ARTS


The Michigan Daily

Tuesday, March 1, 1983

Page 7
Griffith silent film
returns to screen
_________on=

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Graduation Portraits
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By Richard Campbell
THE MICHIGAN Theatre returns to
its silent movie roots Wednesday
with D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms.
Originally released in 1919, the film
will be shown just as it was back then.
The Ann Arbor Chamber Orchestra will
perform the original tinted sequences.
Although Broken Blossoms wasn't
lost for decades like Abel Gance's
Napoleon, its resurrection should be just
as thrilling. Watching a fine-quality
print on the big screen with full or-
chestra and organ is much more en-
joyable than the same film on PBS with
a rinky-tink piano.
Broken Blossoms stars Lillian Gish
as a fifteen year-old, a victim of abuse
from her father who falls in love with a
Chinese man, played by Richard Bar-
thelmess. At its first release the film
received critical praise and proved a
box-office success due to the emotional
and naturalistic performances of the
stars.
The evening will begin with a
program of popular songs from the
silent era amidst decorations that will
evoke the film's New York premiere.

Prince prowls the stage during Sunday nights' show at Crisler Arena.

Prince seduces

By Phillip K. Lawes
PEFLECTIONS ON Sodom and
R .Gomorrah Night at Crisler Arena.
The Time came onstage, proceeded to
stage front, and held its collective penis
in unison. An auditorium full of
teenagers screamed ecstatically,
making a noise like so many pubescent
crickets in heat. Artist and audience
were clearly of one mind.
It was that sort of a night. The per-
formers were greeted with squeals of
delight and roars of adulation for doing
,things which could easily get one
thrown out of the average Catholic
school. It was alternately slick, dopey,
innovative and run-of-the-mill, campy
and banal, classy and sleazy. All in all,
it was a reasonably entertaining
evening.
Vanity 6 started the evening off with a
25 minute set which drew mixed reac-
tions from the audience. While there
are dramatic differences of opinion as
to the quality of the women's perfor-
mance, this much is generally agreed
upon: They absolutely cannot sing.
That fact is somewhat academic
however. Going by the fact that they
came onstage dressed in teddies in
front of a curtain which concealed their.

band, it was clear that they were
making a visual statement rather than
an aural one.
To this end, they came out grinding
and rotating their pelvises like so many
cement trucks, while they treated the
arena to a sonic barrage which gives on
a strong idea of what an artillery attack
must be like.
With their hyperactive juggling and
exaggerated vamping, the act is clearly
a revival of the bulesque tradition. It
also d~es one hell of a lot to explain why
burlesque died.
The Time followed with a 45-minute
seminar in premeditated cool which
was extremely well received. Lead
singer Morris Day, resplendent in gold
lame smoking jacket, black baggy pan-
ts (fashionably short so as to reveal the
ankles), and outrageously loud black
and white patent leather Stacey
Adams, was naturally the focus of at-
tention. "I could just die for Morris,"
said one woman.
The group is well on its way to
developing a unique persona, if this
performance is any indication. Their
set Sunday night was substantially im-
proved over their last appearance here,
due in large part to the doubling of their
repetoire that their second album
acheived.

Crisler
Apart from a very solid performance
anchored on a bassline relentless
enough to use as a weapon, the most
gratifying aspect ofthe Time's presen-
tation was their refreshingly
humourous approach to the pretty-boy
image. Day's mix of Charlie Chaplin
and Cab Calloway is so much more en-
joyable-and original-than the typical
"I'm a stud," sock-stuffed-down-the-
front-of-the-pants posture taken by
most male stars.
Prince Roger Nelson capped the
evening with a performance which
predictably, slaughtered the squealing
adoring throng. The operative word
was "energetic" for the seamless, one-
hour effort delivered by Prince and his
unusually tight band. Sound quality was
far above par, affording the audience
an excellent chance to be battered into
submission by what developed into one
of the most devastatingly accurate
rhythm sections in pop music today.
Prince was in rare form in his
assumed role as lover-
man/slut/debutante/sex-kitten, pran-
cing about, preeing, posing, seducing
fourteen thousand people. He was in
constant motion, running back and for-
th across the stage at a dazzling
rate-no mean feat for a man who hap-
pened to be wearing women's boots.
ver seen it
by The Empty Suitor (1980) and Day
Two (1980). Wednesday's program will
consist of six short works highlighted
by Ciona (1974) and Untitled (1975), two
company favorites. Indeed, Untitled
might be considered the company's
signature piece. As Wolken puts it," Un-
titled is around the good side of most
people in Pilobolus and the bad side as
well."

Gish
..broken heart
Tickets are $5 in advance and $6.50 at
the door. They are available at the
Michigan Theatre 10 a.m.-6 p.m. in the
manager's office off the Mezzanine.
For more information call 668-8397.


Dance like
 By Ellen Rieser _
TUST BACK from a European tour,
J Pilobolus Dance Theatre, one of the
country's most innovative dance com-
panies, will make its Ann Arbor debut
on March 1 and 2 at Power Center.
From humble beginnings in 1971 as a
travelling all-male troupe of four with a
species of fungus for a namesake,
Pilobolus evolved into a full-fledged
dance company presenting a unique
form of choreography.
Precisely because of the non-dance
backgrounds of its original members,
Pilobolus does not look like any other
dance company. Pilobolus is not ballet,
modern dance, or jazz. If one does at-
tempt to analyze it, Pilobolus's unique
way of moving might be described as a
sort of combination of gymnastics,
acrobatics, and mime, a form of
movement that uses the human body as
a plastic architectural form.
The company that Ann Arbor will be
seeing has undergone some changes
since its founding. Women joined
Pilobolus in 1973 and the newer people
in the company have had more exten-
sive dance training. Founder Jonathan
Wolken described the present as
"second generation Pilobolus."
However, he stated, "the dances are
the same. For the most part, old dances
contain old movement. The original
vision of the role is important to the
dance."
When change does occur, it can be
found in new choreography created by
the dancers and new projects for the
company. Wolken says that he "tries to
do a new piece every year for
Pilobolus." The act of creation is not
limited to dance. "I prefer to think of
Pilobolus as The Greater Pilobolus En-
kinko's copies
SELF-
SERVICE A 4

you've net
terprises," stated Wolken. "It com-
prises the greater part of my artistic
enterprises. I'll be making a film this
summer and Pilobolus may help with
that."
Pilobolus is presenting two different
programs for its Ann Arbor performan-
ces. Tuesday evening's program will
include Molly's Not Dead (1978), one of
the company's longer works, followed

Use Daily Classifieds'


JOHN PRINE
MICHIGAN THEATRE
FRIDAY, MARCH 4,8:00 P.M.
Reserve Seating - $8.50 & $9.50
Available at Michigan Theatre box office


SWING TO -
Chatanooga Choo-Choo
Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy
Ain't She Sweet
Blue Moon
Hey Daddy!
Little Brown Jug
Strike Up the Band
Old Black Magic
I Got it Bad
I'll Be Seeing You
And Many More

A 8111 regan t fiSOttratiosrroautAtion