Tag: SMTD

REVIEW: Clown Show

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Each year a class through the SMTD Department of Theater teaches clown, a form of theatrical physical comedy. This course is taught by Professor Malcolm Tulip and comprises of many senior theater majors. Their final performance of the semester was performed in the Arthur Miller Theater on December 11th in a room of rambunctious peers and overlooked members of the community. My expectations for a clown show were previously unclear, but I have found a newfound respect for the art form from this fanciful, erratic performance.

Our modern perception of clowns is strongly associated with “circus clowns”, but the jesters have taken many forms throughout history. Clowns can be dated as far back as 2400 BC in Egypt. The art form has modified itself over centuries and existed uniquely in many cultures such as Early Roman and Greek jesters, Chinese jesters (most notably in the Han dynasty), Europe in the early 1800s (with the famous Joseph Grimaldi), and the 19th Century North American circus clowns. More about clowns is linked below.

At the top of the clown show, each clown introduced themselves with a small routine. Then,` they paired up to offer small vignettes starring their established characters. The vignettes included themes like, “Grocery Store”, “Treasure Hunt”, or “How We First Met”. Each routine was situationally unique, yet maintained the clown’s persona introduced at the beginning. They performed while pantomiming most “props and set pieces”, sometimes speaking to each other, sometimes silent.

These actors were effortlessly hysterical, and the audience remained responsive. They were fearless and remained intensely committed to their choices. Each student cultivated a genuine extension of themselves through a whimsical and highly physicalized filter. The clowns wore costumes reflective of their character with, of course, the beaming red nose. No two were alike in the slightest, each offering selective mannerisms. The troupe created a fanciful and utterly unique theatrical space within Arthur Miller, destigmatizing the often misunderstood art of clowns. 

 

More on Clowns Here: 

Clown and Theater 

Clowns: History and Mythology

 

Image taken during the 12/11/23 Clown Show.

REVIEW: Imogen Says Nothing

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Imogen Says Nothing by Aditi Kapil is a spinoff story of the character Imogen in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. She’s a character some have interpreted as a typo because she says nothing. However, Kapil turns this character, who serves no purpose in the original, into the main character of a “revisionist comedy in verse and prose” that SMTD describes on their website as a “feminist hijacking of Shakespeare that investigates the voices that have long been absent from the theatrical canon and the consequences of cutting them.” It highlights how women have historically been only seen as an image and deprived of their words. The play not only puts a big emphasis on the power of speech but the power of writing too. 

The premise is a bit confusing: Imogen is a bear disguised as a woman and has been living as a woman for a few years. She travels outside of her small village to the bigger cities and along the way gets dragged onto the stage in the middle of a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. In Elizabethan England, all female characters were played by men because only men were allowed to act. As a result, Imogen has to pretend to be a man playing a woman, and that woman is Imogen herself. In other words, she’s a bear disguised as a woman who pretends to be a man acting out a woman.

It has heavy themes of violence and animal abuse and there are explicit drinking and sex scenes. Furthermore, Imogen is constantly degraded for being female and fat; she even says that her only talent is “whoring”. When she is praised, it’s for her ability to make others laugh but it’s usually because she’s mocked for her background and intelligence. 

Nevertheless, it’s still a comedy and masks the darker content with humor and fun character dynamics. My favorite character was Nicholas Tooley; in the beginning, others always teased him because he was so innocent and pure, but in the end, he was so sassy and dramatic. It was also really funny when there were modern versions of objects on set. For example, for the alcohol they used White Claw, and when checking their contact information they would pull out their cell phones. 

Overall, I highly recommend watching it. It’s a play that’s hard to grasp but fascinating, especially the ending which was the best part. It took a sudden abstract twist that circled back to the underlying message with a single chilling line directed at the audience: “Exit man.” 

REVIEW: SMTD Jazz Ensembles Concert

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The University of Michigan SMTD jazz bands came together last Thursday night to present a double-bill performance containing early jazz music, student arrangements, and classic big band repertoire. The two ensembles are led by Chris Smith (Early Jazz Ens.) and Dennis Wilson (Jazz Lab Ens.). This musically diverse concert contained a wide spectrum of jazz music.

The first hour and a half of this concert showcased 13 tunes, most of which were transcribed and arranged by Chris Smith, the interim band leader. None of these tunes were written any later than 1929, which intrinsically implies a specific style. The band was sensitive to the ensemble sound and rendered nuanced improvisational solos that supported the style. Two band members from the horn line (Callum Roberts and Houston Patton) lifted their voices in song during the tunes “Mr. Jelly Roll”, and “Six or Seven Times”. The audience adored this unexpected performance.

