ARTS Monday, January 16, 1989 r Page 13 a The Michigan Daily Musical pioneers hold recital Brooks voices pain in poetry BY SATIK ANDRIASSIAN C ONDUCTOR Eva Jessye and composer Undine Smith Moore, two women who helped open doors for Blacks and women in the field of music, will hold a lecture/recital to- day as part of the University School of Music's celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday. Jessye was the first Black woman to succeed as a professional choral conductor, a success that paved the way for many other young musi- cians, both male and female. She began her career at the age of 12, when, through her own initiative, she organized a girls' singing group. Her career development was espe- cially aided by Will Marion Cook, whom she first met when he brought a musical production to her home town, Coffeyville, Kansas. She later studied with him when he was in New York, during which time she became active in musical circles and sang with several pit orchestras. Jessye's active pace continued throughout her career. She organized the Original Dixie Jubilee Singers, who appeared in 1925 on the Major Bowes Family Radio Hour. The Eva Jessye choir was established in 1926 and became known as one of the+ ' leading choral groups throughout the1 United States. During the same year, she was engaged by NBC and CBS to organize and direct choral groups for performance on radio and later+ was selected to be choral director for the King Vidor film, Halleluiah (1929). She directed works by Virgil Thomson and George Gershwin, and directed choruses for opera revivals through the 1960s. A dream relived The University arts community marks a day for a martyr by showcasing the works of trail- blazing Black women artists BY MARIE WESAW "DISCRIMINATION pinches your soul," commented Gwendolyn Brooks during an 1987 October in- terview with the San Francisco Ex- aminer. "It makes things difficult. Also, it's inspiring in a way, not that any of us wishes pain. There are many of us who are drawn to lan- guage to express what we feel. Hor- rors have inspired some beautiful poems. Brooks, who began writing po- etry at the age of seven, became the first Black to receive a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 and now is a symbol of en- durance and spirit in contemporary poetry. Brooks' poetic energy began be- fore the Pulitzer and has continued long after. Brooks' first major work, A Street in Bronzeville, pub- lished in 1945, established a voice for which Brooks would eventually become famous: the voice of strug- gle amidst a world of discrimination, poverty and dreams. While Brooks has used other venues to further the Black American dream, such as her work in the 1930s as publicity director of the Chicago NAACP Youth Council, she sees poetry as an excellent way of turning hurt and disappointment into a voice of sur- vival. Although the voice that Brooks created evolved from suffering, it was not one of raw emotion. Instead, Brooks webbed that voice into what critics have labeled refined tech- niques,' demonstrating her fascina- tion for colorful and unusual word associations and groupings. This style of Brooks' placed her on a different level from younger Black American poets and writers who seemed more devoted to ex- pressing raw emotion than to craft- ing their art within more traditional techniques. But during her participa- tion in the 1969 Second Black Writ- ers' Conference at Fisk University in Nashville, Brooks became aware of the new spirit of the Black American artist possessed by the younger writers. The conference became a major turning point in her career. After the conference, Brooks adapted free verse in her poetry and broke her 25-year relationship with Harper & Row publishers in order to support Black publishing companies. Brooks con- tinued to encourage Black artists by editing anthologies of Black poets, including Jump Bad: A New Chicago Anthology, published in 1971. The 71-year-old poet remains a major figure in contemporary poetry as she continues to edit anthologies of other poets and her own work. Her latest poetry collection, Gottschalk and the Grande Taran- telle, was published in November. "Winnie," the main poem of work, based on the life of South African activist Winnie Mandela, was also published in a separate work. Brooks' recognition has in no way faded since her Pulitzer three decades ago. Her latest awards in- clude her past appointment as Con- sultant in Poetry to the Library of Jessye's generous contribution to the School of Music made possible the establishment of the Eva Jessye Collection of Afro-American Music here. A similar collection was orga- nized in 1979 in southeast Kansas. Moore, presently a University King/Chavez/Parks scholar in resi- dence, is one of the leading Black women composers in the nation. Her compositional output includes a large number