The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 2, 1990 - Page 7

A night of Diwali delights

by Urvi Doshi

The cultural richness and romance
of India will captivate the audience
tomorrow night at Mendelssohn
Theater when the Indian American
Students Association (IASA) pre-
sents its annual Diwali Cultural
Show. The performance includes
dance, music and fashion that charac-
terizes the cultural diversity of old
and modern India, and celebrates the
religious holiday Diwali which was
October 18th.
In India, the holiday is widely
celebrated with the display of
fireworks, exchange of gifts and
many parties. Each household
recognizes the day's religious
importance by conducting a prayer
meeting. The holiday commemorates
the return of the god Ram, his
brother Laxman and his wife Sita
from a 14-year exile. Diwali is more
commonly known as the Festival of
Lights because of the cheerfulness
that returned to India after the
gloomy days during Ram's exile.
The program will feature a mix
of classical and modern dances from
different regions of India. Dholkara,
a traditional dance from the state of

Maharashtra, provides the audience
with its first taste of Indian dancing,
presenting men and women telling
stories about the sea and their daily
life experiences.
From the state of Gujarat on the
western coast, come two common
festival dances, Garba and Raas.
Garba is an all-women folk dance in
which the dancers trace detailed pat-
terns around an earthen lantern. The
popular stick dance, Raas, is per-
formed by both men and women.
The Bharat Natyam, a classical
dance originating from southern In-
dia is a sharp contrast to the Gujarati
stick dance, with every hand gesture
and facial expression conveying the
theme of the dance, which is usually
based on a religious story. The folk
dance Bhangara from Punjab is a
dance full of vigor demonstrating the
physical stamina of the performers.
The two modern Hindi dances are
based on popular Indian films. The
first, Pardesi Aa, tells the story of a
blossoming love between a local
town girl and a stranger, against her
father's wishes. A common circum-
stance in India. Mere Haathon mein
nau nau chudiyan hain, a faster-
paced dance based on a popular old

folk song deals with a girl who
wears nine bangles in preparation for
her impending marriage.
The Hindi song "Tu Meri Zindagi
Hain ("You Are My Life") is sung
plaintively by a man in love with a
woman he can't have. Yet another
common circumstance for India's
young romantics, even today. There
will also bena rendition of a. Hindi
ghazal, a lyric form made popular in
the Mughal era.
As well as music and dance, the
show provides some comic relief in
a skit featuring traditional Indian
character types. A fashion show dis-
playing the ornate oufits worn by
brides and bridegrooms from the dif-
ferent states of India reinforces the
themes of cultural diversity and ro-
mance. The audience can also partake
of the sweet, spicy and zestful de-
lights of Indian cuisine at a meal
after the show.
THE DI WALI CULTURAL SHOW
will take place Saturday at 7:30
p.m., in the Mendelssohn Theater.
Tickets are $5 for the show and
price for the show and dinner is $9.
They can be purchased at the door.

If Cows vocalist Shannon Selberg (second from left, fake Salvador Dali mustache) looks like he is in pain, it's
because he probably is in pain. Selberg suffered a terrible fall in New York City in 1989, leaving him with two
roken arms, one of the reasons why the Cows' Ann Arbor debut has been postponed so many times.

3IGS
{continued from page 5

Pod") seems to be about a close run-
in with an Inca priest in a tight
traffic situation.
As mentioned before, the Cows
d1o a couple of cover tunes, too. In
fact, they begin each of their records
Ivith covers of sorts. Daddy Has a
Tail! opens with the androgynous
"colonial" exploits of "Shaking All
Over," put through the slaughter-
house meat grinder of singer Shan-
non Selberg's perception of reality,
which he seems to experience simul-
*S aneously in the dumps of the dirti-
st hourly rate hotel in America and
oomeplace in the Mesozoic Era. Ef-
fete and Impudent Snobs opens with
Memorial," Chris Letcher's high
speed funeral theme for a time when
everything's gone awry.
k Cowboy hat-donning Selberg and
handy Travis look-alike Eisentrager
.pW ENDIGO
Continued from page 5
tempts at humor are embarassing
failures. Most of Wendigo has been
done before, and done better.
Wendiago will be shown at the
Michigan Theater tonight at 11:30
p.m. and Friday, Nov. 16 at 11:30
-Mike Wilson'

