The Michigan Daily-Thursday, January 18, 1979-Page 7
Futurestarving
artists honored
Hot Koko served at the Earle
d~
By ERIC ZORN
"It's pleasant to win," smiled
David Berkman, top prize winner in the
Hopwood Underclassmen Awards
Contest for Creative Writing.
NBerkman, a talented LS&A
sophomore who is also a jazz pianist
interested in musical composition, took
away $250 from yesterday's award
ceremony for his portfolio of "Six
Poems."
Before the awards presentation' at
which poet Kenneth Rexroth gave a
reading, Berkman admitted that he is
undecided about ae career, but would
like to see whether it's possible to
support himself writing. "I'm not very
interested in teaching at a University,"
he said. "I'm looking for some sort of
alternative English degree here, with a
focus on creative writing."
Sixteen other Michigan students
shared the $1,700 Hopwood prize money
which was doled out yesterday. In
addition, three special poetry prizes
were awarded as well as the Roy W.
Cowden Memorial Fellowship. Tush
Ezekiel, a graduate student from Ann
Arbor won $500, and LS&A sophomore
Victor Cruz won $250 from the cowden
fund, an award financed by past
Hopwood winners and ex-students of
former Hopwodd program director
Professor Cowden.
THE AWARDS, which Hopwood
room director Hilda Bonham has called
"the richest amateur prizes in the
country," were founded in 1938 with an
endowment from Avery Hopwood, a
1905 Michigan graduate and successful
playwrite. Judges in the
Underclassmen contest, which is to be
followed by the Upperclassmen contest
later this term, were University
English professor Robert Haugh,
lecturer Katherine Sorensen,
Alexandra Aldrige, and poet Rosamond
Haas.
In a break with past tradition, the
freshman essay awards were presented
along with the Underclassmen awards,
and this allowed Tina Datsko, LS&A
student, to be the day's only double
winner. Datsko won a total of $150 for
essays with the scholarly titles of
"Epic, Tragedy, and Dialogue," and
"The Greek Historians."
Writing on an apparently similar
theme to very good result was Howard
Witt from Chicago's North Shore. His
essay, "Creon as the Main Character of
Sophocle's 'Antigone,' " while not
exploring a particularly new idea, was
worth the top prize of $100 in the
Freshman Essay contest. Isabel
Bradburn, also from the Chicago area,
and Stephen Southard, a Residential
College freshman from Whittier,
California, shared the second prize of
$75 in Freshman Essay.
THE EZEKIEL family of Ann Arbor
had two winners on Wednesday, with
the elder brother Tish awarded the'
Cowden fellowship, and younger
brother Josh winning $50 in the
Freshman Essay Contest for his essay
on "Oedipus: King and Man."
Rounding out the contest were fifty
dollar winners Murray Howe and Sue
Savas.
Digging for slightly bigger potatoes
were . the Underclassmen essay
winners: $200 to Rich Loranger for his
provocatively titled "Three Essays,"
-and $150 each to Sarah Kellogg and
Kathryn King, /S&A sophomores.
Angela Harris, winner of the top prize
in fiction, has been writing since she
was three years old. "Illusions and
Circumstance," her entry, is actually
three stories, one of which was written
last year, one this summer, and the last
during her freshman term at the RC
this fall.
"I'D LIKE to be a .writer," says
Harris, who took home two hundred
iron men for her efforts. "But I realize
the financial aspects: That's why I'm in
college, not just sitting around
writing."
Three one hundred dollar awards
finished up Underclassmen fiction:
Casey Briskin, LS&A sophomore from
Ann Arbor, for "Desert Rose;" Craig
Piper, LS&A freshman, for "Mocturnal
Child;" and Helen Gammie, RC
sophomore from Tulsa, for "Sever-
ed."
In the end it was the poets, those
hardest to employ of all creative
writers, who walked home through the
evening chill with the most cash in
hand. Behind top prizewinner David
Berkman in poetry were Phil Harper,
R.C. freshman, who won $200 for
"Poems/7," and Ann Arbor's own Anna
Nissen, a $150 winner for "Angels and
Air and Other Poems."
THE ACADEMY of American Poets
had $100 for Law School Freshman
John Glowney, and an honorable
mention for Ellen Zweig, an English
doctoral candidate. The Bain-Swigget
Poetry Prize for undergraduates went
to Jeff Baron of Oak Park, Illinois, for
"Kinneret," "The Messiah," and "The
Length of Days."
