PREVIEW: Joshua Bell & Sam Haywood

Laura Dzubay Leave a comment

This weekend, Joshua Bell and Sam Haywood will be performing live at Hill Auditorium. Bell is an incredibly famous and successful violinist, and Haywood is a well-known pianist who has toured extensively in the United States and in Europe, performing in many major concert halls along the way. The two have worked together as a duo several times in the past.

I’m personally very excited to see Joshua Bell, because his name has been familiar to me for years. My parents are both musicians, and I’ve heard a lot about him from them; he also grew up in my hometown and attended my high school! (He’s pretty much the only famous person who has, so his name is thrown around a lot there.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in concert myself, though, so I’m very excited to finally get to see him perform live. I’m also looking forward to seeing Sam Haywood, with whose work I’m less familiar but who also has a glowing reputation.

Bell and Haywood will be performing this Saturday at 8:00 PM at the Hill Auditorium. The program will feature works of Mozart, Schubert, and Richard Strauss.

REVIEW: Aftermath: Landscapes of Devastation

Angela Lin Leave a comment

The sublime is what captivates your attention, the mix between horror and beauty. This discomfort that the sublime evokes by being fascinated with something horrifyingly beautiful is what the latest photography exhibition at the UMMA revolves around. Aftermath: Landscapes of Devastation brings to the forefront of our minds how we use photographs to mediate and memorialize disasters. While the exhibition includes 150 years of medium, it depicts the course of over 2,000 years of human history and photographs moments to last into the infinite future.

Instead of displaying the pictures in chronological order of when the event occurred, the pictures play with time, as the sequence is nonlinear, the arrangement dealing with the increasing amount of time between when the event occurred and when the photograph was taken. By capturing a landscape of devastation mere seconds after the event or two thousand years later, the effects of that devastation can be either visible or invisible, creating a landscape with a timeless story tied to the land.

A lot of the photographs were indirect, not clearly depicting any “devastation” at first glance. This exhibition really makes you stop and read the description to understand why certain photographs belong in a collection that starts with the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. Even that is an interesting choice — a distant view of a giant cloud in the sky that is a clear sign of devastation without overtly showing the scene from the ground. It is hard to miss the mushroom cloud, but the unimaginable carnage of bodies remain unseen. The picture that follows is an aerial shot of an accident on a beach, the conglomerating crowd and oblivious beach-goers fully captured in this spectacle that is centered around one individual’s life and near-death, an unforgettable memory that will now always be remembered.

9/11 has its place in this exhibition, the two selected photographs shaping our collective memory and national identity as we continuously return to this historic event. However, events of less obvious violence that are equally devastating have their rightful place too. The repetition of the land at Shiprock taken throughout one day represents the relative timelessness of a geographical sight that is perceived despite the destruction on native land that has slowly taken its course through many years.

One of the most interesting photographs was one of joy in an environment of devastation. Bosnian-Muslim refugee children are playing in a bombed building, this innocent side of human nature persisting in a haunting scene very unnatural yet very human, and this direct juxtaposition tugs at your heart as the suffering and resilience of families during a period of war and genocide makes this image — and this ongoing reality — truly devastating indeed. There are certainly many more photographs, each as intriguing and thought-provoking as the last, that makes this exhibit that is on display until May 27 worth seeing.

There is beauty and tranquility in these photographs despite the devastation, and it is precisely because of that that there is something harrowing about them, these moments — or aftermath of moments — suspended in time and carried into infinity. Natural and manmade destruction is never forgotten. Even if it escapes the lens of a camera, it will be forever ingrained in human memory and the natural history on the land.

PREVIEW: Edges

Aria Gerson Leave a comment

Thirteen years ago, two 19-year-old Michigan students had a problem. They were being shunned from their school musicals.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul were still cast, but were given background roles. That’s not out of the ordinary for underclassmen. But, well, theatre kids and college students can be cocky — I should know, I’ve been both — and Pasek and Paul weren’t satisfied. So they decided to write their own show, Edges, about their experience. After all, when you write the show yourself, you can have whatever role you want.

Ask most people today, and they’ve never heard of Edges. And it’s mostly theatre buffs who know the names Pasek and Paul. But their other works are a different story.

La La Land. Dear Evan Hansen. The Greatest Showman.

The accolades are piling up for the pair. They’ve won Golden Globes, Oscars, Grammys and Tonys — a meteoric rise for two guys who graduated only a decade ago.

And while Pasek and Paul are more known for their recent work, Edges — a coming-of-age song cycle written about our generation — is still a cult classic among a certain subset of college students. Edges is no slouch, either, as it won the pair a Jonathan Larson Award (named after the late Rent composer) at the age of 19 — the youngest to ever win.

This week, we, too, can return to Pasek and Paul’s roots and be transported into a world not so different from our own.

I wonder what Pasek and Paul, the 19-year-old theatre “rejects,” would think if you told them that in 2018, their story would almost seem like one right out of a musical — the cocky youth, the show-within-a-show, their rise to the top.

And I don’t know about you, but I want to see where it all began.

Edges, presented by the Penny Seats Theatre Company, runs at the Kerrytown Concert House February 8-9 and 14-16 at 8 PM and February 11 at 4 PM. Tickets are $15 general admission online or at the door, or free with a Passport to the Arts.

