ARTS
Thursday, April 10, 1986
The Michigan Daily
Page 5
'Bambaataa talks on 'Sun
Afrika Bambaataa was one of
the original forces behind elec-
trofunk and hip-hop music. Since
his first hit "Planet Rock, "he has
worked with such artists as James
Brown, John Lydon, and Nina
Hagen, to name but a few. He also
was a featured artist on the 'Sun
Ann Arbor to tonight at the Nec-
tarine Ballroom, beginning
at around 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $5
at the door and $4.50 in advance at
Schoolkids' and P.J. 's Used
Records Store.
Bambaataa spoke to Daily staff
writer John Logie from his home
When they asked me, I was ready to
go. You know I stand always against
injustice to anybody throughout the
world, whatever kind of oppression
they're going through. I felt (the
project) was a way that I could say
something.
It was a good at-
mosphere . . . everyone felt good
about doing it. I feel strongly that
when singers get together-it's
almost like in the '60s, when you used
to see singers getting together on the
same stage for a cause. They lost that
in the '70s, but the '80s seem to be
bringing it all back together, and
going against different
problems in the world, like A.I.D.S.,
feeding the hungry, not going to
nuclear war. It's good to see a lot of
artists - even though some critics are
saying, "Aww, another one of these
records with all these artists . . . they
should be thankful, really, that artists
out there now are realizing what sort
of problems there are in the world,
and using what sources they can to
help create better situations.
D: Sun City features a wide range of
musical styles, but it still has a sense
of continuity ...
B: Yeah, it's just a shame that
City'project. in New York.
Even though Bambaataa has Daily: How did you get involved in
had considerable success as a the Sun City project?
and musician, he still en- Bambaataa: Well, basically my
producer.n musicn he sill ea- producer Arthur Baker talked to me,
joys D.J.-ing, which he will treat and then I met Steve (Van Zandt).
Anato srinzs
City,'
stations let politics get in the way and
try not to play it, or say that it won't
fit their format, and all this other
mess. It's sickening when people get
like that. They get brainwashed.
When a record is for a cause, you
should try to play it anyway. It may
not fit your format, but it's something
that's helping people.
D; Most people who have heard of
you think of you primarily as a
musician or a producer, because of
your work with funk acts like Soul
Sonic and Time Zone; but you still do
a lot of D.J.-ing. How do you manage
to do all three?
B: Basically, I love D.J.-ing. D.J.-
ing is where my start came from. It's
what let me become a rap artist,
which is whatletme start singing,
and that led me to a lot of other people
in the industry. I feel that I'm a per-
son who is. . . just more drawn to life
with the people. Just because you
make a lot of records, and have some
good hits-you might have had some
dead hits-that doesn't mean you
should start running around thinking
that you're "Mr.Everybody" and
riding in limousines. You can hang out
in the same places you did.
If you're like Prince, or Michael,
you can't walk the streets. But you
streets
can have a nice time with people,
speaking with them. When I D.J., it
puts me on a level where I can see
what't happening in the streets. IfI go
into another town, I know that I can
walk the streets. Some people want
autographs, so you don't be cheap,
and give them some autographs.
D: When you D.J., you often mix
two styles of music together that
might not seem to have much in com-
mon...
B: I hate when people say that a
person chould stay in one field of
music, because that's what he's good
at. With me, because I brought out
electro-funk, people say I shouldn't do
records with Johnny Rotten, or James
Brown . .. It's crazy. You don't know
what artists can do. Nobody knew that
the Talking Heads could get real
funky when they started out.
It takes time. People have to get a
certain image to start with, then they
can start releasing different things.
It's a shame that you've got to do it
that way, but that's how the system
works . . . When Prince came out
with Purple Rain, black people
thought he gave up the funk, but he
came back with a record which is
number one now, and one of the har-
dest- funk records out there, "Kiss."
I
into romance
By David Turner
S SPRING comes to the University
ommunity, it seems appropriate
that the University Players are
presenting Anatol, a play about the in-
tricacies of romantic love, this
weekend at the Trueblood Theatre.
The play offers a variety of advice for
any potential or active lovers, while
throwing in some good humor and fun.
The action in Anatol is centered
upon the title character, who over a
fifteen year period is involved in trysts
and affairs with seven very different
Exhibit dis
By Celia Hooper
D ETROIT is miles away. You've
got no car. Exams are coming up.
These excuses keep U-M students
from venturing to the big city very of-
ten, but if there was ever a good
reason to go to Detroit, this is it:
Diego Rivera.
The Detroit Institute of Arts is
showing a major - no, THE major -
retrospective of Diego Rivera's life
work until April 27. The exhibit is big
and diverse, and if you like modern
art, it is almost certain that you will
find something you love in the work of
Mexico's most famous painter.
