Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursdcav. Februcarv 19. 1970 :aeTwHEMCHGNAL Thiirsdnv Fehriierv l~ 1~7(T * -, . - . - , dance theatre DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN A colorful Venezuela All the world is cardboard? "f Ja By C. Q. SPINGLER Folk dances are an expression of the most essential and crit- ical elements of a; country's daily chores and rituals; how a woman is won, a leader chosen, the food prepared. Since most dances of this kind are choreo- graphed" around a tale, narra- tive clarity is extremely impor- tant. The rhythms and move- ment of the dances must ex- press the reality and sincerity that one devotes to the habits and duties of one's culture, as well as conveying the basic ele- ments of the life style of the culture. It is especially impor- tant when performing dances about a culture which is unfa- miliar to the audience that the elements of mime, harmony of costume and visual images be well defined. The dance troup from the Na- tional Institute of Culture and -Fine Arts of Caracas was faith- ful to it's country's folklore, avoiding spectacular theatrical tricks and presenting the Vene- zuelan folk culture with charm- ing grace. They were successful in accenting t h e qualities of gentle feminity of the women and the fun-loving wiry energy of the men. However, from time to time, the t r o u p failed to transmit with sufficient clarity the details of a particular rit- ual or custom. (They were, un- fortunately, hampered by either a lack of lighting equipment, or an unfamiliarity with the Hill Auditorium facilities, and often performed in semi-darkness or out of the follow spots destined to emphasize and enhance the dancers. Thus some of the wit and poignancy of the 'dances was lost through no fault of the performers.) I was not, for ex- ample, able to follow the dance concerning the morning ritual of making corn bread. Taking into account that I an not fa- miliar with the implements poetry and prose Raworth: Intensely human ambiguity needed for such a task, I would criticize the performance of the prima ballerina of the troup, Yolando Moreno, as the house- wife called to this duty for fail- ing to convince me she was a peasant woman going about her chores rather than a beautiful star condescending to the role. She was, perhaps a bit too spif- fy, too much a famous dancer, and too little an accomplished mime. She relied chiefly on sound effects to complete her story rather than on well de- fined movement. The costumes were designed to suggest, if not imitate pre- cisely the local costumes of var- ious areas and tribes of Ven- ezuela. In this they were suc- cessful, the lack of glitter and attempts to dazele allow one to better appreciate the intricacies of rhythms and movement. However, I wished at times that more attention had been paid to the unification of color har- monies. Too often, too many patterned fabrics appearing si- multaneously made it difficult to concentrate on the story told and destroyed the continuity of the dance. There was however' one ex- ceptionally well costumed and well performed dance. In it the women wore silk capes of In- dian patterns which billowed behind them in marvelous har- monies of ochre, b r o w n and green. The dance told the story of the selection of a young lead- er by a tribe throdgh battle and ritual. Ittcombined the best skills of the company, the use of local accompaniment, the color of the South American Indian costumes, and strong choreographic visual patterns. The blend of live instrumen- tation, vocal effects with the dancing (the company boasts a fine tenor, an excellent harpist, and exciting drummers) all con- tributed to an effective presen- tation of the moods and tenors of Venezuelan f o 1 k art, and demonstrated t h a t the com- pany's strong points were those essential to a successful defini- tion of the life and style of it's country's folk culture. By JOHN ALLEN During the afternoon on Wed- nesday there were helmeted police by the carload on East University, live and in the flesh. Maybe that's why Susan Shaw's play, Esperanza, which had its premiere