Ping Chong + Company is a New York-based theater company that is putting on an interview-based theater production centering around Muslim-American identities in our post-9/11 world.
Below is a preview of the one-day event coming up this Saturday:
“Participants come from a range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds and include young men and women who reflect a range of Muslim identities…Beyond Sacred illuminates the daily lives of Muslim Americans in an effort to work toward greater communication and understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.”
TEDx UofM 2017 was as busy as ever, adding to the disruption part of this year’s theme: Dreamer’s and Disruptors. The army of volunteers running the independent conference have by now created a finely-tuned machine with the perfect mix of emotional roller-coaster, thought-provoking ideas, and blissful entertainment.
The student group Groove = bliss
A student jazz band played in the minutes before the conference started. Their grooving, polished performance was a reminder that so many students at this university are talented and sound like professionals even before they’ve graduated.
Then the first speaker took the stage. Koen Vanmechelen came all the way from Belgium to talk about chickens. Specifically, about how breeding various species of chickens can be used to teach us important lessons about human nature.
Next was Sophia Brueckner, a brilliant woman who was a preeminent software engineer at Google until she suffered an injury that prevented her from using computers for two years. She argued that we as a society have developed a dichotomy of looking at technology as either a complete disaster, or as completely awesome. Instead, she asserted, we need to approach technology with critical optimism.
Ironically, Sophia Brueckner pointed out that making an app to solve all our problems is a fallacious idea, but the 2017 TEDx prize went to a student that developed an app called FoodFind. Meant for low income families to find free food, you have to wonder how many families can actually afford and use the smartphones that the app runs on.
Caitlin Holman proposed three things we need to learn: autonomy, competency, and belonging. Videogames, she suggested, provide all of this. With that in mind, she founded GradeCraft with the purpose of making learning more “gameful.”
Erika Newman–a pediatric surgeon–talked about both clinical and personal experiences with cancer. She was introduced to the lack of information on neuroblastoma when one of her patients asked her about the disease and she realized how she didn’t have any answers. The only surprise here was that she was having trouble getting funding from the NIH to treat the cancer using DNA repair mechanisms.
Rollie Tussing and the Midwest Territory Band played during the break. Although they were a stereotypical band you’d hear in Ann Arbor (at least one instance of well-manicured beard, a cello, and music reminiscent of vintage records), they were entertaining. Their sound was both stripped down and full, and antique without feeling archaic.
Next was Abdul El-Sayed, the current Executive Director of the Detroit Health
Department. In case that didn’t already tell you what a monumental task that entails, he cited several facts about the city of 600,000+ people such as a life expectancy of 70, an asthma rate of three times that of the rest of the country, and vision and other problems that far surpass the rest of Michigan. His argument was to think about pathophysiology in the social realm so that we can help people prevent health problems from developing. Abdul was also one of the best speakers of the night and I highly recommend watching his talk at least.
Next was Jeffrey Veidlinger, a historian who went to Eastern Europe to interview survivors of the Holocaust as a way of preserving their culture via understanding Yiddish. He challenged the audience to “Ask your loved ones about their life. Ask them about their dreams. Ask them about what they cherish.”
The most heart-wrenching talk of the night came from Scott Matzka, who was a talented athlete and is now a husband and father battling ALS. This is another talk to watch, and to check out his organization MyTurn.
Documentary filmmaker Sophia Kruz was the last speaker of the evening. Showing clips from her latest documentary Little Stones, she showed how sharing individual stories is important, as well as using culture to address problems in society.
Café Shapiro always inspires the writer in me to go home and create something worth reading in front of an audience. That being said, reading in front of an audience is difficult for me. The director of the event last night made sure we knew that this was the first time some of the authors had ever read in front of a group of people, and that made the experience all the more admirable from where I sat.
My only issue with Café Shapiro was that there wasn’t a collective list of the readers printed anywhere. There are screens in the lobby of the Ugli that alternate from author to author on a slideshow, featuring a picture of them and a bit about their lives. There is not, however, a collective program for the event. From the standpoint of someone looking to write an article about the event, it made the prospect of spelling everyone’s names and catching everyone’s majors a bit daunting.
