Category: Student Organization

REVIEW: ComCo The Big Show

Abby Z Leave a comment

When my friends and I grabbed seats near the front of the Lydia Mendhelson theater we had arrived over 40 minutes early to ensure prime seats, and yet the first several rows were already packed with people.  Despite being held in a bigger venue than the past several shows I had been to, the seats started filling up quickly, and even with ten minutes left before the start of the show all I could hear was a dull roar as both the main floor and balcony were filled with noisy students excited for their pre-finals fix of improv comedy.

The show opened with a short video clip that prepped the audience for the show they were about to be treated to.  With a dramatic narration done ala morgan freeman, describing the club as if they were not merely a (very good) improv group, but instead a group of heroes destined for greatness, it sent ripples of chuckles through the audience.

Once the Comco members took to the stage the audience was cheering like mad, ready for the show to begin. They opened with a long-form game called “monologue.” Two cast members would  come up and give short monologues based off of a prompt given by the audience, and then the rest of the cast members would riff off those stories for a god 10-15 minutes, jumping in and out as needed.  Some of the situations and stories were so absurd I couldn’t help but laugh, but the cast members did a wonderful job keeping each scene flowing and relating them back to the previous scenes for added laughter.

One of my favorite games of the night was when two cast members had to act as the arms for another two, either working in unison or sabotaging them, and reacting to whatever scene was taking place. The scene was two passengers in a turbulent air plane ride, one freaking out while the other tried to calm them down, to no avail.  Watching the cast members helplessly going along with whatever their “hands” decided to do was nothing short of hilarious.

I’d like to also emphasize how well the cast members bounced off each other as well as read the audience.  If a joke was ever falling flat they did a good job of picking it right back up or cutting the joke short.  Conversely, whenever a joke was doing particularly well they were able to really play it up, reacting in time to the audience and giving them whatever caused the largest cheers.  That being said my friends and I were constantly cheering  and laughing throughout the night, ensuring that my cheeks were red and sore by the time we were leaving the theater.

One of the most touching moments of the night was when the Comco players said their farewells to the graduating seniors, giving them large posters with every show they had done in Comco on the front, and touching personal notes on the back. Both the comco members on stage, and several audience members were holding back tears.

Finally, after that touching moment it was time to close the show just as they close every show, with the game “I like my men like I like my ______,” allowing audience members to fill in the blank to humorous responses. I especially like that they invite Comco alumni onto stage to complete that game with them.  My friends and I couldn’t stop talking about our favorite moments from the show the entire walk back, and despite this being their very first Comco show, they are raring to go back next year.  Check out Comco at their facebook page, here!

REVIEW: Dance Mix 2017 The Galaxy Edition

Phillip Wachowiak Leave a comment

What a night. I started walking over to the Power Center with my friend five minutes before the concert started to find a building packed with students. Before the first group took the stage, the organizers announced that this was the second sold-out concert in a row.

 

Some sold-out concerts don’t feel sold out. You can spot empty seats and the audience is tame. Not so for this young, rambunctious crowd that hooted and hollered names of friends in the dance groups all throughout the event. Between the energy of the audience and the students moving around on stage, the 2.5 hour event felt like taking a shot of espresso.

When things get hot and heavy on stage

First off, I have to apologize at not being able to keep track of the names of the groups. Every group that took the stage was incredibly talented in their own unique way. Alas, I did not have a program with me during the concert so I could not tell exactly which group was on stage at a particular time.

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t imagine it’s easy to fit a wide variety of student acts into one concert, but Dance Mix 17 pulled it off through smooth transitions between more traditional ballet (top left picture) and decidedly modern hip-hop (top right picture), as well as dancers that both to the melodies of ballads and rock songs alike.

One of the highlights of the group was Revolution and their stringless yo-yo performance. Countless students walked across the stage slinging their plastic yo-yo’s like divine beings levitating rocks. Those plastic yo-yo’s flew across the stage and around the slingers and every trick drew fresh cheers from the crowd. Even the tricks that failed still felt like successes, and I was definitely not the only one entranced by the performance.