The story of the day may' well have
been David Victor's award of $100
Michael R. Gutterman award in
Poetry. Victor, who hails from
Cincinnati and is a recent University
graduate, completes the "Triple
Crown" for student poets, having
already won the Academy of American
Poets award )1977) and the Bain-
Swiggert prize (1976). A former editor
of "Rising Star," he has also won other
Hopwood prizes, and written music
reviews for campus publications.
By R.J. SMITH
An often suitable way to gauge a
singer's talent is to observe how he or
she reveals their vocal weaknesses, and
how they deal with them. A lesser
singer as old as Ella Fitzgerald might
not attempt the same marvelous flights
of voice that Fitzgerald still does, which
test the boundaries of a voice that many
say has weakened over the years. And
yet Fitzgerald does.
On decidedly a smaller scale, Koko
Taylor joyfully overcomes her vocal
limitations. Pulling a growl up from her
diaphragm although her throat cannot
produce it, or reaching high for notes
out of her range, the very exuberance of
her effort, apart from the outcome of
the attempt, made her performance at
the Earle Tuesday night an infectiously
invigorating one.;
TAYLOR IS A traditional urban
bluesperson steeped in the sounds of the
Chicago blues scene, a locale which
became a hub for just the sort of tight,
clattery blues that Taylor delivers in
abundance. She is called "The
Earthshaker," and for good reason;
when most effective, she bellows
snarling lines that boom off the back of
the room. And although it is an effect
that might soon become tedious when
done by a less talented performer, it
never was less than wrenching Tuesday
at the Earle.
Each of Taylor's three sets was
preceded by a half hour of music
performed by her band, the Blues
Machine. While at first the collection of
blues songs by the group was smooth
and undistinctive to the point of being.
bland, after the first link-up with Taylor
the unit proved capable of pounding out
extremely physical and absorbing
electric blues.
Although it possessed three vocalists,
who each took turns singing, it was the
singing that proved the weakest portion
of the group's sets. At the other
extreme, it was the two guitarists who
transformed the sets, consisting of such
standards as "Stormy Monday," "The
Thrill Is Gone," and "Little Red
Rooster," into performances worth
hering even without the promise of
Taylor's singing.
IN THE SECONI) set the rhythm
guitarist, who had neither sung nor
played any noteworthy solo in the first
set or when Taylor first joined them,
stepped up to the microphone shortly
after the first number and proceeded
to deliver, perhaps the best singing,
heard from the group, and certainly the
finest instrumental work. His long,
tense guitar lines jaggedly punctuated
the others' vamping, and possessed a
cohesiveness and impact lacking in
those of the lead guitar. Sadly, the lead
player handled almost all the solos
when the group supported Taylor.
Taylor's performance similarly
accumulated energy as it progr sed
However, from the very start her .wa
highly-charged. Besides being a cdown
and-dirty growl, her voice rings'-wit
clarity and zest. When she wants t
bend a note, she employs her whol
body (including a rather massiv
trunk) in the task, even when singin
the most withering of put-downs to an
imagined lover, there is a toothy grin on
her face.
HER SHOW WAS a well-balance
selection of hard-edged blues, including
a fierce rework of "Mannish Boy"' ("I
Muddy Waters can be a man," Taylor
exclaimed with a laugh, "I guess I 'can
be a woman!"), and a rugged song;with
the fun title of "You Can Have My
Husband, But Please Don't Mess With
My Man."
She also did a version of "Hey
Bartender" that puts to sleep the cover
offered by those pretenders the Blues
Brothers, which one hears on the radio
these days.
Koko Taylor is a singer of great
directness, one who has naturally
eschewed flamboyance and
sophistication for the kind of sudden
directness that can only come from
such a form of music as the blues, and a
particular style of singing such as hers.
Her impact is never simplistic, never
banal; she is satisfying, simply,
entertaining.
Bulgarian ensemble,
cuts delightful rug
By ANNA NISSEN
In the first dance concert of the
season, the Power Center boasted a full
audience to honor the Pirin Bulgarian
National Folk Ensemble, who perfor-
med Tuesday evening. No one left
disappointed at the extravaganza of
colorful costumes, festive music, and
first-rate dancers who seem to love
what they do.
