Check out Company Wang Ramirez at The Power Center on Friday, March 9 at 8:00 PM and on Saturday, March 10 at 8:00 PM. The performance is about 70 minutes long. There will also be a Q&A after tomorrow night’s performance.
Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang are a part of the 6 person dance crew which will perform Borderline. Other dancers include Louis Becker, Johanna Faye, Saïdo Lehlouh, and Alister Mazzotti.
Ramirez and Wang both have a passion for experimentation even though they come from very different training and personal backgrounds. The dancers will be attached to an aerial rigging system. According to their blurb on the UMS website, their goals will be to enact “visual metaphors of flight, struggle, freedom, constraint, and the forces that connect us and tear us apart.” L’Indépendant has characterized Company Wang Ramirez as a crucial part of the “contemporary dance revolution.”
I am incredibly excited to see this show! If you are able to attend and wish to download a program on your own device, check it out here.
Like performer Becca Blackwell, it’s hard to define They, Themself, and Schmerm as a specific “type” of performance. Like a stand up comedy special, it’s funny, observational and at times, oddly insightful; but, unlike a regular gig, Blackwell’s narrative highlights scenes from their entire life, like a cohesive, revealing, well-told memoir.
Blackwell’s performance is an attempt to connect the dots in their sexual identity, both for themselves and their audience. They questioned the origins of their queerness (“I wasn’t aware I was a girl between ages 0 to 3” “What makes a man? I acted like a boy, I looked like one, the only thing I didn’t have was a penis.” ). They prodded at their impressions of binary gendered people (“before I took testosterone, men were just shades of grey, obstacles that got in the way of women”). They broke down their insecurities in public life (“I hated the men’s room- there were all these unfamiliar sounds and sights–I had to turn my feet this way and that to pretend I was peeing standing up”). And they shared their various roles in other people’s lives, like when Blackwell was cornered into a mother figure for a niece because the rest of the men “blanked out.”
Blackwell’s delivery is raw and honest. One of my favorite parts of the show was Blackwell’s use of “Blerrgghh” (while jutting out their head and wiggling their fingers) to refer to her femininity. It’s an honest portrayal of the interwoven confusion, annoyance, lust, unpredictability, and fear of the vagina and female hormones. It’s also a metaphor for the confusion that comes with figuring out who we are, who we love/lust, and why we love.
After a dive into their engaging stories, I came out with a better sense of the complexity of gender identity as well as its salience, in the form of socially awkward and even dangerous moments, for people who don’t conform to the binary standard. And it’s resonant, not only with people who are involved in the LGBTQ+ community or remotely identify themselves as such, but also with those who claim to be part of the more mainstream identities. The innocent questions that were brought up in Schmerm were definitely in my head at some point of my life, but I didn’t have enough of the curiosity nor the courage to follow it up even further. And I’m certainly not alone in this. Schmerm is a call to acknowledge, appreciate, and question without fear, the uniqueness of our own identities.
“A schmerm is a schmear of gender. It is basically the sound that people make as they try to figure my gender out.”- Blackwell in a short opening video.
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.
On Saturday night I had the pleasure of experiencing my first full Beethoven piece! I expected to be yawning half of the time as the singers and orchestra droned on and on. But there was SO MUCH talent spewing out of the UMS Choral Union and the Ann Arbor Symphony that I was captivated the entire time!
Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” was written about his spiritual awakening towards the end of his life, and according to the UMS website, he spent more time working on this piece than any others. Conductor Scott Hanoian brought “Missa Solemnis” back to life in UMS after 40 years! Not to mention, the soloists Erin Wall (soprano), Kelley O’Connor (alto), Matthew Plenk (tenor), and Nathan Stark (bass) were incredible!
More information on Betthoven’s “Missa Solemnis” can be found at http://ums.org/performance/beethovens-missa-solemnis/.
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/.
