0 Page 8 -The Michigan Daily -Wednesday, November 7, 1990 EGG Continued from page 7 dance, are mesmerizing in them- selves, especially when combined with haunting Japanese music. When they dance, Sankai Juku's members sometimes look like 'suspended embryos [who]... become cadavers' in the words of George Jackson of the Washington Post." "Wow. Sounds intense, where do I sign up?" "Well, to tell you the truth, the art of Butoh, as you'll see, is such a complex combination of emotional and physical pain and beauty, that it can only be mastered with years of training and dedication. Amagatsu and his dancers often do exercises such as denying themselves sleep to recreate the primordial atmosphere, necessary to get to the kinds of deli- cate, intense, natural movements' that characterize the dance. Besides, the popular group's tour schedule is just grueling. But you may like to witness them in their spellbinding mixture of convulsive egg worship- and docile meditation in a pond. If so, this graceful, deeply intuitive ex- amination of humanity and its pri- mal relationship with nature can be viewed for just twenty dollars. Be- lieve me, it will be something like you've never seen before." Paley speaks of past and future A member of Sankai Jutu triumphantly displays Unetsu's centerpiece; "Woh, sounds better than a seance on acid. So, what does Un- etsu mean anyway?" "It means, 'The egg stands out of SANKAI JUKU will perform Curiosity'." Wednesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. "Of course it does!" at the Michigan Theater. Prince s n Graffiti Bridge dir. Prince by Michael Paul Fischer "-A aaugh," shouted one person' Friday out of an uncomfortably vo- cal crowd watching Prince's Graffiti ;bridge, "this looks like a Pepsi' commercial!" Who would have ever believed it? The man who wrote "Darling Nikki" - which inspired no less than the formation of the censorship-minded PMRC - has given us a movie which, for all intents and purposes, may as well have been rated "G." Graffiti Bridge, the screen sequel to 1984's sexy blockbuster Purple Rdin, is a Christian allegory of lofty intentions: but that in itself is not lame.In the face of rampant ni- hilism, it actually turns out to be a much more challenging gesture than any recent censor-provoking one-up- smanship. But unlike tough-message b movies such as 1987's Wall Street - or even his own Sign O' The Times album of that same year - Graffiti Bridge romantically skirts anyconnection to the rough realities of its audience. The kids out there listening to 2 Live Crew and NJ.W.A. (presumably the ones Prince hopes to reach with this story of spirituality defeating materialism) want to watch Prince get nasty - , not see the hero/anti-hero coming off as an idealistic sissy in a '50s-stylea Twin Cities West Side Story., Since 1988's Lovesexy album, which finally alleviated his spiritual confusion by developing a world- ew Graffij view where the sex act becomes a metaphor for communion in God, Prince's focus has shrunk to story- book battles between good and evil. Apparently God had persuaded him to release Lovesexy instead of the obscene, infamous "Black Album"; afterward, a soundtrack involvement marked Prince's sympathy with the theme of Tim Burton's 1989 epic Batman. But in the videos for Bat- man, we still saw Prince playing both sides - his face painted half as Batman and half the evil Joker. fi: hardly in a nightclub called The Glam Slam, the greedy Day battles The Kid for its control, which for some unexplained reason also determines the fate of nearby "Seven Corners" clubs like "Clinton's House" and "Melody Cool." Newcomer Ingrid Chavez is improbably, sighingly beautiful as the guiding angel Aura, the first Prince "chick" who doesn't look like a Frederick's of Hollywood model. After winning her affection from Day (but not even getting laid), Prince mistakenly battles Day with symbolic violence, finally us- ing "love" to prevail in a disas- trously quick conclusion. Purple Rain worked because it was a movie about a rock star, but Graffiti Bridge is a simplistic "rock opera"; and it plays very short for a 90-minute film. The effect is visually reinforced by a slick, stylized soundstage look reminiscent of the thematic snippets in his 1987 "concert" movie Sign O' the Times, where characters took sides in one-word exchanges ("Love"; "no, money"). That