THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, February 7, 1969 THE ICHGAN AIL FrIdy Febr-uary 7 1969 I- I arts festival loots: Local culture and the ONCE Group By ELLEN FRANK America's standards for its culture/arts are indeed bizarre - the artist closest to or on either coastal extremity has a much better chance of making it. So here we are in Anr Ar- bor -~ se-yen hundred miles from the NeT York critics and twenty five hundred miles away from the fantasies of Califor- nia. By and large we, and teem- ing millions of other Americans in the country's midsection, ac- cept and receive imported cul- ture. The Creative Arts Festival, the current cultural extrava- ganza, is a temptingly h a n d y outline of contemporary Amer- ican arts. The bulk of the peo- ple on the schedule live and work in New-York - the Per- formance Group, Marisol, Stan- ley Kauffman, etc. We learned of them through the mass me- dia, some word of mouth and many books. Certainly one rea- son why they came here was to tell- us and show us our cur- rent artistic culture, for in. many ways they are the people who dictate it.. A glance at the local people taking part in the Creative Arts Festival says much about the. other side, particularly Ann Ar- bor.'s place in' contemporary arts. "Bang, Bang, Ydu're Dead," from the Speech Department; Ancient Javanese Theatre. Mariso's By LESLIE WAYNE It might have been nice if the Creative Arts Festival could have displayed one of Marisol's blocky eight foot sculptures. They could have set it in the middle of the diag so people could poke and probe, ooh and awe, and walked away smiling at the whole whimsey of it. But instead they brought Marisol herself. And four hun- dred people sat in Trueblood Aud.. last night waiting for Marisol to say just what in- spired each piece and w h a t type of glue held it together. The Eastbound Mound, rock music and impromptu comedy and drama. There was also the Black Poets Festival (writers mainly from Detroit), the Lord Chamberlain Players, and the ONCE Group, which will per- form on Friday and Saturday. In 'rather unannounced form it appears that America's ur- ban areas have recently begun to support and spout out sur- prising numbers of local writ- ers and artists. On the f i r s t level, part of this is a politi- cally slick response to urban racial and economic chaos. Get them to write, paint and m a k e films, and perhaps they will for- get about the rest. Projects such as Bud Schulberg's Watts Writ- ers Program give out an aura of this sort. Behind any political slickness there is apparently a real desire to create urban communities to turn the city into a place where there is some form of associa- tion and communication among residents. This is as applicable to the Black Panthers as it is to the Performance Group or the Living Theatre. Only the approach to communication dif- fers; they and many others see artists as the best bond of com- munity. The arts in a small univer- sity community such as A n n Arbor differ from the trend of larger urban areas. Support of wooden terpretation. Photographs f o r heads, massive block-like bod- ies, a three sided face with two eyes, three legged women and children using adults as toys. Yet just as people got hung up trying to find out what the soup cans that Warhol made were supposed to say, Marisol quiet- ly dismissed such speculation, saying she neyer really thought why. "I just thought certain ideas are interesting." current trends in the thea- trical and avant guarde arts be- gan early. One can trace a line- age back to the late 1940's, when local and university peo- ple organized the Interarts Un- ion. In 1949, in University High School, they first performed. Sartre's No Exit (translated by Interarts Union member Mar- vin Felheim, , assistant profes- sor newly arrived). - On the strength of their success, the Interarts Union movedi down- town to permanent headquart- ers above Metzger's Restaurant. The Union was reorganized into the Dramatic Arts Center in 1954 with a new emphasis on the group acting as an arts community center rather than limiting themselves to their sponsorship and their own per- formances. Their painting, children's theatre and adult - dance classes succeeded, The city took over the classes which have since grown into extensive programs involving many of the townspeople. The theatre activity evolved into the APA program. Having given up these' func- tions to the city and the Uni- versity, the Dramatic Arts Cen- ter continued as a sponsoring group notably for the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the ONCE Group. The ONCE Group, performing The Trial of Anne Opie Wehrer people hers), slides of her beautifully grotesque people flashed on be- hind her. "When