ARTS The Michigan Daily Page 5 Saturday, March 13, 1982 A classic from the, first' note By Mark Dighton T HE GUITAR runs ran thick and fluid, effortlessly ascending in spiraling crescendos. The horns chased in the opposite direction, dropping aimless staccato bursts that threatened to nail the stumbling bass to the floor. Self-evident was that some of the best talents in the business were clustered in our presence. And Chic hadn't 'even taken the stage yet. When they did, the floodgates opened and outpoured classic after classic. From note one it was clear that this was going to be the best show (as well as the best party) Ann Arbor had been witness to in any mentionable length of time. Most bands have to pace their sets so that the few peaks don't all end up together and the valleys become un- bearable. Chic don't have to worry about that. They started out on top with "Chic Rap" and continued to set their sites higher at each step. No stone was left unturned in displaying the hit factory talents of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, Chic's main men. In addition to the finest tunes off their new album, "Take It Off," they also pulled out some of the wonders they penned and produced for other ar- tists-Diana Ross' "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out," Deborah Harry's "Backfired," and Sister Sledge's "We Are Family." Though Silent world is revealed Daii Nile Rodgers of Chic By Adam Knee THE TREND in much of today's "new mime" is consciously anti- Marceau. Abstraction replaces narrative, hyper-realism replaces stylization in a push toward new artistic visions. Yet, as his opening Thursday night performance before a wildly en- thusiastic Power Center audience once more affirmed, Marcel Marceau's ar- tistry has yet to be matched. None of today's technical and stylistic in- novations can, in themselves, sub- stitute for Marceau's insight into the human mind, or his moving, enlightening evocation of the human experience. Marceau performs in whiteface with some simple coloring of his eyebrows, eyes, and lips. He wears a plain white costume with a striped shirt, adding a dark jacket and a crumpled tophat with a flower in it for his clown character, Bip. He employs only a few props, all of which are unobtrusive. His technique, though precise, is never strained and, though highly stylized, is never over- embellished. Needless to say, he never speaks. In short, Marceau performs in a con- text in which there is nothing to distract the audience from his true art. Each practiced gesture, each refined ex- pression receives all the attention it merits. More importantly, such a con- text -promotes the mental abstraction his pieces call for: even his simplest skits suggest the profoundest truths. When Marceau performs "The Creation of the World," he uses his body to suggest water, fish, birds, and land animals; yet he never attempts to tran- scend his human form-as many of the new mimes would. Each movement, each new development in the world, is exquisitely, poignantly expressed in his face and emoted through his body. What we are seeing is not a fantastic abstraction, but a human drama, a depiction more of personal evolution than of biological evolution. Marceau's representation of the human experience relies mostly on events somewhat less monumental than Creation. For example, in "Bip as a Great Artist," the Bip character plays his heart out as a street violinist, only to discover, to his dismay, that it will require crashing cymbals in a marching band to make himself heard. We can all identify with Bip, here, as a man frustrated in his attempts to ex- press himself, to reveal his higher visions of the world. This frustrated artist figure is prevalent in Marceau's work. In the "Envy" segment of "The Seven Deadly Sins," an aspiring sculptor puts all of his energies into creating something out of a small ball of clay, only to have his work smashed back down to a ball by a jealous instructor. "The Bill Poster" is also as aspiring artist, in a sense, brushing glue on walls with pain- terly strokes. But he, too, is stopped short of his goal when his medium gets a bit too sticky. Thus, a performer who does not speak enlightens us about stifled ex- pression. Marceau reveals the hidden, unexpressed sides of all kinds of people. A rich women overseeing a meager charity dinner sneaks into the kitchen to cram her face with immense quantities of food. A feeble, ostensibly poor old man takes on a new vitality when rummaging through the valuables he has hoarded. In "Bip plays David and Goliath," the clown reveals two sides to his single persona-one meek and bright, the other strong and dumb-by changing his form every time he passes behind a partition. Bip keeps this division intact in the ensuing r curtain calls, alternating character for each bow. "The Mask Maker" is probably Mar- ceau's most imitated expression of the contrast between' inner and outer selves. The title character tries on some of