Despite this, Café Shapiro is definitely a tradition that should continue. Matching the university’s bicentennial with the event’s 20th anniversary was a cool parallel. The director told us at the beginning of the reading that Café Shapiro was originally meant to serve as a “coffee break” for students… before, of course, a café was built in the same lobby.
Laura Dzubay was the first reader, a sophomore majoring in English and one of my friends. She read an excerpt from her short story “Paradise.” It is set in the 1960s and is about a small town about to be bought out by a major company looking to monopolize the town. The story features a group of young people looking for their friend Michael, who went missing a few months back. All of the families were moving away due to job loss, including Michael’s. Some of the dialogue in the story, however, really spoke to me about one’s loyalty to their home (being from a small town myself, I can relate). “‘It’ll poison the air,’ they said. ‘It’ll poison every one of us.'” In spite of this threat, the kids still don’t want to leave their home (or their friend).
“Paradise” also drew attention to the classic nature vs. machine narrative we’re seeing so often nowadays in regards to climate preservation. The story progressed to the kids exploring the forest, traveling so far that the familiar trees seemed “sinister” and “alien.” Even something as familiar as home can suddenly turn hostile with the introduction of the outside world.
Laura Dzubay reading “Paradise”
The second author was Zoya Gurm, an undeclared freshman, reading “Marcy.” It was a story about a girl who was clearly an outcast in society. Marcy was in an uneasy friendship with the narrator, and the narrator’s guilt at their relationship’s lack of substance was apparent when Marcy died. The story detailed the efforts of the community to remember Marcy, if anything “just so [they] could say [they] did.” The romanticism, of sorts, of Marcy’s death echoed, again, my experience with small town life. If something happens to someone in the community, even if we don’t know them that well, the entire town shows their (albeit temporary) support.
Thirdly, Luc Le Pottier, a freshman majoring in physics, read his unfinished, untitled essay. I enjoyed listening to him read just because he was so familiar with his words – it was apparent in his voice. His tone matched the stream-of-conscoius way the narrative was presented. The piece was about the narrator’s experience working as a cook for a restaurant and how he had a different (temporary) perspective about his job there compared to his coworkers (who absolutely needed the job). The author managed to keep the reader in the moment while occasionally interrupting the story to insert an analysis, a talent which I admire for critical writing.
The fourth author was a senior studying biochemistry and English, Pei Hao. He read a series of poems based on Chinese poetry. I’ve never heard poetry in Mandarin before, and I noticed the differences in the rhythm patterns. There was still a distinct rhythm, but it showed up in different ways and inflections than it does in English. The English translations were rich with description but did so without too many words. For instance, “the birds are silent; the people are few,” was a line from one of Hao’s poems that I enjoyed for its tangibility.
After Pei Hao, Josh Mandilk read a piece of fiction titled “You Can’t Drown a Fish.” Mandilk is studying English and health fitness. His delivery was strikingly matter-of-fact despite the sensitive content of his piece. It was about a boy whose brother struggled all his life with drugs and mental health, but detailed how important the brother’s art was to both him and to his family, who suffered along with him. As children, the brothers would act out war scenes and “turn the forest we knew so well into something menacing.” That quote outlines the power of a child’s imagination, and maybe served as a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Alexa Zielinski, a freshman studying psychology, read an essay afterward. The essay was inspired by a They Might Be Giants song, which was an interesting tidbit of backstory. The essay itself was about a father’s struggle with alcoholism, and was written with vivid language and tangible emotion. Zielinski split the essay into parts, and although it caught my attention, it was difficult to follow verbally.
Grace Morris read next, an undeclared freshman. She read both fiction and a poem. Her fiction piece was witty and metaphoric, detailing the narrator’s experience with God in the form of a rabbit. Despite the creativity, I was lost about whether or not God became a rabbit in the progression of the story or if God was the rabbit the whole time and I missed it. Her poem was more whimsical, entitled “Red.”