I started, all sculp- tures were gray and on pedes- tals. So I put mine on the ground and added color. Now people can be closer, they can touch them," she explains. It's even OK to laugh if you feel like it. "My people are not ridiculing anyone or supposed to be nasty. They're just us." So while the audience asked if the hair on her seven foot babies was real ,how much her paintings cost, how she gets her pieces into museum, per- liaps Marisol's view of the aud- lence might provide the inspir- ation for another sculpture - the four hundred gaping mouths of Trueblood Aud. tonight in the League Ball- room, is probably now the most awesome and incredible local artistic phenomena. ONCE is what remains of the extensive live creative local (independent of town and University control) community of the 1950's. The origin of ONCE was laid in the years 1957-1960 with the co- operative and independent work of local experimental musicians, architects and artists. In 1960, under bramatic Arts Center sponsorship the group formally cohesed as ONCE and offered a festival of concerts of contem- porary music. Through 1964, there were ONCE Festivals of contemporary music (with some film and drama) each February. The concerts developed into national performing center for contemporary musicians. The ONCE Group musicians attained fame; they were recognized _by New York critics, as well as the communicating national musi- cians. They went to the Sao Paulo and the Venice Biennales. ONCE Again is perhaps the best remembered show. If you have been here for four or more years you might recall the Sep- tember, 1965 ONCE performance on top the Thompson Street parking structure. The back- ground to,the giant performance on the asphalt was an enormous screen projecting Fred Astaire dancing in the film Top Hat. Activities layered over this were TODAY Marta Minujin: a "Minu" movie. Aud. B, 7:00 p.m. The ONCE Group: "The Trial of Annie Opie Wehrer and Unknown Ac- complices for Crimes Against Humanity." League Ballroom, 8:30 p.m. performances by members of the Judson Dance Theatre the tour ensemble of the ONCE Group. John Cage and David Tudor provided the music. The ONCE group originally was aimed at providing con- temporary music and getting the composers together infor- mally. Since ONCE Again. ONCE has turned toward a more total synthesis of sound and live performance, shown best by Morning, the piece done for last year's Creative Arts Fest- ival. The piece, which is pre- sented much in the manner of a happening, was translated in- to Japanese. Robert Ashley, head of the ONCE Group, is in Japan now where he directed the Japanese performance of Morning in a Festival of con- temporary drama an music. The Trail of Annie Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accom- plices for Crimes Against Hu- manity tonight and tomorrow's, ONCE piece, promises to be, as they say, a triumph. In reading over a Village Voice review of the ONCE performance of The Trial this summer in Wisconsin, there is found the usual re- sponse to the ONCE Group. They are good - incredibly good. And they are warm peo- ple from Ann Arbor, Michigan, many of them somehow con- nected to that mammoth Uni- versity. George Manupelli, now on leave at the University of Il- linois, teaches film in the Ar- chitecture & Design School and runs the Ann Arbor Film Fes- tival. Joe Wehrer (whose wife is the star, Anne Wehrer), teaches Architecture there. Cyn- thia Liddell runs and owns- Plaster of Paris, the dress shop at the corner of Maynard and. William. Robert Ashley is what might be called a free l a n c e sound man. They have perform- ed The Trial in California, Wis- consin and eight or so other places, and now they li a v e brought it home. IE- February 7 and 8 A THOUSAND CLOWNS Jason Roba rds Barbara Harris NOTE: More seating available at 7 P. M. showing "Oh Goodie"-B.G II I I I TONIGHT 0I * With Special Guest Stars . YOUNG-HOLT UNLIMITED RHETTA HUGHES FRI., FEB. 7 at 8:30 P.M. COBO ARENA Tickets: $5.75, $4.75, $3.75, $2.75 Available at-Cobo Arena and all J. L. Hudson & Grinnell stores. An Irving Granz Production "1 CARLOS MONTOYA HILL AUDITORIUM 8:30 +I' ________ $1 .50-$200-$2.50 Tickets Still Available ------- MJ 4 p "Deeply moving film. Must strike "Definitely one to see. Patricia Neal audiences with unusual force!" scores a personal triumph!"- -Archer Winstein, N. Y. Post --Ann Guarino, N.Y. Daiy Newst "Explosive, revealing drama brought to the screen with extraordinary skill. "One of the finest films of the year! No trio of stars could collectively, Go see it, at least once!" turn in greater acting jobs!" -Frances, Taylor, L. . Press -William Wolf, Cue *I NOW Metro.Goldwyn-Mayer preser in Frank D. Gilrov s Pulitzer Prize winnina ;, : ;