continued from page 8
the Five Blind Boys of Alabama,
who have been spreading the good
word since 1949. Founded at the Tal-
ladega Institute for the Deaf and
Blind by Clarence Fountain, the
Five Blind Boys have been uplifting
audiences of worshippers and beer-
guzzling nightclub patrons ever
since. And, as if that wasn't enough,
in 1987 the Blind Boys achieved
award-winning success Off-Broadway
with Gospel at Colonus, their adap-
tation of Oedipus at Colonus. This
universality is the true testament to
not only gospel's power, but to the
abilities of the Five Blind Boys.
The Blind Boys' strength comes
from their vocalizing, which is ef-
fortless and intense at the same time.
Their harmonies are sweet and
smooth in the background, while the
lead vocalist screams and cries, ex-
horting the crowd to experience the
Lord through physicality. Songs like
"I'm Changed," "Battle Hymn of the
Republic," and "Amazing Grace"
bring the crowd to frenzies of foot
stomping, hand clapping, and shout-
ing.
Piety is not a requirement to en-
joy the music of the Five Blind
Boys of Alabama, so don't let the
gospel label turn you off. Theirs is
truly universal music that will uplift
even the most skeptical of non-be-
Devers.
* TIlE FIVE BLIND BOYS OF AL-
ABAMA perform at the Ark at 7:30
and 10 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets are
$10.
The Michigan Daily - Friday, February 16, 1990 - Page 9
Coward's ghost lives
Blithe Spirit entertains colorful wit
The Asian Student Coalition continues its series of free Saturday
screenings this week with a triple feature.
Patrick Chu brings dance, music, and sex together in Illusory Thoughts,
about the attempt of one man to find meaning in his life. Chu stars as Nam,
a dancer and choreographer, struggling with art and Buddhism to help him
decipher between love and lust. His "illusory thoughts" spread like poetry in
subtitles across the screen.
The film glows with color and music, and captures sexual intensity
through dance and sound. The film breaks stereotypes in its depiction of
Asian Americans as creative artists.
Made in China is director Lisa Hsia's story of her search for identity on
a voyage to China. The people of Manilatown fight against eviction in The
Fall of the I-Hotel, filmed in San Francisco by Curtis Choy.
-Wendy Shanker
Unlike its tumultuous neighbors to the north, Yugoslavia, aside from
some ethnic unrest, has been pretty quiet lately. WR: The Mysteries of the
Organism (1971) is the kind of film you'd expect from a country that's
gradually been more and more ignored by the world since its center-stage
glory days in the world wars: irreverent and full of partly bitter, mostly
joyous social critique, as well as admiration for Western counterculture. It's
definitely anti-authoritarian.
Directed by the gleefully sex-obsessed Dusan Makavejev (his borderline-
porno Sweet Movie is on video now),WR is more a collage than narrative,
consisting of several strands that run through it. At the beginning it
threatens to be a Errol Morris-style documentary about Freudian disciple
Wilhelm Reich - who believed that political and sexual revolution were
essentially linked - in his later years as a mad scientist in Vermont. But
WR is also the story of Milena, the heroine of a mock socialist realist
propaganda film, who seems to be sympathetic to Reich's theories; intercut
through all of this is a look at members of the New York sexual
counterculture, including a transsexual, a woman who makes sculptural
molds of penises, and the editor of Screw. Not for the easily offended.
-Alyssa Katz
Sex, race, riots, rain, oodles of sex, politics, culture clash, marriage, lots
of laughs, and loads and loads of wet sex sums up Sammy And Rosie Gets
Laid. Well, kind of. With a script by Pakistani-British writer Hanif
Kureishi and directed by Stephen Frears, the movie came after the
groundbreaking My Beautiful Launderette and before the costumed excesses
of Frears' Dangerous Liaisons. Sammy And Rosie is an ambitious attempt
to grasp and comment on multi-racial Britain in Margaret Thatcher's decade.
Sammy (Ayub Khan Din) and Rosie (Frances Barber) do it with each other
and almost everybody else, while the social fabric of Britain disintegrates
around them. Sammy's dad, a corrupt Pakistani politician, is played by
Indian superstar Shashi Kapoor. Fine Young Cannibal Roland Gift as a
mysterious, almost phantom-like figure, has it away with Rosie; Sammy
does rumpy pumpy with other women. But it's the roguish Kapoor who
steals the film with his loquacious charm and old-world good manners.
