This Friday and Saturday, the Power Center welcomes The Martha Graham Dance company. Martha Graham (1894-1991) is considered the mother of modern dance and her company is one of the oldest and most celebrated in the country. Her experimental movement methods have become the parent of a number of powerful 20th century names in the dance world. Her choreography is replete with infectious human emotion: sorrow, longing, joy, perseverance, and a reverence for the mythical. Her company’s performance at the Power Center will be moving and well worth the ticket!
The Friday and Saturday night shows differ in each program structure. The first evening will feature several short pieces while the second features two long pieces, all choreographed by Martha Graham. In addition to the show at the Power Center, there are several events that capitalize on the company’s presence in Ann Arbor. At 7:30 pm on Wednesday January 23rd, the YMCA will host a Graham technique training session. No dance experience necessary! No Y membership necessary either. Just come ready to move and learn a thing or two about the technique. Also, on Friday at 4 pm, Dance Department professors Peter Sparling and Clare Croft will hold panel discussion about Martha Graham profound impact on human expression. The talk will take place in Room 100 of the Hatcher Library.
For more information about the company, click here. For ticket info, go to ums.org or the box office at the League. See ya there!
Last weekend, the Aspen Santa Fe performed at the Power Center. It was a rainy Sunday and I spent the morning eating brunch at a hole-in-the-wall cake shop on the Old West Side called Jefferson Market and then watching the matinée performance. The indulgent outing felt both classic and obsolete: When was the last time I, a.) attended a ballet or b.) went to a matinée that was preceded by brunch on the town? My only justification was that going to the performance was required for my ballet class. But I am very glad that it was because the dance itself was truly a spectacle.
The show was visually stunning, incredibly professional, tightly rehearsed, and impressively physical. The presentation was a breath taking combination of artistry and athleticism that I have rarely seen. The costumes revealed a great deal of skin and muscle on both males and females that really made me wonder how many crunches they all do per day. Half the drama of the show was simply the chiseled appearance of their abs and buns. I’m serious.
The piece was comprised of three acts; Square None (2012), Stamping Ground (1983), and Over Glow (2011). Each act differed from the next in its score, its choreography, its costumes design, and its lighting scheme, but it was clear that they were intended to be a part of a unified, coherent performance.
The first piece used grey lighting and darker musical tones while the second used no music and bright lighting. The first two appeared to make commentary on modern culture: the first was structured around bionic, wind-up-doll-like gestures. The second was very animalistic and primitive, using the body as a drum to make rhythms rather than electronic sound. (The second piece was by far my favorite; it was the most animated, relatable, and story-like whereas the other were more theoretical and abstruse). The last piece was the prettiest, with pastel colors and graceful lifts, leaps, and pirouettes. It was lovely to watch, but was my least favorite act because it felt sort of flat in comparison to the creativity in the previous two.
One thing I have not mentioned yet is the fact that this kind of ballet is not like Swan Lake or The Nutcracker. It’s not classical ballet, its neo-classical; its contemporary. It uses the same structure and techniques as ballet (straight legs, delicate fingers, turned out feet) but also incorporates movement that more resembles modern dance. Contemporary ballet allows for a greater breadth of movement and does not adhere as strictly to the lines set forth by the original forms of classic ballet. In many ways, especially after seeing Aspen Santa Fe’s performance, I find myself drawn to this genre. It is still both pretty and recognizable, but also fluid, creative, and unusual.
Sunday brunch and a matinée at the Power Center is one of the easiest assignments I’ve ever been given. Oh, and one last fun fact about the costume design from Square None was that it was designed by Project Runway celebrity contestant Austin Scarlett. Who knew.
Speaking as someone who knows Little Women the Musical, as in memorized the soundtrack, researched the musical history, and followed the actors who have played the roles in the show, the performance of the students of the Musical Theatre department fit the way I’d imagined the show nearly perfectly. It was actually a little spooky how well cast everyone was to their characters:
Jo March, played by Jane Bruce, was absolutely perfect. Quirky, lively, and strong, she played Jo March with perfection. In many incidences throughout the play, I was brought to tears by her emotional and heart-warming vocal performance and gut-wrenchingly truthful interpretation of the character.