around the corner in Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre Wednesday night, seem- ed so labored and irrelevant. Cardboard characters spout- ing cardboard lines out of the corner of their cigar-laden mouths don't have a prayer against the living theatre of the absurd that is our wilder- ness reality. Miss Shaw's little diatribe against Ugly Americans and uglier revolutionaries in San Alfonso, South America, has a decent set of targets. But the penetration of her play is the dramatic equivalent of a mus- tache pencilled in the dark across a recruiting poster - neither meaningfully angry nor original. To give credit where due, however, the play is not with- out a measure of craft. It has a consistency of tone, a fair command of three-act structure, and no loose ends that are par- ticuarly irksome. And it prob- ably reads better than it plays. What it lacks is life and sub- stance. The plot, very briefly: word of a revolutionary hero named Es- peranza reaches the U.S. Am- bassador's office in San Alfonso. Consternation on the part of the American wives-in-resi- dence. Chaos on the part of the local army. Esperanza's bloodless coup. Sudden ironic revelation : Esperanza is a rat- fink revolutionary with a law degree from Harvard who plays chess instead of golf-and whose chief desire is not liberation for his people but his own private slice of Foreign Aid. U.S. Am- bassador decides to bone up on his chess andl pack away his golf clubs for a while. Curtain. Most of the time it doesn't actually hurt, but it never real- ly feels very good, either. Like riding in a jeep. The produc- tion itself is rather jeeplike: four-wheel drive, no trim, no padding, good at plo w in g through the muddy places and taking uphill slopes, but hard- ly the thing for impressing your date with. Costumes, for once, become something of a villain. The Naval Attache, played by Jeffrey Allen, is outfitted in Early Bag- gy. It has the curious effect of making his gestures look like those of Charlie Chaplin trying to keep his pants on in a crisis. Esperanza himself, played by Michael Firestone, would have brought back clothes from Har- vard Square that were either twice as conservative or twice as wild, depending on which side of the Square he shopped on. As a revolutionary he is some- where between Tice's and Red- wood and Ross. Arthur McFarland, at least, is trim and tapered and ideal- istic-in his tailoring, his act- ing, and in his characterization of Andrew Carlson, the resident idealist at the American Mis- sion-er, Embassy. Sad to say, Frank Bernacki, who has a central role as the Honorable J. Cavendish Hill, United States Ambassador to San Alfonso, seems to have missed lesson No. 1 in Elements of Acting: Do not, under any circumstances, look around the audience for your parents and friends. His habit of eyeing the audience was either a serious flaw in his performance or a surefire way of aggravating one of this reviewer's major peca- dillos. Sharon Jensen, as tne wife of the Naval Attache, was a convincing hostess of the kind whose parties I most dislike. Her performance and that of, Lane Lesnick as Consuelo, wife of the Air Force Attache, were credible and controlled. Cynthia Ballard, as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture in charge of recipe-gathering for a banana cookbook, was cer- tainly more convincing than the character she was obligated to play. Roger MacPhee and Rich- ard Stanford carried their beards and machine-guns with aplomb. Everyone, from what I un- derstand; tends to think he or she could write a play. It isn't true, of course. Most people haven't the necessary persever- ance. Nonetheless, those w h o genuinely think they might have it in them to survive the pain- ful process of piecing together a full-length drama, ought to have a look at Esperanza. It will give them something to measure their own hopes against. Eisenstein's IVAN THE TERRIBLE Part 1-Ihurs., Feb. 19 Part Il-Fri., Feb. 20 The Daily Official Bulletin is an official publication of the Univer- sity of Michigan. Notices should be sent in TYPEWRITTEN f o r m to Room 3528 