This weekend, take a journey “Under the Sea” with the University of Michigan’s School of Music Theatre & Dance at the Power Center! The Little Mermaid will awaken the child in all who see this Disney classic. Those who didn’t grow up with this princess will still surely fall in love with the story, the characters like Flounder and Sebastian, and songs such as “Kiss the Girl” and “Part of Your World”.
The Little Mermaid is the tale of a young mermaid named Ariel who wants to adventure into the human world, but her father King Triton won’t allow her since it is too dangerous. Ariel saves Prince Eric after he falls off of his ship, and falls desperately in love with him. So in love that she trades her voice for legs with the evil sea witch Ursula. Ariel finally gets the chance to experience human life! She gets help from her beloved friends, Flounder the fish and Sebastian the crab, along the way. The only catch is that she must kiss the prince within 72 hours or else she will lose her voice, and her freedom to Ursula forever.
The Little Mermaid can be seen Thursday April 13 at 7:30pm, Friday April 14 at 8pm, and Saturday and Sunday April 15-16 at 2pm. Tickets are on sale now: Reserved seating $26-$32 and Students $12 with ID.
Ticket information can be found at: http://tickets.music.umich.edu/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=3001
Sitting in the audience of the Power Center, I soon realized how distant this show was from any previous theater experiences I’d had before. The show began looking into the set of a vaguely warehouse-esque room with a column in the middle, and the first thing to happen was the movement of electrical cords, spreading apart to opposite ends of the stage. Almost ghost-like, they seemed to move on their own accord and there was no indication where the movement was coming from. This first minute was when I began to question what I had entered into for the next two hours. As I searched for words and footholds into this piece, something to describe and relate to it, the closest mainstream theater description I could find became the musical Chicago meets psychological-thriller-horror-movie. Think jazz numbers and spangled costumes mixed with the anticipation of brutal plot twists and fear. The lack of footholds to grasp onto in the piece, though, seems characteristic of new age-y modern expressionism. It is the interiority of the creator depicted onto the stage, meant to make the audience think and contemplate, not merely for surface-level enjoyment. A potential, and possibly more accessible, dance comparison that kept coming to mind throughout the performance was the “Slip” video that circulated the internet about while ago.
Both the slippery, interconnected choreography and the eery industrial set (with flickering fluorescents and all) is quite similar in style to that of Betroffenheit. The first act of the production mixed theater and dance together, with very little dialogue. In a premonitory twist, a strobe-light warning was issued before the show began; as it progressed, the production itself became a strobe effect. A bombardment of the senses, I continually felt that just as I had regained my balance and was beginning to understand, I was quickly thrown off, left reeling and scrambling back into the show.
Image c/o Kidd Pivot
The show was an exploration in the experience of trauma, and though it held the aforementioned eery quality, it was not exclusively a dark production. A bright and exciting cha cha-esque number was thrown in, along with a series of tap and vaudevillian pieces.
The second act was more of a dance production than theater, focusing on the choreography of Crystal Pite. Her work in Betroffenheit was mesmerizing; almost pedestrian with liquid-like partnering work that featured the breadth and skill of the performers more so than the first act had. While I struggled to grip and understand the first act’s interpretation and representation of emotional exploration, I loved the emotion and expression through the choreography.
Image c/o UMS
As I listened to the reactions of those sitting around me, many people were in love with Kidd Pivot and the Electric Company’s work. Many also seemed as though this style of performance was not outside their wheelhouse. Betroffenheit, from my interpretation, seemed like a show best suited for those saturated within the dance and experimental performance community – those who are constantly looking at and working with this genre of material. While I, as an outsider, could appreciate and enjoy pieces of it, I feel as though the powerful and soul-stirring impact was somewhat lost on my uninstructed-self.
The name Kidd Pivot and the Electric Company itself intrigued me enough as I flipped through UMS performances. Unless you speak German (I don’t), the title Betroffenheit does not give away any hints as to what the performance consists of. A German expression meaning deep-rooted shock and bewilderment, the performance combines theater and dance to explore the experiences of tragedy and loss. While it appears to be deep, dark, and eerie, comment after comment on the show’s previous performances contains the repeated message of the show’s compelling, powerful, and life-changing qualities. While I’ve fought through my background knowledge in theater performances to find anything to compare the looks of Betroffenheit to, I’ve come up blank. Betroffenheit appears to be like no other performance I’ve (and possibly you, unless you’re adventurous with your theater) ever seen before.
Ping Chong + Company spend hours interviewing volunteers for their “undesirable elements” series. For Beyond Sacred, they chose 5 Muslim New Yorkers.
All five of these individuals came to the stage, sat down, and began reading autiobiographical scripts.
We heard from Tiffany Yasmin Abdelghani, a woman whose Muslim father stopped practicing and when prompted about the faith told her “I don’t do that anymore.” Lost for many years, she sought out Islam on her own and chose to convert and wear the hijab.
Ferdous Dehqan emigrated from Afghanistan to escape the destruction caused by the Taliban as it swept through the country. He expressed his frustration at people when they see him and assume he is a terrorist, when he hates the Taliban just as much, if not more the average American.
Kadin Herring brought with him the perspective of a young, African-American queer man. Not only does he have to contend with anti-immigrant and questions about his faith and allegiance to his country, but he also has to face the daily struggles of being a black man in the United States.
Amir Khafagy described his upbringing caught somewhere between Arab and Puerto Rican culture, as well as his experiences with class struggles.
Maya Syed told us about her path to becoming a human rights and gender equity advocate, from volunteering for the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic to helping immigrants understand their rights in New York.
Beyond Sacred was different from any other play I had experienced before because it involved real people telling real stories–no actors and no fabricated scripts.
The overall message from the night was something along the lines of “minorities are regular people too.” All of the actors expressed frustration at constantly being asked questions about Islam or terrorism, and about all the looks they receive from people on a daily basis.
Furthermore, the actors explained how they felt they had to act as model Muslims as a way of overcompensating for the perceived violent nature of Muslims by much of the world. Lumping all Islamic cultures together is also ridiculous, they added, pointing out that Indonesia is nothing like Saudi Arabia, which is nothing like North Sudan.
After attending an event like this, I wondered what it would have been like hearing professional actors read the same scripts. I have to admit that I think professional actors would have done better, and made for a more moving performance. Instead, I left the event feeling like something was missing. A little over an hour was all we had to hear the stories of five complex people. How could that ever be enough time?
I wish I could’ve recorded the performance. Luckily, here’s a link to a brief audio snippet.
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.