The troupe performed with sustained
vigor from beginning to end, opening
with the traditional Kopanitsa, an an-
cient East European folk dance with
origins in Dionysian ritual. Singing
Pirin
IPo wer en 'teCr or the Pe'r fornn, .it s
Bulgarian NationalIFolk Ensemble
Kiril Stefanov, Chief Artistic
Director and Conductor
Kiril Haralampiev, Chief Choreographer
Stovan stouanov. Radko Ivanov,
Conductors
Tpdor Bekirski, Peter Petrov, Halletmasters
KostadinI Rouitchev, Choreographer
Vassil Dokev, Designer
Neva 'fouzsuzova. Kitsa Daskalova,
Snezansa Tilencheva, Costumes
maidens bore breadloaves and flower
baskets ceremoniously downstage and
left them as offerings to the audience,
implicitly transforming the sloping or-
chestra and balcony into the foothills of
their native Pirin Mountain.
THE BULGARIAN village at-
mosphere was convincingly main-
tained: it is a festival day, and the
robust Brueghelesque townspeople are
bursting to ,celebrate. Linked arm in
arm in- a foot-stamping circle dance
typical of the Balkan region, twelve
dancers broke out of the circle and
traced grapevines, spirals and figure
eights across the stage floor. The line
dance became a frenzied crack-the-
whip as the company musicians
challenged with accelerated tempo.
In Kopanitsa and other numbers, folk
dance enthusiasts could appreciate the
superhuman coordination of the men,
who danced chain-gang style with arms
yoked in a "basket position" which was
made to look deceptively unhampered
by the Pirin men who bounce, polka,
and two-step with the sprezzatura of
popping corn. Other demonstrations of
male virtuosity included brisk duck-
walking, consecutive Russian leaps,
and' balancing done on large, upended
bass drums.
Dance pieces were interspersed with
several Bulgarian national folk songs
which, with the exception of a hokey,
English rendition of "Red River
Valley," were quite entertaining. The
accompanists used an eclectic variety
of instruments: the lute, tamboura,
kaval and - believe it or not - the
?bagpipe!
DANCERS AND musicians shared
the stage and enjoyed good-natured
rivalry throughout the show, especially
when the musicians egged on the dan-
cers by playing impossibly fast. In one
number the situation was reversed:
three strapping shepherds from the
Thracian district produced pipes from
their pockets and tooted at the
bagpiper, who must literally dance to
his own tune. Any competition,
however, was feigned; chief
choreographer Kiril Haralampiev tac-
tfully incorporated the relatively static
musicians into the eye-catching motion
by placing them, whenever possible, in
the conspicuous center of whirling
carousels of dancers. Many of the
vocalists also doubled as dance chorus
seconds.
The program was spiced with superb
genre dances, among them the
inevitable dance of flirting couples:
maiden elicits kisses, shepherd
threatens to comply, maiden repels
him, etc. In the Bulgarian version, the
frustrated shepherd and three sym-
pathetic comrades break into a staff-
tapping pastoral vaudeville act, step-
ping out to a humorous prototype of the
Charleston.
In a similar comic romance, two
mischevious girls experated a clownish
boy by playing monkey-in-the-middle
with his cap. A program note informs,
"Woe to him, who loves two girls."
Shopski Moods paraded the rural
characters from the villages surroun-
ding the capital city of Sofia. Merchant,
peasant, and gypsy populations were
distinguished by their costumes and
footwork, and three buffoons fresh out,
of the marketplace tavern drunkenly
bungled the most basic of dance steps.
Puppets was the audiences uncon-
tested favorite. Four mechanized dolls
- a cordial ship captain, a buxom
matron, and a picturesque young
couple - sashayed with a convincing
mannequin stiffness. Despite the highly
regulated action, the Pirin dolls
managed to convey a sincere joy of
movement.
Prize-winning costume coordinator
Neva Touzsuzova spared no limits with
colors, cost in materials, and
needlepoint-hours. Profuse with lace,
ribbons, bangles and embroidery, these
costumes epitomized the troupe's am-
bitious gypsy spirit.
In the last three years the Pirin En-
semble has toured more than twenty
countries, and been enthusiastically
applauded in each. This is not at all
surprising if their previous performan-
ces matched the one given here.
Women's & Men's
Pocket
Billiard
Tournament
ACU-
Sign-up
Union Billiards
Open 1Oam
BOWLING LEAGUES FORMING
LAST CALL-Sign-up now
UNION LANES
Mixed Women's and Men's
60C per game
Open 10 am Mon-Fri
1 pm Sat & Sun
PLAY PINBALL at Union Lanes & Station
35 machines
POETRY READING
with
ED BURROWS
Reading from His Works
Thursday, Jan. 18-7:30 p.m.
at GUILD HOUSE
802 Monroe (corner of Oakland)
ADMISSION FREE F
1 r.