L. S. A B Id g., before 2 p.m., of the day preceding pub- lication and by 2 p.m. Friday for Saturday and Sunday, Items ap- pear once only. Student organiza- tion notices a r e not accepted for' publiation. F o r more informa- THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19 Day Calendar Physics Lunch Seminar: Phillip Kwok, IBM Watson Research1 Cntr., Electronic Properties of Quantum In- version Layers in Semiconducts" P&A Colloq. Rm., 12 noon. Nuclear Colloquium: R. S. Tickle, "Weak Coupling" P&A Colloq. Rm.; 4:00 p.m. Special Colloquium: G. Giacomelli, U. of Bologna, "Total Cross Section Mea- surements at Serpukhov" P&A Bldg., Aud. E, 4:00 p.m. Religious AffairsOpen Seminar: "Per- sonal Explorations". 520 Hill St., No.'3, 6:45 p.m. General Notices Grad. Sch. of Business Admin., 1970 Business Leadership Award: Joseph C. (Continued on Page 8) 17 KEEP AHEAD Of YOUR HAIR ! . NO WAITING * 8 BARBERS " OPEN 6 DAYS The Dascola Barbers Arborland-Campus Maole Vi ooe The Best of the' Underground-Film Artists Brakhage, Anticipation of the Night Emshwiller, Rezativity Myitany, Overture to on Embryo SAT., FEB. 21, 1970 EAST QUAD,9:00 P.M. NO CHARGE More on Sat., Feb. 28 and Sat., March 14 By MARY McNICHOLS Tom Raworth, a contributor to the movement which Donald Hall terms "wborld poetry", de- monstrated his ability to convey the emotions of any man in any country at his poetry reading in the Undergraduate Library on Tuesday afternoon. Raworth, a young English poet, is poet-in- residence at Essex. Raworth's poetry is intensely human. It is questioning, filled with the ambiguities and ancon- sisteneies by which he, yes, and any thinking man, defines life. But Raworth's poetry is more than definition - and "solu- tion" is too strong a word. Rath- er, it is a struggle; an attempt ,at reconciliation, or, at least, ra- tionalization. Observing m a n and his mechanized society, Ra- worth understands that there can be, no return to the world of Shelley and the Romantics. The lIast line in his work, "Purely Personal" reads: "All I see is black You can recapture nothing." Raworth abandons any formal- ized solution, any synthesis of existing dichotemies, and turns instead to a poetry which graph- ically reveals an understanding of the ambiguities in any man. is this quality which gives his Work its power. Opening the reading with a poem entitled "Sing," a probable reference to the traditional role of poet as muse, Raworth under- lined his theme of ambiguity. The. poem moves swiftly and smoothly, incorporating images of wind and air which refer to the inevitable existance of the mystical in life. These images run quickly over the underly- Ing presence of practical act- uality in his writing. The Real versus the Surreal. Ambiguity. Sprfacely, Raworth deals with many diverse situations, mov- .ing in his poetry through space and, time from North Africa to the Southland to the University of Essex to a pair of old shoes now lying somewhere in t h e kitchen on an English o me. But every artist continually re- peats the same story.(Heming- way wrote the same book three times under different titles.) Raworth clearly uses this technique in his poem "Shoes." In a fast-moving, successive ex- plosion of words, he delivers a work. which appears to describe the busy, jumbled eternal mono- tony of life. In the first part of the.poem, he treats his subject humorously, describing in detail the steps involved in producing one pair of shoes. From the cow to the tanner to the cobbler to the wearer. Then he scathingly undermines his own humor by suddenly interjecting a line which relates the end of life. What has been accomplished by the monotonous jumble of life? Nada, Hemingway would say. Raworth says alienation. Again he deals with the necessity of two elements in life. Seemingly endless monotony must inevit- ably. evolve to the end. Raworth's poetry is very well organized, every poem providing a connection of images w h i c h define life as he views it. And necessarily, tension is always present. He creates images of wind and air, then shifts to small details of everyday human experience which