The Lab Band brought us back for the second half of the concert. The band’s repertoire was developed 10-20+ years later than the early jazz set, bringing a much different sound into the mix. They included two student arrangements: “This Little Light of Mine” arr. by Gavin Ard and “Dinah” arr. by Liam Charron. Both arrangements were equally impressive and enchanting—it’s inspiring to see such polished original student work within SMTD ensembles. 

The Lab Band later featured singer Stephanie Reuning-Scherer on the tune “The Song is You”. Ms. Reuning-Scherer wonderfully adhered to the jazz style and was a satisfying performer to watch. It is wonderful to hear vocalists with the jazz bands continuing the tradition of vocal jazz in community settings. 

The final song of the concert was a world-premiere piece written by director Dennis Wilson, entitled “Rhythms From The Flint Hills”. Additional players joined in, including tablas, bassoon, violin, flute, and electric bass. This was a long and harmonically complex work and offered a unique sound texture that contrasted the music before the concert.

The entirety of the performance allowed the audience to indulge in a historical journey through jazz history, including compositions spanning over 100 years of music.

There are numerous events around campus hosting jazz music. The Blue Bop Jazz Orchestra’s annual holiday concert is on Friday, December 8th at 6 pm in the Michigan League Ballroom. The next concert for the SMTD Jazz Ensemble will be back at Rackham on February 20th at 8p.  

 

 

Image thanks to @UMICHSMTD on Instagram.

REVIEW: Complete Solo Violin Sonatas of Eugene Ysaÿe Presented by SMTD Violinists

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To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for the violin, 13 students studying under Professors Danielle Belen, Aaron Berofsky, David Halen, and Fabiola Kim gave an outstanding performance of the complete set on Monday, November 20th in the Stamps Auditorium on North Campus.

The violin is most commonly seen in an orchestra or accompanied by a pianist. Ysaÿe’s sonatas, however, only showcase the violin. His work highlights the raw beauty and power a talented musician can bring out of such a small instrument. The music made full use of what the violin has to offer through double stops, chords, harmonics, and more, all techniques difficult to master because the slightest tilt of the bow or millimeter difference between the fingers can taint the sound. When Professor Belen and Professor Kim opened the event, they said this was a rare performance only made possible because of the talent that SMTD has.

It was my first time listening to Ysaÿe’s sonatas except for a brief video clip I saw of Maxim Vengerov playing a passage in Sonata No. 3 in D minor, “Ballade,” op.27. It’s a gorgeous movement that has a consistent melodic theme with different variations, but unlike Vengerov’s fierce interpretation, the student soloist Yuchen Cao had a much more gentle and relaxed approach, almost as if he were stroking the strings with his bow.

Sonata No. 2 in A minor, op. 27 had a few elements that pleasantly surprised me. In the II movement, Malinconia, the soloist uses a mute, a tool that string players put on the bridge of their instrument to create a fuzzier sound. Similarly, the III movement, Danse des Ombres, began with pizzicato, a technique where the player strums the strings with their fingers. Both were fun and interesting additions that contrasted the heavier or brighter music that violinists tend to emphasize in solo works.

The last act performed by Tianyu Lin simply blew me away. His technique, the vibrato, the intonation, and the tone, were perfect, making his double stops and chords beautifully ring and synchronize. The precision he had when scaling the fingerboard from its lowest to the highest range was flawless. I honestly feel like I was more enamored by his skill and talent than the music.

Symphonies and concertos are all lovely, but it was a nice change of pace to listen to a collection of Sonatas live. I’ve always been aware that the music department at UofM is top-tier, but this event let the individuals who make up the department shine.

REVIEW: Accidental Death of an Anarchist

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November 16-18 was the showing of Mirit Skeen’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Each directing major is tasked with directing a full-length show during their senior year, and this play was chosen and directed by Mirit Skeen in fulfillment of the requirement. ADOAA is a political farce written by Dario Fo and translated into English by Ed Emory. First performed in 1970 in Italy, it’s a timely tale of the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli while being interrogated by the police. 

As an admirer of Mirit Skeen’s directing work, this was no disappointment. This piece is not for the faint of heart, and a huge work to tackle in just a few weeks. There are moments when I come across performances at SMTD that remind me of the incredibly high level of art we are surrounded by. This was one of those moments. Hailing from one of the best music and theater schools in the country, it is a gift to see peers and colleagues at work creating inventive works of art. 