are just half of the Cows' story.
There's bass player Kevin Rutmanis,
who occasionally adds yells, like
during the red alert of "Bum in the
Alley." Original drummer Tony
Oliveri has left, and a certain Norm
Rodgers has replaced him.
Speaking of leaving, Roger
Miller left his native Ann Arbor for
Boston a while back and helped to
invent everything your post-mod
dormmates were listening to a few
years back, before MTV appropriated
the post-mod aura. And my, my,
my! How often are Roger, Clint,
Peter and Martin overlooked? Their
Mission of Burma provided some of
the best, most inspirational, most
seminal indie rock of the early '80s,
yet egghead espresso rock aestheti-
cians would rather give the credit to
Mitch Easter or Paul Westerberg or
somebody goofy like that.
Miller and company blew many
of their contemporaries and sonic

proteges away, and unlike many
those contemporaries, Miller cont
ues to release res ectable wnrk

of
in-
to


MJ * £ '.M J LM~JR%.TVI& W
this day. A little while ago Miller
released the wonderful Oh, and this
year Miller released Whamon Ex-
press under his popular recent
moniker No Man, on SST. Here
Miller refines some more before and
after the warm jets Enoisms that
rock as vigorously as vintage
Burma's pre-Hulsker barrage.
NO MAN comes up the middle of
the hat trick at Club Heidelberg
tonight. Tickets are available in ad-
vance for $8 at Schoolkid's, Per-
formance Network and Club Hei-
delberg. THE COWS headline on
Saturday, cover is $S.

REVOLUTION
Continued from page 5
King's struggle bore results,
but his perspective in the past
decade has also become legit-
imized. The dead saint has been
economized to a very neat Affirma-
tive Action program to excuse 400
years of bullshit, and that's all that
remains of the glorious '60s, Per-
haps it would have been better if
militant Black America had come
"no knockin"' for White America
rather than becoming nothing more
than a mantle fixture to be romanti-
cized by closet white liberals who
firmly believe that there will never
be a revolution.
I talked to Gil Scott-Heron a
day before the show and attempted

to get his present-day perspective
on "The Revolution."
F.G.: The flyers read that you're
playing with the Amnesia Band?
G.S.: The Amnesia Express.
Yes, that's my band for ten years.
F.G.: Oh, so it's the same band.
I was wondering what happened to
the Midnight Band.
G.S.: Well, the Midnight Band
forgot who they were. It was a hor-
rible accident. We woke up, and I
was the only one who remembered
them. Nobody else did. So I had to
give it some of its personality.
F.G.: Is that because the message
has changed?
G.S.: Well, that was ten years
ago. I can't remember. Well, what
happened is the Midnight Band was
primarily professional people... a
band that Brian and I put together


when we were in school. When all
those people finished school and got
off into their chosen careers, their
chosen directions, it became just me
and Brian. And Brian wanted to do
some other things, so... I had to put
this band together. That was the
Midnight Band, which served its
purpose. This band did A New Day.
So this band was basically put to-
gether by me and a brother named
Carl Corwell.
F.G.: So is Brian doing anything
musical right now?
G.S.: Well, like I said, he's been
gone ten years but I hear about hini
periodically. He's been working with
a brother named Bob Downie.
F.G.: What happened to your
recording career after Moving Tar-
get? Did you become disenchanted
See REVOLUTION, Page &

I

Write with1us
4055 _
CeJ1M6-0882

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PULNOC
Continued from page 5
in Ann Arbor since John Sinclair
lived on Hill Street.
PULNOC appears at Club Heidel-
berg tonight. Doors open at 9:30
Tickets are $8 in advance, avail-
able at Schoolkid's, Club Heidel-
berg and Performance Network.

BOOK

SHOP
REOPENS

-ShelaM nson, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"SMART, AMBITIOUS, SATIRICAL''
-David Ansen, NEWSWEEK

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