 

Later, Photonix performed in the dark with glow sticks, producing images like the one you see in the header photo of this blog. Towards the end of the performance, they unleashed hundreds of mini glow sticks into the audience.
The audience being composed almost entirely of students, everyone went wild.

Another highlight of the night was a Bollywood rendition of Top Gun (by Michigan Manzil I think). The story was a cliche telling of a young fighter pilot who loses his friend in a fight, but this isn’t a Hollywood film and the performance was one of the standouts of the second half of the night.

The Bollywood-esque peformance went through half a dozen wardrobe changes without a hitch, in addition to props and set pieces, and above all it was entertaining as heck.

Rounding out the rest of the night were performances by EnCore (picture below), Outrage, and FunKtion again.

I’m incredibly glad I was able to attend this event, and if you’re reading this blog and didn’t go this year, you NEED to attend next year.

REVIEW: Bronze Elegance Fashion Show

Abby Z Leave a comment

I’ve never been the most on top of the fashion world.  When I flipped through the pages of Vogue as a kid I could never put my finger on what made certain outfits so visually appealing. That being said, I was extremely excited to attend the Bronze Elegance annual fashion charity show this year, and see the diverse and choreographed fashion production I had heard about.

One of the things that that became instantly apparent as I walked in the door was how stylish the general crowd attending this show was. Almost all of the attendees were dressed to the nines, with several of the women standing in line with me looking like they could have just stepped off the runway themselves.  After I had a wrist band tied around my wrist, I headed to find a seat to the side of the stage, and waited for the show to begin.  They had  mounted a large screen over the stage, so that everyone could get multiple different angles and views of the models no matter where they happened to be seating.

As soon as the first model walked out onto stage, we were immediately treated to something far closer to a choreographed dance than a runway walk, where each model interacted with the other models walking behind them in some way.  This same alternative and performance-oriented direction  was carried out throughout the show, with each collection having a different type of “choreography,” or element that made it special and stand apart.  My only complaint with the first collection was that the outfits were not cohesive, however later collections were much more cohesive, and fit together perfectly.

Another interesting element of the fashion show was the space in which it was held itself.   When decorated and separated by a large black curtain, the inside of the gym was transformed into an almost entirely new space.  One of my favorite aspects of the venue is that there were large windows on either side of the gymnasium, and as the fashion show progressed we could see the light outside gradually fading into pitch black as the sun set, adding to the ambiance of the show.  Additionally, I liked how the lighting changed throughout, colors picked carefully to complement the  designs on stage.  Perhaps my favorite element of the environment were the fog machines, which were used off and on throughout the show.  During one particularly foggy section it seemed as if the models completely emerged from an entered into a foggy portal at the back of the stage, really adding to the feel of the show!  Later on, as one of the final and most dramatic runway walks, all the lights were shut off as black lights were turned on to reveal glow in the dark body paint over all of the models!

My favorite collection presentation of the entire night came at the end of the first half, where six dancers came out onto either side of the runway, and proceed to do an expertly choreographed dance routine as the models walked through the middle.  After this astonishing performance intermission started, giving me time to mingle and prepare myself for the second half.

The second half of the show also featured two different musical artists performing in between the individual collections. While I failed to catch the name of the first performer, the second performer was a budding musician and former vine star Wolf Tyga.  These music interludes were a fun way to further break up the shows and diversify what was being presented. In general I really enjoyed the music picked for the background of each collection in the show, and thought that the music was picked well to fit with the theme of each collection and further emphasize them.

Every time I thought that the last collection would be the flashiest and most impressive, they managed to change things up and keep me more and more intrigued.  Now I truly understand why their tagline was “A show with fashion” instead of just a “fashion show.”

To follow bronze elegance and get information about their future projects and next year’s show you can check out their official website or their instagram,

Review: That Brown Show

Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

As I expected, That Brown Show (TBS) was an impressive array of performances. I’ve got to begin by saying that audience etiquette is very different at this performance than they are in most performances I attend. Here, there was constant shouting from the audience, and sometimes the performers acknowledged them, too. It’s interesting, that interaction, because it’s something I’ve noticed just at TBS really.

