The Michigan Daily-Friday, March 16, 1979-Page 7
From 16mm mystics to mish-mash
By JOSHUA PECK assortment of patterns formed by hurtling past; and a mostly animated, screened at Wednesday night's 9:00 children's nursery rhymes we've a
A long documentary on a South waving and shifting dots of white light; virtually themeless, excruciatingly showing. heard so often we scarcely understan
American mystic healer; an animated a fledgling feminist argument; an stupid monstrosity. Where else could Richard Cowan's Eduardo the Healer them. As a grandfatherly narrator an
enactment of three deliciously violent animated dance of Mandarin oranges, one find such a menagerie of cinema, is an unblinking, equivocal treatment of several children recite "Three Blin
Mother Goose rhymes; an intriguing appropriately cloaked;' a repetitious but at Ann Arbor's own film festival? a Peruvian shaman whose pleasure it is Mice," the film shows, in whodun
sampling of a phantom freight train The variety described above is that to heal his customers with the use of style, the three critters stumbling abo
11
d
d
d
it
ut
herbs, mescaline, and (figuratively)
demonic wrestling.]
WHAT IS most fascinating about the
documentary's subject matter is the
off-hand manner Eduardo takes with
mystical affairs. He -speaks of the
astral plane as casually as he reaches
for another piece of fish, surrounded by
his multitude of children.
Cowan's camera relentlessly follows
Eduardo around, detailing along the
way many of the influences that have
made the. enigmatic healer the
celebrity he seems to be in his little
world. Perhaps the most interesting
shot in the film scans slowly across a
book shelf in Eduardo's house. It con-
tains books on Peruvian archaeology, a
book of Jungian psychology, and a
Gibran text. Chauvinists, who imagine
North American thought to be superior
to Eduard's world south of the border
must have been shocked to discover
that Eduardo is not simply a super-
stitious ignoramus; that he has access
to Western ideas and perhaps incor-
porates them into his own, yet still he
wholly believes in the efficacy of his
practice.
The film is nicely conceived,
lusciously executed, and strikingly
photographed. It will be a disappoin-
tment if Eduardo the Healer is not
granted the recognition it deserves.
Mother Goose is an animated look in-
to the literal meanings of three
(one thuds into a wall), the farmer's
spouse's hand reaching for the murder
weapon, and finally the mauled little
corpses splayed on the floor, dark
glasses smashed nearby. David Bishoip
and the USC Cinema have forged a
superbly witty crowd-pleaser. Its four
minutes are too few.
Teaming white dots of light weaved
their way through 3/78, a Larry Cuba
production. It's difficult to cite just
what it is that's appealing about the
short, but there is something very
definitely entrancing and amusing in
the myriad patterns that emerge.
I called Women's Answer a
"fledgling" because its material is so
elementary that an American audience
watching it these ten or moreyears af-
ter feminism's rebirth feels like
viewing a troupe of Ph.D.s in physics
discussing Newton's apple. Women of
every shape and size utter overly pat
sentiments regarding their sexuality,
their desires and needs, and their
feelings for (and subliminally, their
dislike for) men. The women's segmen-
ts are interspersed with a shot of a hor-
de of men, equally diverse, staring
mutely at the camera. There is a cer-
tain smugness about the whole effort
See FESTIVAL, Page 5
EXECUTIVE ORDER
9066
March 6 - April 6
An exhibition produced by the
California Hist oricalI Society.
describing the experience of
Japanese Americans during World
War HI. Included are many
photographs by Dorothea lange.
Opening Reception March 16,
9:30 p.m. Symposium at 7:30 p.m.
Speakers: Professor Harry H. L.
Kitano, Ph.D. and California
Congressman Norman Y. Mineta.
T Uesday thru Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
FIRST FLOOR-MICHiGAN UNION+"764-3234
Daily Photo By MAUREEN O'MALLEY
The steel pinchers of the puppy broke skin and drew blood and fluids from his torso. He died, dreaming of Nina (Cambron)
and her soft sculptures, in the halls of the Old A & D. Renoir died too, but the festival goes on.
Dancers, pran cers,
vixens, and blunders
By ANNA NISSEN
What occupied Power Center three
nights this week, has 25 members, and
needs about ten additional years to
develop to full potential? You guessed
it; the Los Angeles Ballet Company.
The Wednesday night performance
was launched with Red Back Book, a
arousing composition by Artistic Direc-
tor John Clifford. Set to a medley of
Joplin tunes, the rather soupy or-
chestration of the piece improved after
a few minutes.
Ballet went Old West and ragtime as
saloon bunnies and their bartender
beaus reeled through a can-can,
allemande with refreshing hoe-down
vigor, though in general the timing and
dynamics were too lackluster to sustain
Joplin's spontaneous syncopations.