Bharat Nair read his poetry next. He is a junior in the School of Information. He had a fantastic handle on poetic language, using oxymorons such as “luscious putridity” in a way that made sense. The two poems he read seemed to contrast in tone, which served as a refreshing thing to focus on as a member of the audience but left me confused about how to analyze it.
Tommy Hawthorne, a senior majoring in double bass performance, read more poetry. His poems were clever, using common sayings like “just keep swimming” in an aggressive, mocking way. It was written about octopi… from the perspective of an octopus. Despite that, he glossed everything over with a cute ending: “The coat on my back is yours and I will bend it to whatever color most pleases you.” He read a few more poems, among those were “Sound” and “Silver.”
Lastly, Erez Levin, a senior studying musical arts, read poetry. His tone was playful and reminded me of a narrator for a medieval TV show (for example, Merlin). He did this, however, with a modern twist, claiming at the end of his performance (for it was, truly, more a performance than a reading) that it was all a true story. His humor was an entertaining finale to a good night of literature!
The 20th annual Café Shapiro reading is upon us! Café Shapiro is an event where student writers, nominated by their professors, read from their creative works in the lobby of the Shapiro Library. This event features some of the university’s best writers, as many of them are also up for other awards. The program has also expanded to five evenings! (Coffee is provided at all dates!)
Monday, February 6, 7:00-8:30 pm
Tuesday, February 7, 7:00-8:30 pm
Thursday, February 9, 7:00-8:30 pm
Monday, February 13, 7:00-8:30 pm
Wednesday, February 15, 7:00-8:30 pm
Some of the old Café Shapiro anthologies can be found here. I attended this event last year and I highly recommend it!
In less than a week, the organizers of TEDxUofM will open the doors to: TEDxUofM 2017: Dreamers and Disruptors.
Although tickets are sold out, you will be able to watch a livestream here
Also, you can still arrive early for live music, interactive activities, coffee from RoosRoast, and pastries from Avalon Bakery all in the lobby area of the Power Center
This year has another incredible list of speakers, as well as performances by Groove and Midwest Territory Band
Twenty minutes before the event started, the 4th floor Rackham Auditorium was already packed. Students, friends, family, and curious people filled the seats, the stairs, the walls, and the walkways. Organizers had to repeatedly clear the overflowing doorways, and we we were repeatedly warned that if any more audience members came, it would be a fire hazard and Rackham would have to shut the event down. Both sophomore event organizers, Alyiah and Fatima, introduced Halfway Hijabi as an event for Muslim women who wore hijabs (headscarves) to “reclaim our voices and our space rather than having others speak on our behalf.”
To create a safe space, photographs and video recording by audience members was not allowed. All that really mattered, however, were the words that flowed out of these powerful, well-spoken women.
The first of many female performers read an essay speaking of themes that would become a common thread throughout the night. Anger and humiliation at being forcibly strip searched at an airport because she had a metal leg brace. Comments like “you look like you came out of Iraq” and “This is America sweetheart–you can take that [the hijab] off now.” She ended with the words “I do not allow the hijab to limit me, so why do you?”
Another performer talked of women reclaiming the American flag from a symbol of oppression to a symbol of pride by wearing the design on headscarves.
Most of the performers were students, and they pointed out how often they walk into a room and find that they are the only hijabi, and having to represent the entire Muslim population.
Although many of the performances were raw and heartbreaking, a few of the women lightened the mood. One international student from Malaysia read a short speech regarding her reasons for wearing her hijab, and comparing what it was like to wear one in Malaysia versus the US. She concluded that “I was told that God wants me to wear hijab and actually I’m okay with that” and then hilariously quoted Miley Cyrus when she said “only God can judge us.”
The one musical piece of the night was naturally one of the saddest songs ever created: a rendition of Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah. It was not only beautifully sung, but also refreshing to hear it sung in this context.
My only regret about the event is that it wasn’t in Rackham’s larger auditorium. The Hijabi Monologues is the kind of event that should be shown to as many students as possible, because much of the hate and rudeness that these women experienced comes from ignorance.
