4 Page 8-- The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 29, 1988 Program traces spiritual growth BYJENIFER BERMAN S IT back and relax. Get ready to take a journey with the Intersect Theatre Dance Company. Don't expect an action-packed adventure reminiscent of Indiana Jones; instead, prepare for an '80s version of This Is Your Life. K a m - ikaze/Transcending V is everyone's life - a chronicle of humanity's evolution from a state of infancy to spiritual transcendence. Kamikaze/Transcending V, the creation of co-directors Kiro Kopulos and Ariel Weymouth-Payne, juxtaposes dance theater and per- formance art, integrating aspects of dramatic theater - voice, move- ment, set, costume - with a musical and dance background. The program incorporates a series of vignettes to convey its trans- cendental theme. Each individual segment rhythmically and the- matically parallels humanity's spiritual evolution. Beginning (ap- propriately) with "Begin," the per- formance unfolds through "Stand," "Go Baek," "Burn," "Sing," "Fly," concluding with "Into Light." As Weymouth-Payne explains, the individual search for spiritual truth is a transcendence of life - "A Death to a part of oneself, but the achieve- ment of a purer life." The message of K a m i - kaze/Transcending V is more spiritual and "organic" than theo- logical. The symbolism is simple - basic images of water, fire, air, Molecules of the Mind By Jon Franklin Laurel Paperback/$8.95 Many books claim to change the reader's view of life. Jon Franklin has the goods to do so. Since 1973, he has followed molecular psychology, which has been quietly solving the puzzles of the brain. Although various discoveries have been publicized, this is the first overview of the field's explosive progress. The assembled insights form a disturbing but logical picture of human nature. Commendably, Franklin does not confine himself to popularized science, but develops each new concept in its real-world context. Though his reach exceeds his grasp, he nonetheless creates a remarkable epic of science. In the opening Franklin depicts a world with a "craziness in the land," a chain reaction of stress and madness eating up our civilization. This is the backdrop for the emergence of molecular psychology, the "brave new science" which sees the brain as a computer whose "chips" are interconnected by messenger hormones - an organ that "secretes thoughts as the kidney secretes urine." This new model has opened the door to a true science of the mind, yielding technological treasures and a profound knowledge of "who we are and why we are that way." To make his point, Franklin weaves together strands of the "craziness", examining schizophrenia, depression, drug addiction and violence as society and as the scientists see them. His perceptive social histories leave no one unscathed in demonstrating the inadequacy of all traditional approaches to these problems. The materialistic new science, on the other hand, states that "twisted molecules lead to twisted thoughts." That does not mean that the problems are simple, but that they are understandable, perhaps curable. Franklin devotes a fair amount of his book to describing how molecular psychology has stimulated the promising new inves- tigations into depression and schizophrenia and how it has discovered that street drugs copy the effect of brain hormones. However, molecular psychology "will not be confined to the test tube or mental institution." The discipline presents us with unpleasant truths about the human race: we are mechanisms with Rube Goldberg three-part brains; our human qualities evolved in response to an ancient ecological catastrophe, "at a speed that left our minds full ... of obsolete programs." We are in short a jerry-built species living beyond our evolutionary means - which would explain a lot of what we see in the TV news. Maybe Franklin explains too much, using theories that have not been verified. What is worse, his writing distracts from his argument, as in his discussion of irrational violence, which he sabotages by including the phrase "... his name is John W. Hinckley ... Hinckley, Hinckley, Hinckley." He further damages his credibility by omitting a bibliography. Franklin's half-glimpsed possibilities evoke a gaudy new mil- lennium out of comic books and an Ollie North apocalypse. Franklin mentions future pharmaceuticals, such as a possible PCP-based crea- tivity drug, only in passing, preferring to concentrate on our growing ability to redefine the human condition. Franklin's nightmare is that the psychic engineers will thrive in obscurity and in time present the politicians and generals with something convenient and hideous. Still, Molecules of the Mind could be read as good science fiction, all the better for being factual. -Danny Krashin Kamikaze/Transcending V is an attempt to deal with the possibility of world destruction and the anger and pain caused by this condition. Kopulo and Weymouth-Payne posit global consciousness as a remedy for this situation. and rocks. Weymouth-Payne describes the piece as "something like the Origins of Life on the Discover channel and Beyond Armageddon." Kamikaze/Transcending V is an attempt to deal with the possibility of world destruction and the anger and pain caused by this condition. Kopulo and Weymouth-Payne posit global consciousness as a remedy for this situation, and their music and choreography reflect this message. The dance and movement of the piece are clearly ethnically in- fluenced, drawing on Balinese, Ja- maican, and yoga influences instead of typical dance technique. Kamikaze/Transcending V is an experimental production, utilizing various art forms in an attempt to create a Happening - an immediate and momentary event of lasting