had sounded just outrageously profound, and some thought Sign O' the Times was really great; but Graffiti Bridge is so unforgivably obvious, it starts to elicit unintentioned laughter - not unlike the 1986 debacle Under the Cherry Moon. "Seven Corners, two must fight/ One wants money, one wants love/ Without peace and love nothing is going to turn out alright," muses Aura's poetry. In one scene, she paints a heart on Prince's blouse (black, not purple!) and silently points upward; Prince flexes his jaw to bite an apple but recoils teasingly about three or four times; "Do you believe in the hereafter?" asks Aura of the Mercedes-driving Day in a whimsical seduction scene. Basically, Prince's idea of subtle )rofane "clues" amounts to three crane shots, spaced out throughout the movie, of the message "It's just around the corner" scrolling over a Times Square-style electronic marquee. But the precious, almost reverent importance Prince bestows on his own scenes is at least offset by some welcome comic relief in the form of Day's irresistible character. From the opening scene - where Day measures up his business mates by forcing them to eat hot chili peppers raw - to the flames that ring his stage during The Time's performance of "Shake! ", Day is cloaked in riotous devil imagery. In Graffiti Bridge's slyly funniest passage, Day and his foppish lackey Jerome Ben. ton put up their dukes in a nervous showdown - instead of pulling out fists, though, each contests supremacy by placing all his cash on the table, to the sound of Eric Weissberg's "Duelin' Banjos." More campy silliness like this could have made Graffiti Bridge's sym- bolic movie nostalgia (the title song, particularly, sounds like an outtake from Grease) a bit easier to stomach. Realizing a signature visual style of pinks, blues, and fuchsia, Grafti looks great (even though Spike Lee's latest nightclub flick looked mo better). And in a weird way, Graffiti Bridge brings a welcome sense of innocence to the rock movie format. Best of all is the music, which as a whole constitutes Prince's strongest track-for-track al- bum since Sign O' the Times, and maybe Purple Rain itself: in brief moments where haunting, timeless cuts like "The Question of U" or "Thieves in the Temple" hit the screen, everything seems to magi- cally levitate. Ultimately, though, the music's kaleidoscopic variety of styles really by Kim Yaged Short story author Grace Paley chomped carrots in my ear as we spoke on the phone, but my tape recorder beeped in hers, so it evened out. Regardless of her nu- merous accolades (she was hon- ored by the National Institute of Arts and Letters) and published books (Little Disturbances of Man being my favorite), she is extremely approachable. The subtle authority in her voice in- formed me that school was in session, but I was a zealous stu- dent enrolling in the final avail- able space in the best course on campus. K.Y.: Which of your charac- ters can you relate to most? G.P.: A lot of the women characters are really as though they were friends of mine. Al- though they're not really real they could be people I know well, very close in some respects. I guess this person, Faith, people think is me, except she leads a totally different life than I've led. I don't think of her as me. What she is is someone who could be a really close friend of mine. She's some- one I might know right from this very neighborhood. K.Y.: What of your accom- plishments so far has felt the best? G.P.: I've done a lot of politi- cal work and that's meant a lot to me too. For instance, in 1969 during the Vietnam War I went to Vietnam. I was in the north, and I travelled back and forth. And I think that was probably one of the most astonishing experiences of my life, although I've had oth- ers. We're so shielded from war. So to go there and see the war that we made and see the people was extraordinary. K.Y.: Do you see the situa- tion in Central America, nowa- days, in the same way? G.P.: I see it in the same way, but what I'm worried about now, although you can't stop worrying about Central America, I mean to leap from one thing to another, which we do as Americans, and even as American political people [who say] 'Oh yeah, well now we're finished with Central Amer- ica; we're now up into the Middle East.' Well, you can't, you hav 41 to keep thinking