Wednesday, August 27, 1969

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Eleven

W ednesday, ugust|27,|969 T H E M IC IG A N D AIL YPage Eleve


music

dance





Ann Arbor Blues Festival: ??????????

AADT: Innovation

The top musical event of the
summer was just shaping up as
this supplement went to press.
but everyone's guess is that the
first Ann Arbor Blues Festival
wiis be the biggest thing to hit
this town since Dionysus in 69.
The festival's backers are
planning for at least 10,000 at-
tendance at the huge Knights
of Columbus field. Twenty-five
of the top blues singers in the
country are scheduled to appear
in four concerts, and they will
also conduct workshops and lec-
tures.
The festival, xvhich will run
from Aug. 1-3, has been design-
ed to give the audience a chance
to examine first-hand, from
black musicians, the evolution
of the blues and almost any of
its styles. The festival is design-
ed primarily as a tribute to the
black bluesman.
And the audience is expected
to consist not only of outright
blues enthusiasts but also of all
kinds of young musicians who
want to learn from the black
blues artists.
Without B. B. King t l2 e r e
would be no Eric Clapton, and
without Big Mama Mae Thorn-
ton there would be no J a n i s
Joplin. B. B. King and Mama
Thornton will both be at Ann
Arbor, and so will Muddy Wat-
ers, James Cotton, and Junior
Wells.
And there will be up and com-
ing young blues singers too, like
the Jimmy "Fast Fingers" Daw-
kins Blues Band and Luther Al-
lison and his Blues Nebulae.
The country blues will be rep-
resented too, with a rare ap-
pearance by Son House, a n d
performances by Sleepy John
Estes and Fred McDowell.

Howlin' Wolf, John L e e
Hooker, J. B. Hutto and Otis
Rush will be in for the festival
too, along with Clifton Chenier,
Roosevelt Sykes, Arthur Crud-
up, Freddie King, Charley Mus-
selwhite, T-Bone Walker, Light-
nin' Hopkins and Sam Lay.
Four concerts - Friday, Sa-
turday and Sunday nights and
Sunday afternoon - have been
scheduled, with workshops and
demonstrations planned f o r
Saturday afternoon.
Tickets are being sold through
the mail and all over town at
$5 a show or $14 for the whole
festival. The workshop and lec-
ture session is priced at $2.
The festival sponsors - a
group of ad hoc enthusiasts who
got the University Activities
Center to back them-are plan-
ning to accommodate the huge
crowd all over: in South Quad,
at campsites, and plain o 1d
crashing.
They're expected the crowds
because the response to just
one trial concert last winter was
overwhelming. The festival~--
first of its kind - has been
wvritten up in many of the ma-
joy newspapers and magazines.
And although no one is saying
so just now, the odds are good
that the festival will be such
a success that it will happen
again-and again-and again
... After all, once a good thing
gets started, why stop?

With the revitalization of the
virtually dormapt Ann Arbor
Dance Theatre 1 last year, the
art of the dance took on a new,
contemporary 1 o o k in Ann
Arbor.
Previously performances were
scheduled only occasionally by
well-known troupes like the Bal-
let Folklorico de Mexico, Mar-
tha Graham or the Canadian
National Ballet. As a rule, not
much was offered in the way of
local, innovative composition
outside of the highly limited
work of women's physical edu-
cation classes, which also put on
a show or two each term.
Formed quite a while ago, the
AADT had not been very active
for a long period of time. Mem-
bers had drifted away from the
small company.
But increasing community
and student support and in-
terest have resulted in the for-
mation of a full company of 30
dancers and six choreographers,
including two University stu-
dents and one University dance
instructor.
Among the dancers of the
troupe are six University stu-
dents, and the company's highly
successful June concert in West
Park was under the direction of
a University graduate student
in theatre. The stage manager
was also a student.
The June concert featured an
African dance commissioned es-
pecially for the presentation by

the troupe. Phil Stamps, who
also teaches dance classes for
the group, was the choreog-
rapher.
Bel-Congo included live Hai-
tian music performed by Koko
Ita, Mauricio Font and Robert
Benford, a student. The dance
was an instant hit,
Another dance, Good Morn-
ing Mr. Phelps, was choreog-
raphed by the husband-wife
team of Richard and Sylvia
Turner, \vho also supplied an
original sound score. Turner is
a grad student in architecture
and design.
Student choreographer Dana
Reitz composed Vision, a dance
for six performers based on the
Jo-no-mai of the classical Jap-
anese Noh-drama.
The other dances included a
solo composition by Elizabeth
Weil Bergmann, a dance in-
structor at the University, and
an expanded version of a 1965
work by Ann Young, Caracole.
The concert was an immense
success and the company is cer-
tain to expand its efforts even
further this year.
So, dance enthusiasts have

much to look forward to. be-
sides the occasional whirlwind
stops of the well-known com-
panies who hit Ann Arbor now
and then. The AADT is growing
right here and getting better
all the time.
The troupe is young and en-
erge tic-and considerate of the
audience as well. For the West
Park concert, free bus service
was provided, and tickets were
only $1, which opened up the
program to a wide audience
often cut off from the more ex-
pensive performances of na-
tional companies.
New recruits of any kind of
talent can always be incorpo-
rated into the group, members
say. and male dancers are espe-
cially needed.
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It may be a relatively small town, but you'd
never know it from the number of art exhibi-
tions that hit Ann Arbor every year. In fact,
the. variety and quality of art in Ann Arbor
may well surpass anything Detroit has to of-
fer (outside the city's fine museum, of course),
The Detroit press usually refers readers to just
as many shows in Ann Arbor as in Detroit.
There are four private galleries in Ann Arbor,
in addition to the University Art Museum,
which hosts many shows and has a steadily
improving private collection. Exhibitions are
also held in the Rackham Bldg. and the
League, and there are always paintings and
sculptures on display in the architecture and
design school.
The University Museum has taken on a new
contemporary outlook after a total remodeling
completed two years ago. Don't let the stodgy
exterior fool you - the new museum is light and
airy. The main corridor now features a gallery
of contempora y art instead of portraits of past
University presidents.
The permanent collection includes paintings
by Klee, Millet, Corot, Whistler, Vlaminck,
Courbet and Magnamoo, along with sculpture

by Arp, Henry Moore, Rodin and Giacometti.
And recently the museum has added three
soup cans from Andy Warhol's Campbell series.
This summer the museum continued its new
contemporary emphasis by hosting the Ameri-
can Federation of Arts exhibition of "The Square
in Painting." Selected by Richard Anuszkiewicz,
the show included works by painters on the
square motif from Malevich and Mondrian to
the present.
The four private galleries also present many
contemporary shows, often focusing on the
works of local artists. They are the Forsythe Gal-
lery, the Lantern Gallery, the Editions Gallery
and the Judlo Gallery.
The biggest event of the year for artists and
galleries in Ann Arbor is the annual street fair
in July, which is regarded as one of the best
in the country.
The fair, now ten years old, brings in artists
from all over the United States, and last year's
sales reached $150,000.
South University Ave..- surprisingly enough
is blocked off and turned into a mall for
tour days, and the street is filled with displays
of paintings, ceramics, hand-made jewelry, weav-
ings, sculptures, and pottery.

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