple flower petals rained down as the actors sat facing us to sing “The Song of Purple Summer,” seeming to warn the audience of the costs of censorship.

The production illustrated in vivid detail how each character was wronged by a culture of silence. This manifests particularly in the story arc of Wendla, played by Juliet Freedman, who begins the plot by begging her mother to explain where babies come from, and ends the victim of rape and a botched abortion. I also found a kind of symbolism in the way two actors, Jamie Martin Mann and Jill Pierangeli, repeatedly donned different roles to collectively portray all of the adult characters. While the actors admirably recast their personalities for the changing needs of each scene, the repetitiveness also served to represent the way the characters’ world strove to manufacture its children into uniformly moral (a.k.a. censored) adults.

This performance was truly the best introduction I could have had to the story of Spring Awakening, and I wish I could have attended all of the showings this weekend to dig more deeply into the care put into every detail of the show. I can’t wait to see what In the Round creates in the future, and I am so excited about this necessary addition to the campus art scene.

 

* additional credits:

Director: Jack Rosenberg
Choreography: David Midkiff
Associate Choreography: Rixey Terry
Lighting: Ethan Hoffman
Costumes: Cole Carrico
Scenic Design: Benjamin Garcia

PREVIEW: Women, Queer, & BIPOC Art Fair

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

What: an art fair hosted by What the F with over twenty-five women, queer, and BIPOC student artists displaying and selling their work

When: Saturday, December 3, 11:30am-2:30pm

Where: Michigan Union, Pendleton Room

This Saturday, What the F, an intersectional feminist student organization, will host an art fair centering the work of women, queer, and BIPOC students. What the F began hosting art fairs last year, and intends to organize them regularly each semester moving forward. For a sneak peek at some of the artists in attendance, check out the organization’s Instagram story–more than twenty-five artists will have the opportunity to present and sell their work, in mediums ranging from digital art to ceramics. The organization, which is best known for its biannual magazine, will have a table set up with its own merch, including a zine compiled by staff and guest artists. I joined What the F this year, and have seen close-up all the work my peers put into making this event a reality, so I hope you will consider visiting to support the great work they are doing. I will also be attending as an artist (selling earrings at a table near the entrance!) so if you see me there I’d love to say hello. I can’t wait to support student artists while also getting some holiday shopping done!

PREVIEW: Spring Awakening

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

What: rock musical Spring Awakening, the inaugural performance of In the Round Productions

When:

  • Friday, December 2, 8:00pm
  • Saturday, December 3, 2:00pm, 8:00pm
  • Sunday, December 4, 2:00pm

Where: Arthur Miller Theater

Tickets: $6 for students, $10 for adults, available on the MUTO website (click here)

Originally written in Germany in 1891 by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening was adapted into a Tony-winning rock musical in 2007 by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater. The play has always tested social acceptability, having been subject to extensive censorship for much of its existence, and even since its rewriting by Sheik and Sater in 2007. In their interpretation, In the Round Productions promises to present this coming-of-age story of sexual awakenings, morality, and rebellion through the lens of LGBTQIA+ culture. In the Round Productions is a new student organization sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies which aims to “provide a space for queer stories and queer storytellers” (Maize Pages). I look forward to being among the organization’s first audience members as they make their debut performance this Friday night.

REVIEW: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Sappy Leave a comment

*There won’t be any spoilers… at least not intentionally*

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever definitely did not unfold as I expected it to. I didn’t think it’d be as good as the first Black Panther, but I’m pretty disappointed in the quality. Letitia Wright (Shuri) truly got to shine in this film and her performance was phenomenal. In my opinion, though, the plot still held back what she is capable of. I look forward to seeing her acting in other films for sure.

I mentioned in my preview that I was curious if the directors might use Wakanda Forever to start building toward a driving plot for the new generation of Marvel, but that didn’t happen at all. None of the other recent Marvel films I’ve seen so far have done that either, though, besides the latest Spider-Man, so I’m not upset with Wakanda Forever in that regard.

What upset me is the storytelling, pacing, and characterization.

I wanted to see how the creators would effectively work around the hole left behind by Chadwick Boseman’s death but the resolution they came up with was very flat. The opening scene was definitely exhilarating and emotional but the transition to the next scene was rather anticlimactic and there wasn’t much explanation provided. Whenever the topic came back up, there weren’t any additional details either as I hoped there would be.

This relates to the problem of pacing I mentioned before: after the initial drama, the rising action was very slow and tedious. I didn’t feel like there was a steady buildup and so once the climax hit we were bombarded with a lot of rushed action and character development, leading to an unsatisfactory falling action as well. Not only that, though; the initial premise for the conflict was pretty promising, but then the conflict itself was rather… interesting. A new character that I thought would be vital didn’t play as impactful as a role that the premise hyped her up for, either, which I found surprising. The ending scenes did somewhat tie back to the opening, but there were a lot of holes left in the plot, especially in regards to the passage of time, and ambiguity for what comes after.

Something I did really like about the plot though is the dynamic difference between Shuri and the elders. We already saw some tension between them in the first film, but it played a bigger role this time as a recurring theme. I think lots of young adults would be able to relate to generational differences, such as scientific vs. spiritual beliefs and progression vs. tradition. I wish they showed more scenes of them interacting.

Overall, it’s not a film I’d recommend for its quality. I also don’t think it’s essential to the Marvel Universe, and perhaps watching it might even take away from the impact that the first Black Panther had. I do think my review sounds rather harsh: I don’t actually hate the film, but it’s just disappointing and not something I’d watch again or recommend to others.

 

PREVIEW: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Sappy Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since the first Black Panther film came out in 2018; the next film had already been teased at the end of the first movie, and after rewatching it two times I grew increasingly antsy about the release of Black Panther 2. I actually haven’t watched any of the movie trailers and I’ve done a pretty good darn job staying away from spoilers, so I’ll be going into the movie theaters completely blind.

The unfortunate passing of Chadwick Boseman has definitely left a huge hole in both the audience’s hearts and the plot itself. His phenomenal acting as T’challa was one of the highlights for me, and so I feel like the entire time I watch Wakanda Forever I’ll dearly miss him and his character. Although movies tend to take a few years to release anyway, I wonder how much his absence has affected the filming process and how the directors have decided to work around it.

So much has happened in the Marvel Universe with the main turning point being Avengers: Endgame. I’m curious to see how this new movie will drive the direction they will go now after the end of the first generation.