The show began with renditions of both the American and the Indian national anthems. Both singers were quite good, but it proved to be quite the juxtaposition between styles of music: Alicia Kalsi, who performed the American anthem, sounded just faintly as if she were trying too hard, adding grace notes and extending her high notes – exactly how everyone that performs the American anthem does. Meanwhile, Vaidehi Dongre, who performed the Indian anthem, seemed to add very little froufrou to the song, and that plus the anthem’s narrower vocal range gave it a comfortable, effortless feel. I find it intriguing to compare the different definitions of a “classically trained” voice between American and Indian culture, because the way these two anthems were sung is a perfect example of the difference.

Most of the acts this year had a story to them. I can’t quite decide whether or not I liked the use of a video to introduce the premise. Some of these premises were surprisingly dark, and while I don’t object to the showcasing of serious themes, it seemed to cast a temporary shadow on an event that is normally (at least as far as I’m aware) on the exuberant side of things.

Each act was strong, very tightly knit and immaculately choreographed. Sahana Music’s performance was so beautifully blended I couldn’t tell who was doing what (though I wish I could have, because they all sounded fantastic). Michigan Raas had an amusing premise, that of one of India’s more well known dating websites) and their synchrony (barring a slight mishap) was excellent. Taal, who themed their performance on Alice in Wonderland, had a larger set piece that obscured some of the text on the screen, but this was more than offset by the way their dancing matched the disjunct quality of the book, and the clever way in which they created the face of the Cheshire Cat. Sahana Dance did a fantastic job of melding multiple dance forms together seamlessly, and their formations were so clean that even though I was in the balcony and not at the right height to appreciate the uniformity, I still did. Maize Mirchi had excellent harmonies and rhythms in their performance, although I’d definitely like to know what songs they sang and/or how they choose their music, because I didn’t see much of an Indian influence in their performance. Novi Nazar, a high school group, was a new addition to the ensemble performing at TBS (or at least they were for me – I’ve never seen them perform before), and I was impressed with their performance. The Michigan Bhangra Team had a wonderfully lively performance, and happened to use a snippet from one of my favorite songs, but I do wish the people dancing offstage in the wings had stayed behind the curtains more. Izzat, the show’s closing act, had an incredibly dynamic performance, with very nicely synchronized movements.

In the lobby of the theater was an art gallery showcasing a series of photographs taken to showcase the South Asian experience, each with a caption. The photographs were beautiful, but I do think the captions told more of a story – or maybe that’s just because I gravitate towards words.

The main impression with which I left the theater was that the choreography had been excellent. It is difficult enough to get two people to move in unison, but twenty? A near impossibility, and yet these groups all accomplished it magnificently. It speaks to the caliber of these groups and the dedication they have towards their art. I’m very glad I got to experience it.

PREVIEW: ComCO- The Big Show

Abby Z Leave a comment

With classes ending and finals just around the corner (if they haven’t started already), what better way to loosen up, laugh, and get the energy you need to make it through the next several weeks than a brilliant improv comedy show by ComCo!  Join them tonight at 8PM at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre in the Michigan League for laughs and a good time.  The last few times I’ve gone to a Comco Show I ended up smiling so hard my cheeks hurt!

 

Tickets are 5$ at the door or 3$ at the MUTO. I highly suggest you arrive a half hour early at the very least to get good seats, these shows have a tendency to sell out!

Preview: That Brown Show

Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

Michigan Sahana is a student organization that performs Indian classical dance and music. That Brown Show is an annual celebration of South Asian performing arts, featuring performances by not just Sahana members, but also other music and dance groups on campus. South Asia is a vibrant, colorful place, and this show highlights that: when I saw it two years ago, I walked out feeling the urge to dance.

The show is at the Michigan Theater Saturday, April 15 at 7:30pm. Tickets can be bought at the door (student price $12), or free admission is available with the Passport to the Arts.