This Saturday, April 15, the University of Michigan’s Men’s Glee Club will be performing a concert titled Our Victory and Pride: Singing in the Key of Michigan Since 1859. Continuing the celebration of the bicentennial, the Men’s Glee Club will sing songs that pay tribute to, not only our wonderful state, but also the brilliant composers of Michigan. I even read that they will be premiering a new Michigan song, written by Professor Kristin Kuster.
The Men’s Glee Club Concert will take place at Hill Auditorium at 8pm. Tickets are on sale now, between $5-$20 depending on seating. For ticket information, visit: http://tickets.music.umich.edu/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=3005.
If you have ever felt the pride of being a Michigan Wolverine, being at this event magnified that feeling by 100%. True Blue! A Tribute to Michigan brought together those who share the love and passion of two colors: maize and blue. Some of the biggest celebrities were on the stage of Hill Auditorium, telling their stories of their time at the University of Michigan, and everything that they have accomplished after graduating with a U of M diploma.
Tribute to Ann Arbor squirrels (Photo Credit: Matt Weigand)
There were so many amazing performances that I will do an overview. Many videos were played throughout the night including ones of the history of U of M, the Diag, the Ann Arbor squirrels (my personal favorite), U of M couples, Bo Schembechler’s “The Team” speech, U of M professors, and the alumni.
“The Victors” performed by the Department of Musical Theatre Majors (Photo Credit: Scott C. Soderberg)
The Jazz Ensemble played a nice medley of “Michigan Through the Ages”. The Department of Musical Theatre Majors did a stunning rendition of “The Victors” that definitely made me tear up a little as I felt the pride of being a Michigan wolverine. The Department of Theatre & Drama Acting Majors performed multiple pieces such as “Catholepistemiad Rap” about the history of U of M, “Clarence Darrow and the Ossian Sweet Trial” alongside Emeritus Professor of Voice George Shirley, and “Tribute to Activism”. The Michigan Men’s Glee Club sang a chilling “Glory” from the movie Selma and “I Remember, My Michigan”. The Contemporary Directions Ensemble played multiple pieces such as “The Little Victors”, “Concerto for Two Violins”, “Back to Michigan”, and the cellists played a “Tribute to Raoul Wallenberg”.
The Friars and Theatre & Drama Acting Majors in the tribute to the Engineering Arch (Photo Credit: Matt Weigand)
The Friars made an appearance to sing “In the Still of the Night” as a hilarious tribute to the Engineering Arch, in which Theatre & Drama Acting majors acted out couples walking through the “arch”. The Department of Dance Troupe performed “The Little Victors”. The RFD Boys, alumni of U of M, played a “Michigan Medley”. Multiple professors spoke such as Ralph Williams, Kathleen Sienko, and also the chair of the Department of Neurosurgery Dr. Karin Muraszko. “The University” was sung by the University Chamber Choir. Shortly after, the Michigan Marching Band flooded the stage performing all of the classics: “Victors Valiant”, “The Yellow and Blue”, and “Michigan Fanfare and The Victors”.
Emcee Darren Criss (Photo Credit: Robert Buechler)
The emcees included actors Darren Criss and Jacqueline Tobini, neurosurgeon and medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and NBC sportscaster Andrea Joyce, all of which are U of M alumni. Other famous alumni speakers included: Civil Rights activist Cecilia Munoz, mayor of Ann Arbor Christopher Taylor, sports legends Desmond Howard and Jim Harbaugh, Broadway producer
Alumni and football legend Desmond Howard with other U-M sports legends onstage (Photo Credit: Scott C. Soderberg)
Jeffrey Seller, space explorers Afred Worder, Kiko Dontchev, Steve Walton, Mike Hess, and Hashmita Koka, Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Americans Committed to World Responsibility Judy Guskin, and of course U of M’s President Dr. Mark Schlissel.
This event was absolutely extraordinary and I couldn’t be more proud to be a wolverine! Go Blue!!!
Football coach and alumni Jim Harbaugh (Photo Credit: Matt Weigand)
Upcoming Bicentennial events include:
June 26 & October 26: President’s Bicentennial Colloquia
On the night of Wednesday the 29th, sixteen students affiliated with the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program (current and alumni) stepped up in front of a full crowd in Lloyd’s Barner Lounge of other LHSP students and staff to read poetry. There was a mix of nine original works with seven interpretive works of other poets, and altogether, it was a great night of poetry. Out of respect for the original works, I do not have any lines from those pieces, but will link to the interpretive pieces as available.
I (to my own surprise) started the night off with current UM professor Laura Kasischke’s “Game,” but I couldn’t objectively tell you how my performance went due to forgetting some of my memorized lines. Regardless, one of my favorite parts of the piece reads: “She shouted my name, which, even as a child I knew was not ‘Stop. Please. I’m Dying.'” Next, current LHSP student leader Rhea Cheeti recited Lily Myers’ “Shrinking Women” with a powerful voice to mimic the powerful words.
Original works interweaved nicely with interpretive works: after a few interpretive pieces, students read their own original works. One of the earlier yet highly notable original pieces was Mary Oseguera’s “They don’t call it Mexi-coke in Mexico,” a gorgeously written piece with a refrain on the speaker’s experience with the descriptor “Hispanic.” My description of her piece wouldn’t dare come close to how amazing her words and recitation were. Alyson Grigsby read a piece “pages 131-133) from Claudia Rankine’s incredible book Citizen, one of the most important works of American poetry available to the public today:
“You imagine if the man spoke to you he would say, it’s okay, I’m okay, you don’t need to sit here. You don’t need to sit and you sit and look past him into the darkness the train is moving through. A tunnel. / All the while the darkness allows you to look at him. Does he feel you looking at him? You suspect so. What does suspicion mean? What does suspicion do?”