Furthermore, the character of Marmee March, the mother of the March sisters, by Katherine Thomas, was equally as impressive. One of my favorite songs of the show is “Days of Plenty,” where Marmee urges Jo to have faith that the death of her sister Beth is not completely in vain, encouraging, “You have to believe, there is reason for hope.” She performed it beautifully and did not disappoint.
All of the characters had amazing chemistry. Laurie, played by Joel Sparks, was dorky, adorable, and lovable. He fit the role perfectly, but in a different way than I’d previously imagined his character. It was for the better, I’d say, that Laurie’s character wasn’t the dashingly handsome hero who won Amy March’s heart but brought the audience to tears when he didn’t end up with his best friend Jo. I felt his interpretation of Laurie was fitting in that you saw, even from the beginning, that Laurie and Jo would never last together, at least on Jo’s end. I think the chemistry between Laurie and Amy overpowered any feelings of disappointment that anyone felt for the lack of union between Laurie and Jo.
The role of Professor Bhaer, played by Trevor St. John Gilbert, was equally as ideal. I felt he really understood how he and Jo fell in love: amongst bickering, arguments, but in the end, beneath a shared, “Small Umbrella in the Rain.”
Even the opening scene was magnificent. They had all the characters flying through the stage, ascending and descending from all sides, and moving set pieces with ease and distinguished flair. I saw the entire play as a story, seen through Jo’s eyes, set in the magical attic of the March household. Perfection.
This musical was tremendous and the entire cast did such a fantastic job. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see this play performed (finally!!!) and I can now put a proper backdrop behind my favored and well-loved Little Women soundtrack.
Ok, in today’s age, an answer to the above question is just a click away. It is convenient but do we really grasp the information? Does the life of Chekhov unfold in front of your eyes? And so the “Who is….” series from the UMS, was very informative and entertaining. And relevant. As it was looking at Chekhov’s life in order to understand more about “Uncle Vanya”.
“Who is Anton Chekhov” consisted of two parts- a presentation on Chekhov’s life by Professor Makin and a talk by Kate Mendeloff about the challenges in directing “Uncle Vanya”. There was also a scene from “Uncle Vanya”, enacted by Residential College students.
Professor Michael Makin, from the department of Slavic Studies, started this presentation on Chekhov, in his very charming accent. His delivery was quick and very erudite and it goes to show how well he knows the subject matter at hand. Anyway, so who was Anton Chekhov?
Unlike all the popular Russian writers who were counts or members of the Russian nobility, Anton Chekhov was born to a serf as the third of six surviving children. He attended a gymnasium- comparable to our English grammar school. His father went bankrupt and fled to Moscow leaving his children and wife behind. Anton joined medical school and also took over the responsibility for the whole family. To pay his tuition fess and to support his family, he wrote stories and sketches.
He became a physician and suffered from tuberculosis for a long time. Chekhov didn’t take his writing seriously until Dmitry Grigorovich, one of the leading Russian writers of the time sent him a letter telling him about his immense talent. Chekhov’s artistic ambition bloomed and he soon won a Pushkin Prize for the short-story collection- “At Dusk”. From being the son of an impoverished serf, he became a landowner when he bought the small estate of Melikhovo.
Ok, so how is this all relevant?
It is important for us to understand Chekhov as a person before we understand Chekhov as a playwright or writer- as most of who he was and what he valued can be reflected in his characters and work. Well, Chekhov wrote what he saw and about a life that he was immersed in. His writings abound with references to the simple country life and the trials faced by a Russian in those days. It is also important to understand his background as to why he stands out from among the other Russian writers.
That said, Professor Makin told us that as a playwright, Chekhov was a flop initially. His plays “the Sea Gull” and “the wood demon” were fiascos when they were first staged. To some extent, they were way ahead of their times as they lacked the melodrama. They were waiting for the right people to act and direct it. Everytime, Chekhov failed as a playwright, he threatened never to return to it. But he always came back.
The innovative Moscow Art Theatre found by Stanislavski for doing “naturalistic” theatre was what Chekhov needed. The production of “The Seagull” by Stanislavski was a huge success. Subsequently, Chekhov wrote his other plays for the Moscow Art Theatre and “Uncle Vanya” is one of them.