REVIEW: Dancing Globally

Laura Dzubay Leave a comment

Before Dancing Globally, I hadn’t been to a modern dance performance in years. It had been so long that I honestly couldn’t really even remember what to expect. When the lights dimmed, I looked over at my friend in the darkness and grinned, with the excited feeling of being on the first side of a mystery.

As soon as the curtains opened, both of us could tell we were in for something exciting. The first performance, probably my favorite of the four, featured a semicircle of dancers wearing suits. Each dancer had a chair that they used as kind of a prop, and throughout most of the performance, hardly anyone moved very far away from their chair. This is part of what made the choreography so creative: not only were they interacting with the chairs in unique ways, they also managed to make it feel as though they were interacting with each other—and with us, the audience.

My favorite part, though, was the suit aspect. Throughout the performance, they removed aspects of the suit one by one—the jacket, the hat, even the pants—all except for one standalone dancer at the very edge.

The costumes ended up being a standout part of the entire night; the third piece, for instance, was completely different, but still striking in part because of its visual aspect. The dancers were performing against a backdrop of projected flowers, and they all wore vibrant, colorful outfits. This gave me the semi-subconscious impression that maybe the dancers themselves were meant to represent flowers, or something like flowers. This interpretation was reinforced toward the end, when three of the dancers stood under a stream of water that looked like an actual spring from the natural world, transplanted onto the stage.

The final piece was definitely more somber than the rest, with shaded, semi-uniform costumes and dim, melancholic lighting. However, it was still entrancing to watch, in part due to the constantly shifting nature of the choreography and the “scene” unfolding on the stage. It was definitely a powerful closing piece for the night.

Dancing Globally was a welcome representation of the work being done in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, in part because of its sheer variety and in part because of the balance it was able to strike between engaging and thought-provoking. Overall, the night was definitely a success, and I look forward to attending more dance performances in the future.

REVIEW: Kuinka

Abbey Rose Leave a comment
                                           Kuinka

The Accidentals, a quirky trio out of northern Michigan, opened tonight’s performances at The Ark. A violin, guitar, and percussive element gave way to an evening of diversion for a room full of Ann Arbor folk.

Like first stepping into a hot tub, I paused before allowing myself to fully understand and accept such a hard-to-pin-down genre as presented by The Accidentals. When I listen to a group I have never heard before, my first instinct is to liken them to a band I am already familiar with.

When I was unable to do so after the first few songs, I was puzzled yet intrigued. As their set picked up in tempo, I developed a newfound liking for their style and a respect for their distinctive sound.

Kuinka, the main act of the evening, was absolutely remarkable. Kuinka embodied all that is good in music: well-blended harmonies, stringed instruments, and a wholesome, happy energy.

I was impressed by Kuinka’s ability to pull off a quieter, acoustic, and raw sound in addition to their strong, loud, and lively numbers of the night. Their members are multitalented and, and they are a band worth your attention and time.

REVIEW: They, Themself, and Schmerm

tintinj Leave a comment

Like performer Becca Blackwell, it’s hard to define They, Themself, and Schmerm as a specific “type” of performance. Like a stand up comedy special, it’s funny, observational and at times, oddly insightful; but, unlike a regular gig, Blackwell’s narrative highlights scenes from their entire life, like a cohesive, revealing, well-told memoir.

Blackwell’s performance is an attempt to connect the dots in their sexual identity, both for themselves and their audience. They questioned the origins of their queerness (“I wasn’t aware I was a girl between ages 0 to 3” “What makes a man? I acted like a boy, I looked like one, the only thing I didn’t have was a penis.” ). They prodded at their impressions of binary gendered people (“before I took testosterone, men were just shades of grey, obstacles that got in the way of women”). They broke down their insecurities in public life (“I hated the men’s room- there were all these unfamiliar sounds and sights–I had to turn my feet this way and that to pretend I was peeing standing up”). And they shared their various roles in other people’s lives, like when Blackwell was cornered into a mother figure for a niece because the rest of the men “blanked out.”

Blackwell’s delivery is raw and honest. One of my favorite parts of the show was Blackwell’s use of “Blerrgghh” (while jutting out their head and wiggling their fingers) to refer to her femininity. It’s an honest portrayal of the interwoven confusion, annoyance, lust, unpredictability, and fear of the vagina and female hormones. It’s also a metaphor for the confusion that comes with figuring out who we are, who we love/lust, and why we love.

After a dive into their engaging stories, I came out with a better sense of the complexity of gender identity as well as its salience, in the form of socially awkward and even dangerous moments, for people who don’t conform to the binary standard. And it’s resonant, not only with people who are involved in the LGBTQ+ community or remotely identify themselves as such, but also with those who claim to be part of the more mainstream identities. The innocent questions that were brought up in Schmerm were definitely in my head at some point of my life, but I didn’t have enough of the curiosity nor the courage to follow it up even further. And I’m certainly not alone in this. Schmerm is a call to acknowledge, appreciate, and question without fear, the uniqueness of our own identities.

“A schmerm is a schmear of gender. It is basically the sound that people make as they try to figure my gender out.”- Blackwell in a short opening video.