his wares and manages to get a smiling mask stuck to his face. He can- not remove it and reveal his true self until the moment of his death. Marceau consistently depicts man in some way stifled or trapped by the cir- cumstances of his life. In "Laziness,"'a character gets so tired out from going through the daily trivialities of waking, dressing, going out, opening an um- brella, and walking that he im- See MARCEAU, Page 8 each of these renditions was a bit lacking, they more than made the point that most of the original magic of each of these tunes was ; pure Chic. The major songs of the evening were certainly not surprises-"Good Times," "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)," "Le Freak," "Everybody Dance," and so on and so forth. As they reeled out each one, making it sound as fresh and impeccably performed as the day you first heard it, it seemed that Rodgers and Edwards could easily go on the road as a two-man greatest hits of disco show. But that same sort of easy professionalism is what will keep them from becoming just another oldies show. They never once in the entire evening let their smooth per- fectionism border over onto man- nered slickness. No, the instant classics penned by, these wun- derkinder will never go stale as long as they keep playing them the way they did Thursday night. I'm not one to hand out free commercials, but thanks to Les harvey Productions for putting on another fine, un- derappreciated show. It's not every day that an act as fine as Chic grace our town. Spyro makes their point By Ben Ticho PYRO GYRA'S Thursday night per- formance at Hill Auditorium proved one thing beyond all doubt; the group has a devoted following, one par- ticularly well-suited to its brand of high-energy, if ultimately unsatisfying,* musical pyrotechnics. A lot, of people really like Spyro Gyra-they are delighted by the way the six-member band blends the 'sophistication' of jazz with the easily grasped sounds of (largely commer cial) rock (with a bit of salsa mixed in). Such a combination may sound ap- pealing, or at least intriguing, and Spyro Gyra's propulsion to the national music scene in the mid-to-late Seven- ties was welcomed by many as the beginning of a new jazz form. As displayed by the Thursday show, however, the true result of such fusion is a curious ambivalence, straining to be two things at once, and covering the inevitable weal links with a barrage of electronics, volumn, and flash. Spyro Gyra opened the show with the title cut from their third album, Cat- ching the Sun, immediately displaying both their strengths-mainly Jay Beckenstein's saxophone expertise and a consistent, rocking beat-and their flaws-a tendency to overplay and overdramatize. Instead of emphasizing the beauty and innovation of the melodies and rhythms, the group covered "Catching the Sun" and ensuing numbers with an overabundance of electronic mush and by-now outdated guitar riffs. Tom Schuman's persistent synthesizer, con- tributing little but extra sound, proved especially annoying over the course of the evening, as the listener tried (often) vainly to tune into Beckenstein's sax. The program featured several selec- tions from the Buffalo-based group's upcoming album, the sixth since its in- ception in 1975. "Let's exit," an upbeat piece conceived by Schuman, and "All For You," written by guitarist Chet Catallo, did not fare quite as well as Beckenstein's "Just For Now," which displayed the artist's ample sax talents in solos of creativeand unhurried reflection. The concert really began to move following Danny Walker's superb bass solo, running all over the frets, in- dulging in infectious rhythms and a bizarre bullet-style of plucking. Some of the best sounds of. the evening, curiously enough, went down in the slow-moving ballads-"Autumn of Our Love" and "Industry"-with Beckenstein's solo sax rising im- pressively (and thankfully) over background percussion and syn- thesizer. The group's attempts at faster-paced rockers succeeded most toward the end of the concert, repeatedly rising a very- enthused audience to its feet. All in all, it was a 'nice' performan- ce-they made their point. Spyro Gyra has some excellent and even progressive ideas; it's time for the band to rid itself of the extraneous gar- bage which only glosses over the music, obscuring its interesting and exciting elements. 9 aM S3A5 N MAPLE 769_100 BARGAIN MATINEES-DAILY i2.30 Daily Photo by Josh Kaplan Sean Mulroney and Rob Nathan will be performing tonight at the U-club for Michigras festivities. This is a return performance for them, and will feature songs from James Taylor, The Eagles, Cat Stevans and others. MIcl1982ras UnvesityActivities Center THE WINNINGEST EVENT OF THE YEAR YOU COULD WIN: A HONDA MOTORCYCLE TICKETS TO: THE POLICE, OSCAR PETERSON, THE CHINESE CIRCUS, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, every movie on campus (for one year).. . - ~Riveting.. 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