may then be overshadowed by hard 'Images of mechanization or sound. An excellent example of this tech- nique is his work "The Others." In it he employs a tactile wind image, which is overcome by the, sound of a piano. The poem ends with a monologue by the boy's ,mother. The result is a work dealing with the conscious and the unconscious, integrating: the qualities of the real and th e dream. Raworth's poetry is analogous to Henry Moore's sculpture. He employs Moore's technique of the organic and the abstract in. Surrealism, yet always adheres to the human figure. Even in his poems dealing with the in- evitable 20th century theme of alienation, Raworth interjects involvement. Life is, in Tom Raworth's poetry, a dream. But it must be rationalized with reality, a qual- ified dream. He says in one of his works "A dream only to be dreamed cannot bring a mo- ments satisfaction." Raworth's. skill as a poet brings this am- biguity home, in Essex, England, or in Ann Arbor, Michigan. bk J~APAN SUMMER - 4 COLLIGE CREDITS SAN FRANCISCO STATE COLLEGE In depth vacation enjoyment and study of Japan's history, politics, economics, education, religion and arts. SFSC pro- fessor administers classes, but lectures are by leading Japanese educators. Enroll for credit or as auditor, and re- quest pass/fail or alphabetical grades. Price includes Oakland/Tokyo round- trip via jet charter flight (based on 200% occupancy), firstclass hotels, train and motor coach Japan travel, transportation and admission to Expo '70, extensive sightseeing, guides, baggage handling, tips, transfers, etc. Hong Kong optional. Land arrange ments operated by: EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY presents ir4 concert THE DAVE BRUBECK TRIO featuring GERRY MULLIGAN FRIDAY, FEB. 20 8 P.M. Pease Auditorium, Ypsilanti, Michigan $3. 50/$3 .00$2. 50 all seats reserved, tickets available at the E.M.U. Union or by mail. Send check payable to E.M.U. and self - addressed envelope to University Activities Board, E.M.U., McKenny Union, Ypsilanti, Mich- igan (orders received after Feb. 16 will be held at box office) COMING MARCH 22: THREE DOG NIGHT! 7&9P.M. 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A , I I I 1 J k! , , I I k t COMMONWEATH UNiEDrnets A MARK CARUNER PRODUCTION I . I . I I I U"'- PETER IPAMELA USTINOVI TFRN JONATHAN JOHN WNTERS ASTIN 1 vA Q COLOR" From Russia With Love AUD. A, ANGELL HALL-75c Fri. and Sat., Feb. 20, 21 Sex and violence in a Turkish mosque With Sean Connery as James Bond ~' TE~OI~APAAO)TACIR k~i V,.A.. * ~wa 0 Ia PIPTHs e b s 5 THURS.-Columbus-7:1 5 Romeo-9 :00 FRI.-Romeo--6:45 Columbus-9:15 Romeo-1 1:00 No ordinary love story.... . rrnuiunnt nne a DtDtaiMItiTDiA7fIDC T! F TI HNI pLORL A PARAMOUUN ICTUR COMING SOON: I 'r ---. Charlie Bubbles Bonnie and Clyde Desi Arnaz and His Band (due to popular demand) marimekko The Spring Dress Collection celebrates Marimekko's twen- tieth anniversary by including a selection of classic Mari- mekko dresses designed by Annika Piha during the past decade together with the work of two new designers. ORTHOGONALITY 340 Maynard St., Ann Arbor Th HlwayInn East Quad's Coffeehouse & Snackbar Inexpensive Luncheons, Dinners, Snacks CONTINUOUSLY OPEN STAGE- ALL WELCOME TO PERFORM or Just Come In and Jam HOOTENANY Thurs., Feb. 19,9 P.M.-All Welcome! HOURS: Mon.-Thurs.-1 1:00 A.M.-2 A.M. Fri.-1 1:00 A.M.-3 A.M. Sat--7 :30 P.M.-3 A.M. Sun.-3:00 P.M.-1 2 A.M. Informal Atmosphere, Good Food Da ily Classifieds Get Results TICKETS ON SALE NOW ! PTP BOX OFFICE, MENDELSSOHN THEATRE Continue.,the Conspiracy I ARTUR ILLR I I I Meeting to organize March 17-19 actions to END THEI AR END THE DRAFT 'A Investigate an Independent Sorority COLLEGIATE as an alternative to dorms, apartments, national sororities and co-ops. i :: Jt ;1ti} }i ti f , ti. ti Jr. '.1 . ti{ ". " ' ;i f° :r r " :r;:; ;'r. ,"'ri; J1tl .:f L4 IL i I 4 8:30 P.M. FEB. 24-25 NOW! 1 ,m tFeazre Ar de .:.to touch inose Whre ..__ pra.-. .. ( - M - °. ".. . .;.'." r .=' ...+ I " 7:30 P.M. Room 3KLMN A Michigan Union Two Short FREE Newsreel Films I I_ :'. I ~A'~ I. ~ I El U I I oil i I 11