Also distracting was the sloppy coor-
dination of arms, with little or no effort
made to integrate the various heights of
the dancers.
Spicy solos and a few diverting
vignettes in the tradition of Freserick
Ashton )les Patineurs) saved the piece
from being entirely bland. Cast as his
own dapper drunk, choreographer Clif-
ford won the affection of the dime-a-
dance coquette (Dana Shwarts) with a
few pert clicks of his heels and some
admirably bouyant assembles.
Dana Shwarts was especially enter-
taining, tangoing in a perfunctory
player-piano fashion with her clients
but warming to a more seductive en-
thusiasm in the pas de deux with Clif-
ford. The cliche's of classical ballet
were burlesqued as Shwarts boureed
on her heels, flexed her feet mid-lift,
and insisted on an indecorous pie
position in second.
The composition was a celebration of
human quirks and foibles; one dancer
careened dizzily offstage after her con-
ventional marathon of foueue turns,
lifts are frustrated, and contacts
deliberately bungled.
A more sober number, Fantasies was
an allegorical quartet of real and ideal
lovers and romance. Draped in white
chiffon, Dana Shwarts embodied the
'unworldly female with her tenuous long
arms and beautifully hyper-extended
knees. Her earthly counterpart, Diane
Diefenderfer, was dressed in austere
-green leotards and also had nice exten-
sion, but like most of the company's
women, tended to fall off of it.
Clifford incorporated the cinematic
"freeze" in this piece, the white couple
suspended while the green couple en-
counter each other, and the green pair
in turn immobilized during the white
couple's florid pas de deux. The ideal
couple ultimately reconciled the green
lovers into an embrace and the curtain
closed as the ideal lovers leaned toward
each other, the consummation of their
love impossible in this world.
The third number Tchaikovsky's pas
de Deux was a plotless neo-classic work
by Balanchine, many of whose works
enrich the Los Angeles repertoire. In
contrast to the philosophic Fantasies,
Balanchine's choreography exists
merely to demonstrate thetechnical
finesse of dancers Johnna Kirkland
(yes, she is Gelse's sister) and John
Clifford.
Clifford was apparently injured
during rehearsals, and unfortunately
substituted Richard Fritz for the more
ambitious solo sequences.
Either the number should've been cut
altogether, or the understudy allowed
to perform it in its entirety, for Clif
ford's firm muscle control and regal
stature only served to cast in low relief
Fritz's slipshod technique. Typical of
the company's males, Fritz has
mastered the dancer's tricks and
agility but lacks polish. Here, he came
off more like the court jester than the
handsome prince.
' Choreographer Clifford's finale, Con-
certo in F is clearly indebted to Balan-
chine, which is not too surprising since
the Los Angeles and New York City
Ballet Companies have had an ex-
change program for a number of years
now. Like Balanchine's creation of
Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream,
Clifford accommodates and encourages
the individuality of his better dancers.
In Concerto, Dana Shwarts is allowed
untethered poetic license to fulfill her
paradoxically ostrich-like grace. Her
exotic arm and torso contortions recall
Balanchine's classic Agon (1957) and
his Bugaku, which incorporates
Eastern dance gesture.
Concerto's most obvious parallel with
Balanchine is its fidelity to the forms,
moods, and dynamics of the musical
accompaniment, reflecting Balan-
chine's focus on Stravinsky's or-
chestrations. Clifford transposed Ger-
shwin's passages into sinuous body
movements, and the jazzier measures
into hip-happy swaggering. Again, un-
fortunately, the company's dynamics
were slovenly, the spacing uneven. Clif-
See BALLET, Page 5
,et/, ,,represents:
Prof. Abraham Udovitch,
Princeton University
ZWERDING LECTRES:
FRI. 3/16-8:30 pm
"Judaism Under Islam"
SAT. 3/17:-11 am (during services)
"The Jews of Djerba"
2000 WASHTENAW
ALL WELCOME
SOTPTofR PG Al ..;...:>..v.2.......'~
and CUR-C prsent:
S oiree
a
the Ann Arbor Film Cooperative Presents at MLB 3
Friday, March 16
HIGH ANXIETY
(Mel Brooks, 1978) 7 and 10:20-MLB 3
More from the master of boffo yock. This time, Brooks sends up Hitchcock
in -a lunatic cross of VERTIGO, MARNIE, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. A
celebration with some of the best in the business-Cloris Leachman,
Hnrue vKorman, Madeline Kahn. Hiahooints include the wierd sexual acro-
&Ucike 17, 1979
9:00 pm to 1:00 am
/.50 pen oupQj
Wo, / /