The cast consisted of 6 actors including Nathan Goldberg (BFA 24′), Lenin Izquierdo (BFA 24′), Jalen Steudle (BFA 24′), Jack Weaver (BFA 24′), Hannah Gansert (BFA 25′), Casey Wilcox (BFA 24′). With a seasoned troupe of actors, each character was thoughtfully produced and executed. Some moments indulged absolute clownery—and those were the audience favorites. The energy brought by the actors was reciprocated by the 11 pm audience. 

Historically, it was unknown if Pinelli’s death was a suicide or a framed murder. The police claimed the death was a result of suicide or an unconscious fall. The judge ruled it as an “accidental death”. However, evidence later supported the event to be a cover-up aimed to avoid investigation and obscure complacency with the guilty neofascist groups. These groups were working to impede the spread of communism, labor, rights, and political decent. Four of the characters in the play are police officers aiming to close and cover up the case (all with unique personalities and intentions). The character of the Maniac (Weaver) infiltrates the inner workings of the corrupt system, using an archetypal clown-like persona to critique the flawed investigation. This included the Maniac breaking the fourth wall, revealing the innate relevance of the piece to the audience.

There was a note from the dramaturgy team (Naomi Parr and Ty Amsterdam) that particularly spoke to me moments after seeing the show: “Perhaps there’s a comfort to be found in 2023 that we are not alone in grappling with staggering polarization, rampant disinformation, and the complexities of responding to terror. Even while democracy dies in darkness and the truth is more important now than ever, perhaps we can turn back to the court jesters to speak truth to power. Or if nothing else, at least we can revel in a Maniac in public office whose term limits start at lights up and end at curtain call.” I appreciated this brilliant inscription from the team, and it encapsulates precisely the message transmitted through Mirit’s direction. 

Next from the SMTD Department of Theater is Imogen Says Nothing, a hilarious feminist hijacking of Shakespeare. This Aditi Kapil play will be performed at the Power Center from November 30th-December 3rd.

 

 

Image thanks to Mirit Skeen on Instagram.

REVIEW: Beethoven’s Mass in C Major

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The evening of November 16th at Hill Auditorium allowed for a beautiful night of music from the University of Michigan’s SMTD Choirs. University Choir, Orpheus Singers, and Chamber Choir dazzled audiences with Beethoven’s Mass in C major, Op 86. This performance was conducted by Eugene Rogers and featured many soloists from the chorus.

The majority of this was performed by the Chamber Choir, with additional support from Orpheus Singers and the University Choir joining during grandiose moments. The Chamber Choir is the most advanced choir at the University, featuring some of the best singers in Ann Arbor. [From smtd.umich.edu] “The Chamber Choir performs 6-8 concerts annually in both Hill Auditorium and in special settings, such as the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), and is often featured at high profile U-M special events. The Chamber Choir has been featured on GRAMMY-winning and GRAMMY-nominated albums; sung with the Detroit and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestras; performed at conventions of the ACDA and NCCO; and has toured internationally. They perform standard, classical, and contemporary choral works and often perform commissioned works in world premieres.” They remain a high-profile collegiate choir with free concerts throughout the year! 

The orchestra that played this evening with the choir was lovely. A full choir performing with an orchestra is always a treat—the sound was unmatched. The combined choirs emit a mighty sound, with well over 100 singers from the music school present.  I appreciated the sound provided by the space in Hill Auditorium—it was properly fitting for the group. The blend was well-balanced from the balcony, and I received most of the Latin diction throughout. The work sounded regal in its orchestration, which was fitting for the period and intention.

I’d like to name each soloist from the mass to commend them for fantastic work: Tyler Middleton (MM 25), Amante Pando Girard (BM 24), Juliet Schleffer (MM 24), Amber Rogers (MM 25), Bryan Ijames (DMA Choral Conducting), Jabari Lewis (MM Vocal Performance 25), Genevieve Welsh (MM Choral Conducting 24), Pelagia Pamel (BM Voice 24). Each voice dazzled through the orchestra’s texture, presenting a nuanced sound to the traditional work. I admired their preparation and stamina throughout the performance!

I appreciate Dr. Roger’s thoughtful selections for the choirs, I always find them appropriate and culturally educational. This performance wraps up the 2023 season for the SMTD Choirs. They will be back in January performing at The School of Music, Theater, and Dance’s biggest event of the year, Collage. This will take place on January 20th at 8 pm, in the historic Hill Auditorium. This annual concert is a showcase of all the brilliant work throughout SMTD. It is a “collage” of the music student’s “collage” experience, if you will. It is a highly anticipated event throughout the community and often attracts over 3000 audience members. Get your tickets early!

 

 

 

Image thanks to The University of Michigan’s SMTD Livestream.