“Uncle Vanya” is the story of Vanya (duh!), who is the uncle of Sonya (Actually it is a cleaned-upversion of “The wood demon”). He takes care of Sonya’s farm which was bequeathed to her by her now deceased mother. The two of them send the proceeds from the farm to Professor Serebryakov. The Professor marries a woman who is very young , Elena and sicne he can’t afford to live in the city anymore, he comes back to the country estate. This arrival causes such a ruckus in the lives of Vanya and Sonya.
So the plot is about Vanya feeling that he has totally wasted his life and what he does. Why Chekhov called it a comedy is unclear. Though it has a few laughs in it, I don’t think it is comedy.
Professor Kate Mendeloff explained how Chekhov and his plays helped in actually laying out the foundation of the rules for all theatre and acting today. The techniques and methods developed by Stanislavski are taught in every drama school today.
Residential college is putting up a production of “Uncle Vanya” which Mendeloff is directing. They enacted a scene from it. It was the opening act where the “long night” where the professor keeps everyone up by his constant griping is shown. It was interesting and cleverly done.
On the whole, it was a very interesting session. It made me wonder as to how how much of the writer was in the character they created and how much of it was what the writer wanted to be.
So Percussion (2007 New York performance of Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood”)
So, this post is pretty delayed. There is no real excuse. We all talk about how busy we are. Since we are all busy, it is boring to talk about. I won’t bother.
The background on this one is that I am generally pretty skeptical of what can only be described as “weird shit”. Obviously, the presentation of weird shit stretches across all art forms, across all sectors of life. Damien Hirst-weird shit. Philosophy- weird shit. Unicycles- weird shit. The list goes on. I expected weird from So because they planned to play a set of only Steve Reich. Of course, “shit” may be weird to me and not so weird to you. However, although I can’t be certain, I would guess that there is some consensus to the fact that the work of composer Steve Reich is pretty weird. Reich, they say, is a composer of contemporary classical music- or, is that classical contemporary? He works in the realm of minimalism, art broken down to its most fundamental aspects.
First off, the UMMA space was a really great space for this performance. The apse, in the old part of the museum, had rows and rows of chairs set up and the upstairs had seating around the railing overlooking the main floor. We sat upstairs to catch a view all of the instruments as well as the audience. In an improvement from past performances at UMMA, the stage did not have a curtain- it was just an elevated platform at the end of the hall. We were truly in a museum- even museum security! (Why do I get the impression that museum security guards are pretty square? Maybe art museums should look into hiring security guards that are interested in art in order that they can also act as guides or helps in the galleries. Or maybe it’s just the uniform and the mandatory cold glares that make me think they are squares- easily changeable characteristics). One particularly cool only-in-an-art-museum moment was during the “Mallet Quartet” piece, you could see the shadows and reflections of the percussionists movements on the art and the walls in bright golds and oranges and, well, normal shadows.
And, the music was weird. Definitely. Especially the piece that was not percussion instrument based- “Four Organs” (in which, a UofM music student played the maraca part for 15 minutes. A crazy show of endurance. Listen to the song below and think about this kid keeping that exact maraca rhythm for 15 minutes. You just wanted to cry for the kid and his forearms. Absurd). However, despite its experimental force, the pieces found ways to connect with me, rather easily. In the excerpt from ‘Drumming’, I could hear the United States’ history with Africa, and a US battle march played with all four percussionists on a line of six (yes? I think, six.) drums and their interconnections and intricacies. In every piece, really, I could find something to latch onto, something to think about and study. The pieces they played are in the playlist below (except for the newest piece, “Mallet Quatet”, which they were playing for just the second time in the states. It is a Reich piece commissioned for So Percussion (and a few other percussion groups).
I had the opportunity to talk to these guys for a bit at the Eve after party- a really fun time hearing these young dudes philosophize and tell stories in the hip bar atmosphere. But, at one point, one of the guys, Adam, was talking about what he has seen from being on tour and playing around the country. He said that people are trying, again, to understand what is true American culture- like, what is ours and what is theirs? And, perhaps slightly biased, but nonetheless, he got the sense that rhythm and percussion just made sense to people in terms of helping to define American culture. That, although the Reich pieces were pretty out, people could find ways to relate to their patterns and rhythms.