Next, a few students read their original works and Josh Segal read Rachel McKibbens’ “Selachimorpha.” Another one of my personal favorites was Hannah Rhodenhiser’s “I Wrote You A Poem for Christmas,” a refreshing love poem. It made my heart smile, and I hope it made the rest of the audience feel just as warm. Olivia Anderson read “On the Corner of Ann and Observatory,” which had a mysterious feel to it despite the title being located where we all sat in that moment. Allison Taylor’s “Poison” was a treat for the audience – instead of just reading the poem, she sang it while playing her acoustic guitar. Her talents are real.
Dhriti Deb read “The Gaffe” by CK Williams and before Dominique Witten closed the event with an original piece titled “They are not Children,” Laura Dzubay read Katie Makkai’s “Pretty.”
The event was excellent and, as advertised, full of poetry. Original works were plentiful and strong – as were the voices of their writers. As for the students who interpreted works by other poets, I was impressed. Their voices and performative skills were impeccable, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to everybody’s works and being in a setting devoted to the enjoyment of poetry.
Winners will be announced on April 12th, at LHSP’s End-Of-Year Festival (or more recently referred to as LHSP’S LHSP: Last Hurrah for Student Projects, coined by the performance event’s emcee, Emily Miu) held at Couzens. I’m looking forward to seeing the joy on the winners’ faces, whoever they may be!
Looking for something to do this weekend? Look no further! Beethoven is coming to Hill Auditorium on Saturday! Well… Maybe not Beethoven himself. But the UMS Choral Union and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra are coming together, conducted by Scott Hanoian, to perform Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis”!
Photo Credit: Peter Smith (UMS Website)
This performance will take place at Hill Auditorium on Saturday, March 11 at 8pm. Tickets are on sale now at the UMS website for $12 – $36 (depending on seating). For more information, visit: http://ums.org/performance/beethovens-missa-solemnis/.
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.
I had heard rumblings that the night’s guest would draw a larger crowd than usual but I wasn’t prepared for how large the crowd might be. As we filed into the theater from the packed lobby area, it was difficult to find an ideal seating spot. This presentation was co-presented with the University of Michigan International Institute’s Conflict and Peace initiative, and the official Stamps website contains a full list of the sponsors for the night.
Tonight’s event was not a formal speech, but more of an open discussion between the guest Joe Sacco and a host from the International Institute’s Conflict and Peace Initiative. As the discussion proceeded different images of Sacco’s work were projected onto the screen behind them, and while switching from photo to photo could be highly distracting it was a nice visual supplement to the presentation, and often was used as a conversation point.
Joe Sacco, as we gradually came to know throughout the course of the talk, had originally received a degree in journalism at the University of Oregon, before finding that creating comics was both a way to indulge in his passion for art and to reach a wider audience that are put off by long history books and dense articles. He approaches his subject matter in the same way a war correspondent might. He traveled the world, and his very first comic, Palestine, was directly based off of his personal travels through Israel and the West Bank. Some of his award-winning works include Footnotes in Gaza, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt and Safe Area Gorazde. He is highly regarded by comic lovers and news junkies alike for his careful research and thoughtful approach to delicate and politically charged subjects.
When asked what inspired his work and the topics he chooses to work on, Joe Sacco responded quite succinctly that anger above all else was the driving force behind his comics. He looked for topics that created a sense of frustration or injustice in him, and just as importantly ones that he would maintain a passion for the many years that it takes to finish a single piece. He also discussed his dislike of the word “graphic novels,” because of how his works are not novels despite fitting under that subcategory. He admits, however, that the word is here to stay and will use it himself when describing his occupation to others.
One of the very first panels from “The Great Wall”
One piece that was discussed quite thoroughly was Sacco’s 24-foot-long graphic tableau “The Great War.” Sacco spoke briefly about how fascinated he was with World War I while growing up in Australia, where that war takes up a large part of their cultural identity. His inspiration for this specific piece was The Bayeux Tapestry, and he wanted to create a similar narrative scroll that told a story when read from left to right.
middle segment of “The Great War”
As an artist, I also found the discussion of the artistic styles to be quite interesting. Sacco talked briefly about his upcoming project and how he will be turning traditional comic styles on their head in order to better convey the meaning and message that he wants to. He’s working on a project about the indigenous peoples of Canada, and as such is experimenting with creating comics with no borders and an aesthetic style that focuses heavily on nature and natural forms. He believes this will better fit the ideology and tone of the work itself, as the groups he will be focusing on have a specific way of thinking about nature.
Panel from his book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt”
As the crowds streamed out of the theater and into the brisk night air, we were once again greeted with live music. A long line of people waiting for autographs trailed up the staircase to the second balcony, further proving the popularity of tonight’s speaker.
If you would like to check out more of Joe Sacco’s work you can purchase many of his books from amazon here. The STAMPS speaker series is free to the public and is free to the public and is offered every Thursday at 5:10 at the Michigan Theater. You can find a full list of the upcoming speakers here.
