Ever been to a Classical Orchestra concert where the musicians are in costumes, the conductors are in costume, and the audience is in costume?! If you answered no, then you haven’t been to the annual School of Music, Theater, and Dance Halloween Concert. This Sunday, October 30th, 2011, at 4:00pm and 7:30pm, in Hill Auditorum, the orchestras of the University of Michigan will come together to provide a show that will keep everyone entertained. Excerpts from standard orchestral works will be presented  in a far less serious context than your usual Orchestral Performance. Student tickets to this event are $5. From someone who has attended for the past two years, you won’t want to miss this!

From the moment I heard “Wheels of a Dream” from my beat-up, library copy of the soundtrack from the musical Ragtime, I was an Audra McDonald fan. I was so inspired by her vocals in that song in particular, although it’s only one of her many shining moments, I would actually listen to it on the way to my tennis tournaments in high school. When I heard this four-time Tony award winner was coming to Ann Arbor, I bought my tickets within the minute of replying to my friend’s text and placing my order online. The University Musical Society describes McDonald as “a restlessly creative spirit who is reluctant to be typecast strictly as a musical theater artist, despite her enormous success in that genre.” Some of her other work, as listed on Wikipedia, includes: Carousel (1994), A Raisin in the Sun (2008), and currently as Bess in Porgy and Bess on Broadway this season. It is sure to be a phenomenal performance and I hope you can all attend!

And just to share how epic that song I mentioned is, here’s a link to Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald singing “Wheels of a Dream,” enjoy!

How many of you readers know who Boyce Avenue is? I was pleasantly surprised when I got to EMU’s Pease Auditorium last night at how many people are Boyce Avenue fans–the place was packed! I saw them in concert last spring at The Blind Pig, a much smaller venue, so it was awesome to see how their fan base has grown in the past six months. For those of you who don’t know who they are, Boyce Avenue is a band comprised of three Puerto Rican-American brothers from Florida–Alejandro, Daniel and Fabian Manzano. Alejandro is the dreamy lead singer… I think its all in the name! Anyway, they started out singing acoustic covers of popular songs  and posting videos of their studio performances on Youtube. That’s how I found out about them, from their sweet and romantic renditions of “Only Girl” by Rihanna, and “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry. Check out their Youtube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/boyceavenue.

The concert last night got off to a slow start, with two opening acts for Boyce Avenue. The first was Alex Goot, a kid in a t-shirt, flannel, and glasses who played a mean piano. I enjoyed hearing him play, however I wasn’t a big fan of his original songs–not bad, but not great either. A bit too teenie-bopper for my taste. But, here’s his Youtube page if you want to decide for yourself! http://www.youtube.com/user/gootmusic

After Alex, Green River Ordinance took the stage (with a long time waiting in between for the band to set up their own equipment!). Green River Ordinance (GRO for short) were a lot more rock n’ roll. Though again, I wasn’t crazy about any of their songs, they were really great performers, getting the crowd involved and excited. And being from Texas, the lead singer had that charming southern drawl when he spoke. They were really fun to watch! Their style was indie-rock with a little bit of country thrown in there too. What really impressed me was that they did an “unplugged” piece at the end of the performance, where they all walked away from the drums and electric guitars and microphones, quieted the audience and sang and played a country/bluegrass song at the foot of the stage with nothing but their acoustic guitar, banjo, accordion and voices. Here’s their website–check them out! http://www.greenriverordinance.com/

After Alex and GRO, I was ready for Boyce Avenue to take the stage. However, the house lights came on again and GRO took down their equipment, and some other guys came out on stage to get ready for Boyce Avenue. I grew pretty impatient. The waiting in between sets was my least favorite part of this concert. The crowd lost energy in between performances, as people shuffled out of the auditorium to use the restroom, and others sat texting on their cell phones. Finally, the lights lowered and Boyce Avenue came out strong, rocking out to one of their hits, “Tonight”.

The concert was amazing–Boyce Avenue sounds even better live than they do recorded. They are all impressive musicians as well, with incredible skills on the guitar. Though I love their original songs, I love their acoustic covers even more, so I was really excited when they played songs like “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman and “Who I Am” by The Goo Goo Dolls. My only complaint with Boyce Avenue live is that they aren’t the best at interacting with the audience, the little comedic banter that many musicians do in between songs. Alejandro is quite serious and didn’t provide much comic relief, or show us much of his personality throughout the performance. Nevertheless, the crowd was very involved, standing throughout the performance, screaming and yelling like crazy! Their performance was over too soon, so the crowd cheered for an encore–and they got one. Alejandro came back out to his keyboard first by himself, then his brothers joined after the first song. They seemed to loosen up a bit in the last few songs, and they ended the concert on a high note.