Great night. The dudes are working on an album with Matmos for this summer. Matmos always seems to be doing pretty cray cray thangs- so definitely watch out for that.
The Bad Plus (Ethan Iverson, Reid Anderson, and Dave King)
In high school, in our age of the new driver’s license, I had a crew of friends that became very anti-social. Most of the kids with new driver’s licenses found a new freedom in planning a night out, not on a dad’s watch- but their own, or not having to ask a mom for a drop off at a girl’s house (or even worse, a pickup at a girl’s house. Awkward). Instead, these guys asked their parents for use of the family car for the night just to drive around town with each other. They would pack five in a five seater or seven in a mini van, open all the windows, pass a spliff, and, most importantly, put on a jazz record- full blast. Then, for hours, just cruise. The only communication was the focused passing of the spliff and the yelps and groans that were their responses to the jazz record.
I never rode with them. I didn’t smoke but, more isolating, I didn’t know when to yell. I enjoyed jazz. I always have. But, I enjoyed jazz with the old folk that frequented Hill Auditorium for Wynton Marsalis. We put on nice clothes on a Sunday afternoon,Wynton charmed us with his anecdotes, and played impeccably. We clapped politely when the set was over.
This was not how the boys in the car on Huron River Drive listened to jazz. They interrupted when they wanted, responded when they were moved. They didn’t just let Wynton play for them (well, they quickly wrote Wynton off as a square and a sell out so it wasn’t Lincoln Center from the speakers anyway)- they were fully engaged as a part of the music. They said this is what jazz, the only true American art form, is about. Not about playing to concert halls and suits but to people, to individuals, to communities.
So, in order to get a chance to hang out with my friends and stuff, I am trying to learn jazz, “the language of jazz” (as taught by UM jazz prof. and jazz legend Geri Allen). On Thursday night, as a hands-on lesson, I had the great opportunity to see The Bad Plus, a ridiculous trio with roots in the Midwest. The Bad Plus is probably best known for covers of well known pop and rock songs including Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Neil Young’s Heart of Gold along with a new album of covers- For All I Care- that features vocalist Wendy Lewis. However, in the second of two shows, The Bad Plus played a set of mostly originals.
These guys are nuts. Ethan Iverson, on the keys, introduces the band and the set list with a stoicism straight out of a Roman sculpture however, upon sitting down, Iverson, the bass man Reid Anderson, and the drummer Dave King swing so hard and with so much emotion. While Iverson strokes the keys while seemingly doing leg squats over his bench, King pounds then caresses then pounds away at his drum set while pulling out an army of children’s play instruments to augment his sound. And, King yells just like my friends driving down Main St. He’s not speaking to his band mates or the audience, he’s yelling at his drum set, the sounds of his trio. Also, just like the dudes packed into the green CRV, the 9:30 show audience was a hip, young crowd- a bunch of giddy kids in the lobby after the show.
It was still the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater with assigned seating and shiny programs. There were still nicely dressed ushers escorting us to our seats. But, Thursday night, the spirit of the communal jazz experience- or, at least, how I am beginning to understand it- seemed to be in full fight with the powers that be, ‘the man’. Next time, UMS presents the Bad Plus live at the Blind Pig? Doors at 9, $10 cover? Or, UMS presents Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln Center Jazz playing ‘Flim’ by Aphex Twin (as The Bad Plus did Thursday night)? Or, will I have to start smoking weed to really understand what goes on in the car rides around town?
Over and out, Bennett
(Below are streams of my favorite Bad Plus album, ‘These Are The Vistas’ and the new album ‘For All I Care’) Oh, and for more live jazz, check out the UM Jazz Festival next Saturday. Christian McBride Band, Geri Allen, Rodney Whittaker, Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra, University of Michigan Jazz Ensemble. Going to be crazy. Schedule here. Tickets here from Ticketmaster (or, as others have noted, ‘TicketBastard’).