The Institute has pulled out all the
stops for this one. Several years in the
making, the show honors the centen-
nial of both the Institute and Rivera's
birth. Ford Motor Company con-
tributed a million dollars to the show.
After April the retrospective will go to
Philadelphia, Mexico City, Madrid
and Berlin.
Museum curators Linda Downs and
Ellen Sharp have selected and impor-
ted the artist's best paintings and
works on paper, represen-
ting all phases of Rivera's very
diverse artistic life. The ambitious
show is further complemented by a
photographic exhibit showing the ar-
tist's life and environments, a short
film on Rivera's murals, and an
exhibit of 13 cartoons, or full-size
preparatory drawings that the artist
made for the murals in the Institute's
famous "Rivera Court."
Undoubtedly it is through these
Rivera Court murals that the artist is
best known in Michigan. But anyone,
like me, who might have written
Rivera off because they dislike the
impersonal, heavy-handed social
realism of the Detroit murals will
miss a treasure trove if they skip the
retrospective. The cartoons, as well
as the other works displayed reveal
that Rivera was a superb craftsman,
with a first-rate sense of color and
composition and a tremendous ver-
satility that you wouldn't expect from
the painter of the murals.
Although Rivera is most famous for
his murals, the retrospective shows
that Rivera's talents went far beyond
the political, often controversial
"public art." The 115 paintings and
130 works on paper are excellent,
amazingly diverse and perhaps
superior to the murals. As with the
cartoons for the murals, in the
smaller works Rivera is more ac-
cessible and we can more readily ap-
women. Playwright Arthur
Schnitzler ties all the affairs together
with their romantic and unrealistic
view of what a relationship should be,1
and shows us the inadequacy of these
weak couplings in a funny but
graceful manner.+
Set in Vienna at the turn of the cen-
tury, the surrounding contribute to
the psychological aspect of the work.
Arthur Schnitzler lived in Vienna at
this time, and was greatly influenced+
by his close friend Dr. Sigmund
Freud. Through this influence and his
own interest in psychology, Schnitzler
burrows into the depths of his charac-
ters showing their inward traits and
faults.
The episodic nature of this play
gives director Patricia Boyette, a
member of the Theatre Department
faculty, an opportunity to develop
diverse female characters whose only
interaction is through the central
male. Because of this variety, the
play should offer some excellent
characterization by Boyette's un-
dergraduate actresses as one by one
they are seduced by a sly
"Casanova."
Anatol promises to teach all of us
something about love, and perhaps
before you rush off blindly to all of
those other obligations this Spring,
come in out of the sun and see Anatol
at the Trueblood Theatre in the Frieze
Building this weekend. Shows are
tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m.,
Saturday at 5 and 9 p.m., and Sunday
afternoon at 2 p.m.. Tickets are $3.00
for students and are available at the
League or outside Trueblood one
hour before the show.
USE DAILY CLASSIFIEDS
a
The
Gilbe
University of Michigan
rt and Sullivan Society
presents!
plays art of Rivera
preciate his fine skills in composition disharmony sometimes) of the pic-
and color. ture and to minute structuring of
The paintings and drawings are complex effects within small areas.
arranged chronologically, permitting White is never just white, for exam-
a walk through Rivera's dramatic ple, but rather a wonderful muted
evolution of style. Rivera's earliest rainbow of colors. Finally, Rivera
drawings suggest he was precocious if gave loving renditions of textures and
not a prodigy. surface decoration like wool serapes,
From the early realism, Rivera wild Mexican flower-print fabrics,
moved on to impressionism, then and wook sculpted out of paint.
through an "El Greco" phase to Given Rivera's artistic breadth as
cubism, on to a long romance with presented in the retrospective, there
Mexican folk art and into "arte fan- is certain to be a single style or pain-
tastico" which draws heavily from ting that will more than justify your
surrealism. The most astonishing trip to Detroit. But more importantly,
thing about the evolution was how the show permits deduction and ap-
completely Rivera mastered each preciation of the pure gold threads
style, yet continued to accommodate that run through all of Rivera's diver-
his personal artistic imperatives se work. This world-class show
naturally and effortlessly in each, broadened my appreciation of
Rivera was a master of color, as Rivera's total oeuvre and even
can be seen in the close attention he deepened my appreciation of
paid both to overall harmony (or Detroit's murals.
LSAT STUDENTS
* Learn How to Anticipate the Test-Maker
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* Sharpen your Analytical and Critical Thinking Skills
* Develop Strategies for Maximizing your Exam Performance
le,
F wl,
III
Gilbert and Sullivan's,
The
Pirates of
Penzance
SApri1 9-13, 16-19, 1986
Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
For ticket information call 763-1085
Rush Tickets, Tonight Only $3 w/ID.
Test Preparation
1100 S. University
996-1500
Ha
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