I was sad to leave the concert hall last night. I really enjoyed hearing Boyce Avenue live. Their songs are sweet and heartfelt, in no way raunchy or dirty like a lot of popular music is these days. They even change the lyrics of pop songs to make them more romantic and innocent, melting girls’ hearts who dare to listen to Alejandro’s pure voice. It was interesting to see how this manifested even in the type of people who came to the show. As we were all piling out of the auditorium and the congested parking lot, everyone was SO nice, letting other people into the line of traffic ahead of them, no pushing or shoving whatsoever–all in all, it’s good to be a Boyce Avenue fan!

The dance lover that I am, I couldn’t wait to see the unique dance company from Taiwan, The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, perform at the Power Center on Friday night. I had heard how uniquely beautiful their movement style is, due to their wide range of training in modern dance, classical ballet, tai chi, and Chinese opera movement. Though I was feeling a little under-the-weather, I pulled myself off of my futon and went to the show.

The Power Center was packed, and not long after I found my seat the lights lowered and the curtain opened to reveal a white floor, tilted so that it was higher upstage, away from the audience, swooping gradually down to meet with the black Power Center stage, making it feel throughout the performance as if the dancers would roll right down into the audience. The dance began slowly, too slowly, as the dancers took small, careful steps out onto the stage, performing miniscule movements for the first long minutes of the performance to high-pitched, eerie music that hurt my ears. When I began to wonder where the breath-taking movement was that I had been promised of the Cloud Gate dancers, they exited the stage, the music still going, leaving us all to stare awkwardly at an empty stage, wondering uncomfortably when they’re coming back.

Though I’m not sure I enjoyed or agreed with the choice to leave the stage empty for a few moments so soon in the performance, before I saw any real dancing, it did make sense in light of the overall concept of the piece, concerning Chinese calligraphy, and the white stage as a metaphor for the rice paper on which calligraphy is done. Throughout the piece there were dark “clouds” that rolled over the white floor, at various speeds and intensities, sometimes casting a shadowy grey color over the entire stage, and at other times frantically spinning black cloud-shapes over the stage as the dancers jumped and rolled on the floor in equal speed and intensity. The empty stage gave us the opportunity to appreciate this unique staging choice.

The dancers soon re-entered and the performance continued. Though there were many clear exits and entrances, breaks and shifts in the music, as well as in the style of dance–ranging from impressive slow, controlled movements of the arms cutting through space, to quick, frantic leaps and falls, rolling on the ground–these pieces flowed easily from one to the next, blurring the lines between one section of choreography and the next. Though I felt there was some story to the piece, something possibly concerning cultural history, gender, and sorrow, this story was incredibly abstract, and anything but clear, so is often the case with modern dance. Regardless of what the choreographer was intending to communicate through the movement, the piece was certainly a unique expression, with the white floor, and uniform white costumes, contrasting with the black forms projected onto the floor, and the often eerie music and mood.

Now, the ballet-trained dancer in me couldn’t help but critique the repeatedly sickled (turned-in), flexed feet, obviously a choice made by the choreographer, but annoying to me nonetheless. Maybe it’s the result of years of being told how great a sin it is to sickle your feet in ballet, but it still just looks ugly to me! I was also disappointed at the limited range of movement used in the piece. Though I am aware that dance as an art form isn’t all about doing big leaps and turns and fancy moves that impress the audience with your technique, I had heard so much about the control and expertise of these dancers’ movements, and I felt like they were capable of so much more than the choreography allowed them to show us. I felt that the movement was very repetitive, abstract, and contained.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. It was refreshing to see dance again–I miss it so much! Hearing the breath of the dancers in moments when the music was quiet, hearing their feet landing on the stage as they jumped and traveled across the floor… music to my ears. The Cloud Gate dancers are truly amazing dancers, technically and artistically. And thankfully, the performance lasted only about an hour, so I was able to go back home to my futon and sleep off my sickness–perfection!