about it all thy time, the whole thing... K.Y.: Religion, anti-war and women's issues recur frequently in your writing, are they part of your everyday life? G.P.: Yeah. For instance, I'm; in New York now and I live mostly in Vermont. But yesterday; morning about ten women did -a: walk right in this neighborhood, not a big organized demonstra4 tion, in which we said war is tho enemy. We beat this drum, and; we solemnly walked through tlie; streets. K.Y.: How do you feel about: the women's movement? G.P.: I think the women's: movement has been wonderful It's had a lot of conflicts -: women have really knocked each other's brains out, but in general: things are really quite different from when I was young. A lot Of: things are still terrible, but that means there's just more work td; do, that's all. What's scary, and what yo4 young women have to see i don't let this government and this " Supreme Court take away your; rights from you, because let mq tell you it was terrible. I'm nod just talking about abortion. I'n talking about just going to a doc- tor. I'm talking about contracep; tion. And the fact that the Church; and the State really tried to pre" vent contraception from being sold or talked about. And that's not so long ago cause I'm not ninety years old, I'm sixty1 K.Y.: What advice do you have for the beginning writer? G.P.: The main thing is have a low overhead. Write - read ani write. And live in the world There's so many things that you have to do that are just natural. If you love literature and you love writing and you live naturally in your own way, you'll be truthful, and that's really what it's about. K.Y.: Who is Grace Paley? G.P.: (laughs) Nobody knows themselves. It's other people.. We illuminate each other. Il 0, 0 I 0 His Royal Badness In Graffiti Bridge, the semi- autobiographical character called The Kid - which Prince portrayed with remarkably self-critical frankness in Purple Rain - turns one- dimensional. Maybe its direc- tor/writer/composer, as he recently confessed in a rare magazine inter- view, is actually a much nicer per- son now. Regardless, all of the good lines end up going to his evil coun- terpart Morris Day - who again stars as himself, but this time with an even more attractive/repulsive charisma. Bequeathed an equal partnership GRACE PALEY will speak at Hillel, 1429 Hill St., tonight at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $8. Student tickets are $S with i.d. ____ __ _ just brings a superficial complexity to an unexpectedly banal story. Why is it that Prince - whose music albums bring forth so many compelling questions - comes off as simply idiotic on the movie screen? It might be because music is a more mysterious medium, while films are more like real life - and Prince is simply out of touch with reality. It figures that the only really clever reference in Graffiti Bridge is a musical one: "There's a riot goin' on," someone exclaims before Prince physically "battles" Day with the pyrotechnic funk of "Tick, Tick, Bang" - recalling the title of Sly and the Family Stone's 1970 record about racial strife. But lost in the thin script, even the presence urban and gospel-music heroes George Clinton and Mavis Staples bring no sense of historical context to this fantasy. Prince has finally put his heart in the right place. But Graffiti Bridge, unfortunately, makes too much sense. Like Milton and countles others before him, Prince made: t crucial mistake: Graffiti Bridge gives us a Satan who ultimately comes off as the cooler guy to hang out with. GRAFFITI BRIDGE is playing at Showcase. r i __ __ 1 - - - - - -- DAILY ARTS NEEDS WRITERS with some background in these areas: Folk Jazz Classical Music Dance Books Art Te(ephone 763-0379 for more information BROTHER MALCOLM F R k N is coming. . . Be prepared, November 30, 1990 4 Order your college ring NOW JOSTENS. A M E R I C A S C O L L E G E R I"N G T" I "Roosevelt's paralegal program Litigation " Real Estate Corporations" General Practice Estates, Trusts & Willss Employee Benefits Plan " >aie A.B.A.-approved program in~a " Effective employment assistance * Four-month day and eight-month evening classes * Loop, Arlington Heights, Oak Brook and Olympia Fields locations * Student loans for qualified applicants Stop by and see a Jostens representative, November 7-9 11 am tnnm_ was my stepping- { 14 I