of choral works, many of which are her well-known ar- rangements of spirituals. In fact, she says, her most-preferred genre is writing for unaccompanied chorus. However, she is quite versatile, and has written for other mediums, in- cluding solo voice, chamber ensem- ble, and various solo instruments. Besides her busy schedule of composing, Moore takes great pride in her teaching. "Teaching has been a tremendously important activity in my life," she says. "A number of my students held eminent posi- tions." Her advice to young Black com- posers is to listen to all varieties of music and to perform. She also be- lieves that it is important for young composers to be not only well- rounded in the area of music but to also let their life be stimultated by other arts. And, above all, she says, they should remain close to their people, sharing their thoughts, their feelings, and their anxieties. The lecture/recital will take place at 3 p.m. today in the University School of Music Recital Hall. Ad- mission is free and the recital is open to the public. Brooks ...will read from her poetry Congress, her title as Poet Laureate of Illinois, and her November induc- tion in the National Women's Halln of Fame. In September, Brooks will also be presented with the Monarch Award for Excellence in Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts by the National Council for Culture and Art. PGWENDOLYN BROOKS will speak and read from her works this afternoon at the Diversity Day sym- posium "Blacks in the Arts: Re- sources for Diversity." The sympo- sium begins at 2 p.m, and is spon- sored by the School of Information and Library Studies and the Bentley Historical and University libraries. Other speakers at the symposium include Maurice Wheeler. Bombay dispels 7 percent illusions BY ALYSSA KATZ Living in the most culturally influential country in the world, it is all too easy for us to overlook the fact that Americans comprise a mere seven percent of the earth's population. The distorted view most Americans have of the world is reaffirmed by most of the movies shown in this country. The majority of these is filmed in the United States, while a few are set in western Europe. Those that aren't often take their white heroes to "exotic" locales - think of James Bond or Indiana Jones - and depict native peoples via gross caricatures. But a precious few of the films released here show us something of what life is like for the other 93 percent of the people in this world. Salaam Bombay! is one of these. It also happens to be a remarkable movie. Salaam Bombay! is best labeled as a realist fiction film. Director Mira Nair, who was born in India, educated at Harvard, and who previously made several documentaries about her native country, provides us with a window into Bombay's underclass, showing us many of the : grim realities of its members' lives. This film does not have a conventional plot; instead, it presents us with a core group of characters, and depicts their interactions with one another and the uncaring world beyond. In its essentially episodic style, it shows us some of the difficulties these people face, including poverty, alienation, and betrayal. We see the film's events mostly through the eyes of Krishna, a young boy who, having just arrived from a small village, is almost as much an outsider in this environment as we are. Working as a tea delivery boy and living on the street, he befriends an array of poor adults and children, including Chillum, a friendly but desperate drug addict and dealer; Manju, a tiny girl who is growing up in a whorehouse with her prostitute mother; and Sweet Sixteen, an innocent young woman who has been sold into prostitution. Nair handles her material effectively. Her camera has a wonderful tendency to linger on images, absorbing all of their complexities and taking full advantage of the visual density of the film's settings. While the subject matter is weighty, her direction is never heavy-handed. She also directs the film's many emotion-laden mo- ments with a great adroitness, never allowing them to sink into melodrama. Instead they are both believable and touching. In general, Nair has made the filmmaking process unobtrusive: the cinematography, editing and production design almot never stand out to remind us that what we are seeing is actually staged. Salaam Bombay! 's strongest asset is, without question, its actors. The adults all come through with great performances, notably Raghubir Yadav as Chillum and Aneeta Kanwar, as Manju's mother. But this film's real stars are its child actors, all non-professionals. Shafiq Syed is a marvel as Krishna - his performance has a great spontaneity. And Hansa Vithal is almost eerie as Manju, a girl who is getting old too soon. JOSTENS GOLD RING SALE IS COMING! CLASSIFIED ADSI Call 764-0557 .(BU 1 A(E-E0 WHAT IMA~KES YOU ,:45 K oG ER?