PRESENTS,
PPA SUPERSTAR WEEKEND!
Tickets at PTP Office-764-0450
and at Hudson's Stores
AN ALL SHAKESPEAREAN
KRoll over, Jeff Lynne
PROGRAM
ABOUT
PARENTS
AND CHILDREN -
Nicholas Pennell
Marti Maraden
By TIMOTHY YAGLE
(with wire reports)
The rock group The Electric Light
Orchestra, has been named in a federal
suit which charges its show last
summer at the Pontiac Silverdome
was pantomimed.
The band was accused in the suti filed
in U.S. District Court in Detroit of
playing a tape recording while faking
its tunes to 60,000 fans who paid $12.50
each to hear the concert.
BRASS RING Productions, which
produced the August 12 and 13 concerts
made the charge in a countersuit
against the band's U.S. operating
company.
"It's not clear yet whether fragments
or the entire concert was faked, such as
some songs or just the string parts,"
commented Robert Fox, President of
Brass Ring, who said he "confiscated"
the tapes. "But we have plenty of
evidence," Fox said.
"I don't know if the audience was
aware of that or not, Fox continued.
"This kind of stuff has happened in the
past. Other bands have done it."
According to Brass Ring's attorney,
Patrick Fredyl, litigation began on
August 22, nine days after ELO's
second and last concert at the
Silverdome, when ELO sued Brass
Ring, claiming the firm owed them
$145,000 of a $250,000 contract for the
two shows. Brass Ring contended in
their countersuit that it didn't owe the
band any money because costs for the
advertising and an elaborate stage set-
up involving a 60-foot space ship and
lasers exceeded what the band
estimated in its agreement.
JOHN DOWNING, ELO's tour
-manager, said "That's the first time
ACU-I
R [IN Mt;
we've ever had heard a promoter
accuse us of that. If we were going to sit
around and play tapes all night, we
wouldn't need to haul millions of dollars
worth of equipment around."
Downing said the band does use taped
music to introduce certain numbers,
but no attempt is made to hide it. "If
we went on stage with the basic set-up,
'we could never come close to producing
recording-quality sound;" he
continued.
Many bands heighten sound during
live performances with electronic
gimmicks. "Other than these taped
introductions, everything is live,"
Downing claimed.
inT
THIS FAIR CHILD
OF MINE
Friday & Saturday
Jan. 19 & 20, 8:00 p.m.
Trueblood Theatre
Tom Wood
the Collaborative
winter
art & craft
classes
Classes and workshops including:
Calligraphy & Leaded Glass
REGISTER NOW-CLASSES BEGIN JAN. 29
U-M Artists & Craftsmen Guild
763-4430
2nd Floor, Michigan Union
Ann Arbor Civic Te$tre Auditns
LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
JANUARY 17-MASS MEETING-7:30 pm
JANUARY 17, 18, 19, : 20th call backs
ROLES AVAILABLE 6 WOMEN ages 13-70
3 men ages 20-50
The Liebeslieders, persons of the community
(2 sopranos, mezzo, Tenor, Barine)
ALL ROLES ARE SINGING ROLES THE MUSIC IS SOMEWHAT DIFFICULT
Auditions by appointment only, sign up after the mass meeting. There are
a few non speaking roles, call the director if interested.
Anyone interested in participating in the A.A.C.T. production of Little
Night Music-is invited to come to the A.A.C.T. Workshop Bldg., 201
Mulholland (off W. Washington) Wednesday, January 17th-7:30 pm sign up
for an audition time for cast and orchestra. All interested in set building,
costume construction, light, make up, prop crew, programs, publicity, box
office, ushering are cordially invited.
Director Susan Morris-761-6086 (H) 764-5345 (W)
Producer Carol Deniston-761-2247 after 3 pm
Musical Director Bradley Bloom
e!' ' ' Y..
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g' ,
i
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t
Vanessa Redgrave's Film
m.uln. Inn. 10 C...muirln Inn III
-" WIVE RSITY c fUSICAL OCIETY pres en ts
The Plillidor Trio
Former members of the N.Y. Pro Musica,
soprano Elizabeth Humes; harpsichordist
Edward Smith; and Shelley Gruskin,
recorder and baroque flute will play
the music of C.P.E. Bach; Haydn, Tele-
mann and other composers of the
"Splendid Century." Check for ticket
., 3, availability at Burton Tower, weekdays
<9-4:30,Sat. 9-12. Phone: 665-3717.