importance. Like the representation of humanity in the piece, the Ann Arbor performance of Kamikaze Transcending V is a product of gradual evolution - the fifth and final production in two years of progressive development. The result should be an experimental and original production, both socially relevant and spiritually moving. KAMIKAZE/TRANSCENDING V will be performed tonight, September 29th through October 2nd at 8:30 p.m. at the Performance Network, 408 W. Washington. Suggested donation is $5 to $8. Quartet Continued from Page 7 material for the second movement of this quartet. The somber tone of the movement pervades throughout the quartet, underlining the motif of loss and despair. Bartok's Third Quartet was one of the first prize winners of an inter- pational chamber music competition sponsored by the Musical Fund Society oPhiladelphia. This com- position is the third of Bartok's six quartets and is the shortest and the most intense of this composer's works. It is also one of the least performed of Bartok's quartet due to its demand on the musician - both technically and musically. But Bartok's quartet should pose no difficulties for the ensemble, since it is internationally celebrated as one of the world's great quartets and has achieved a stature that places it among the great ensembles of our time. Audiences and critics world- wide have marveled at its precision, balance, astonishing clarity, and incomparable intonation. Of a recent performance, the New York Times declared, "This was a quartet playing at the Melba level, or the Horowitz, Sutherland, or Heifetz level, if you prefer." Their many recordings have earned several prestigious awards including the Grand Prix du Disque du Montreaux, Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year awards from Stereo Review and Gramophone, and three Grammy nominations. The Quartet's diverse repertoire inclides not only traditional classical but also music of 20th century composers, among them avant-garde Japanese composers. In North America, the Quartet has engagements each season on scores of distinguished chamber music series at colleges and univers- ities, and are artists-in-residence at the American University in Wash- ington, D.C. The University is in luck to be one of the chosen few to- night. THE TOKYO STRING QUARTET will appear at Rackham Auditorium at 8 p.m. tonight; tickets range from $8-$17. There will be a brief lecture one hour before the peerformance by Dr. William Sloane, an authority on Amati string instruments. Nin1.e s Continued from Page 7 problems getting booked for shows. Bergh extrapolated, claiming that the problems they run into are that the local bars are more apt to book cover bands than originals, because the cover bands draw the crowd that will spend a lot at the bar. "The only place that doesn't seem to be scared to book lesser known, non-cover bands is the Blind Pig, but that place is so far away no one really wants to go all the down there unless they are familiar with the music," Bergh said. "Rick's wants to draw in the crowd that spendsta great deal at the bar, and we just don't draw that crowd when we play." Live, the band shines through with all the personality and vibrancy the individual members themselves possess. That they are able to bring this energy onstage with them creates not only an interesting stage presence, but rounds out their live show. Looming an average six foot- three inches from the floor, these hairy jokers know how to have a good time with a serious set. And Nines have no plans to stop after graduation. "We don't want to work on Wall Street or go to law school. We all want to play music. It's what we want to do with our lives." BIG BOX OF NINES will be playing tonight at the U-Club. Opening for the band will be Battery Acid Vacation, a power four-piece from Kalamazoo. Doors open at 9 p.m. and cover will be three measly dollars. 0- Who Do You Call When You Want To Identify A Soccer x BallA t 22,300 Miles In Space? A company called "TRW". Here's the story. The U.S. Air Force asked us to build a ground-based electro-optical deep space surveillance system that could identify an object the size of a soccer ball at 22,300 miles in space. We did it, utilizing 3 telescopes and a large 4 computer system. Then they asked us to 6 build four more system sites. Quite an achievement, but it's just one example of TRW's impact on the future. TRW offers you the freedom to move among a wide variety of opportunities in microelectronics, high energy lasers, large software systems, communica- tions, and scientific spacecraft. If you're majoring in engineering, computer science, math, or physics, and want to be with a company that's driving technology into the next century, it's not too soon to talk. Tomor- row is taking shape at a company called TRW. If you are unable to see us on campus, please send ~f your resume to: TRW, College Relations, E2/4000, Dept. AD88, One Space Park, Redondo Beach, CA 90278. Because Anywhere Else Is Yesterday. TRW Inc. 1988. TRW is the name and mark of TRW Inc. An Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer United States Citizenship May Be Required TRWwill be on0 camnus Oct. 6th. I /V The Department of Philosophy The University of Michigan announces THE TANNER LECTURE ON HUMAN VALUES 1988-89 TONI MORRISON Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities State University of New York at Albany UNSPEAKABLE THINGS UNSPOKEN: AFRO-AMERICAN PRESENCE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE Friday, October 7 4:00 pm Rackham Lecture Hall SYMPOSIUM ON THE TANNER LECTURE TONI MORRISON AMIRI BARAKA Department of African Studies State University of New York at Stony Brook HAZEL V. CARBY Department of English and Women's Studies Program 0