A Groszian satire of yuppie values and political hypocrisy in both
Britain and Pakistan, Sammy And Rosie's buzzword is entropy. Its climax is
a chaotic and actually quite liberating riot. "All that is solid melts into air.
The center does not hold," wrote Karl Marx, describing the experience of
modernity. Sammy And Rosie translates this to postmodemity.
-Nabeel Zuberi
BY AMI MEHTA
THE term "supernatural" usually
alludes to eternally burning candles,
all-knowing crystal balls, eccentric
mediums and eerie seances. This
phenomenon is often a controversial
and complex one but in Noel Cow-
ard's English comedy classic, Blithe
Spirit, the spiritual world turns into
a haunting re-creation of simple real-
ity by the characters in a free-spirited
and fanciful drama.
Known as the master of sophisti-
cated wit, Coward wrote numerous
plays, musicals, novels and short
stories, participating in and directing
a great many of them. The world
premiere of Blithe Spirit occurred in
a war-shatttered London on July 2,
1941 and gained such popularity that
it ran for nearly five straight years.
The Michigan Theater's presenta-
tion of the show is being performed
by the repertory Asolo Theatre com-
pany, from Sarasota, Florida which
is on a two-month national tour.
According to one of the lead actors,
Jeanne Waters, the play is an ele-
gant, "high English comedy."
The humor is more dry and subtle
than that of American plays. "I'm
still catching lines as being humor-
ous now," said Waters, who was
called in as a replacement for the
previous lead early in the show's
tour. She added that past audiences
have appeared to enjoy the unique
humor. "They usually realize after
the show how much they enjoyed
it," Waters said, likening the reac-
tion with responses to music: after
hearing a good song, one usually
appreciates the true quality of it a
while later.
The somewhat far-fetched plot of
Blithe Spirit lends itself to the de-
lightful farcical style of this show. It
depicts the colorful escapades of a
writer and his second wife after a
flamboyant medium summons the
Novelist Charles Condomine (Joseph
(Pat Nesbit) discuss their skepticism
Spirit
writer's first wife (Waters) from the
other side. As a lighthearted but
jealous ghost, the first wife tries to
lure her husband to her home in the
spirit world - a journey he's not
quite ready to take. Her playful mis-
chief wreaks havoc on the writer's
new marriage and creates a predica-
ment from which he must find a
clever way out.
Along with the acting and direct-
ing of director Fred Chappell, the set
and scenery add an important and
Culliton) and his second wife Ruth
about an imminent s6ance in Blithe
often overlooked dimension to the
performance. Waters praises the set
which she said is very detailed for a
road set. The set includes a grand pi-
ano and a mock fireplace. The cos-
tumes are authentic and help com-
plete the look of the '40s time pe-
riod in which the play is set.
BLITHE SPIRIT is playing at the
Michigan Theater tonight and Sat-
urday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $17.50-
$2'3.50. Student rush tickets are $8.
See Weekend magazine for times and locations.
m/~welcomes
Wednesday, Feb. 21
8pm
Power Center
The Black Filmmakers Series
Sponsored by
The Program in Film & Video Studies, the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, and the
King/Chavez/Parks Visiting Professors Program present
Camille Billops
New York City based filmmaker, sculptor, printmaker, and co-founder of the Hatch-Billops Collection
Archives of Black American Cultural History who will be present at the screening of her films
Suzanne Suzanne (1983)
Older Women and Love (1987)
Friday, February 16
7:00 pm
Lorch Hall Auditorium
Admission is Free
"(Suzanne Suzanne is ) a harrowing documentary that examines the potential for violence and abuse that underlies the
carefully tended facade of middle-class respectability.... The filmmakers dismantle these touchstones of stability."
- Valerie Smith, Princeton University
The performers, who are influenced
by a global array of musical and cul-
tural styles, translate classical jazz
pieces to the quartet format - a skill
which is butressed by abundant
improvisational verve. By rerouting
the streams of modern jazz, bebop,
bluegrass, Indian and world music,
and 20th century classicism, the
Turtle Island String Quartet seeks to
map its own musical landscape.
Thursday, March 22
8pm
Rackham Auditorium
WINDHAM HILL
JAZZ RECORDING
ARTIST
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