A steamy Wove mix...
Soprano Caba ret singers present
"Songs for Ma d Lovers" for
Valentine's Da y. Kerrytown Concert
House. 8 pm. ;15-30.
michigandai. !.com /arts
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WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 14, 2001
10,
'Gladiator,''Dragon'
top 73rd Oscar noms
Dairakudakan brings surreal,
Japanese butoh dance to
'U'
By Matthew Ban ott
and Christopher'$ousino
Daily Arts Writers
With one of the highest grossing non-
holiday , openings for a film this past
weekend ("Hanxnibal"), Hollywood
seems pumped anti primed to bounce
back from a lack lister year. But the
annual rites of Osc ir must be taken care
of first and the beginning of the end for
2000 came yesterdarv when the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
announced the nominations for the 73rd
Annual Academy Aw irds.
Robert Rehme, president of the
Academy, and forme r Best Actress win-
ner -Kathy Bates (19 0's "Misery") pre-
sented the nominatio ks, which saw few
surprises, several oddities and the usual
smattering of pen ennial Academy
favorites.
Ridley Scott's "Spa rtacus"-style epic
"Gladiator" led the pac k with 12nomina-
tions, including Bea t Picture, Best
Director and a pair of nods for its stars
Russell Crowe (Best A etor) and Joaquin
Phoenix (Best Supporti ng Actor).
Close behind "Gla liator" was Ang
Lee's epic martial arts fable "Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon" which netted 10
nominations including Best Picture and
Best Foreign Language f ilm nods as well
as one for director Lee.
His competition, how ever, is double
trouble in the form of director Steven
Soderbergh, who receiveld Best Director
nominations both for "Traffic" and "Erin
Brockovich." Both films were also nomi-
nated for Best Picture and Best
Screenplay, recognizing Stephen Gaghan
for "Traffic" and Susannah Grant for
"Erin Brockovich." Rounding out the
Best Picture nominees is "Chocolat,"
whose director Lasse Halstrom was left
out in the cold in favor of Stephen Daldry
("Billy Elliot") for the final Best Director
slot.
Jeff Bridges ("The Contender") and
Willem Dafoe ("Shadow of the
Vampire") have a handful to deal with in
the form of dual Soderbergh Best
Supporting Actor nominees. Benicio Del
Toro scored a Best Supporting Actor nod
for "Traffic" along with Albert Finney for
his role as an ornery lawyer in "Erin
Brockovich." Del Toro is considered the
front runner in this category after his vic-
tory at the Golden Globes1
Julia Roberts leads the pack in the Best
Actress category as most,.expect her to
finally get her paws on Oscar for her role
as the title character. in "Erin
Brockovich." Her competition, however,
is tough, with strong performances by fel-
low nominees Ellen Burstyta ("Requiem
for a Dream"), Laura Linney ("You Can
Count On Me"), Juliette Binoche
("Chocolat") and Joan Allen ("The
Contender").
Tom Hanks will go for his third Best
Actor award, after landing a nomination
for "Cast Away." Aside from Crowe, the
Academy went for the art house fare to
By Joanna Steinhardt
For the Daily
It was an auspicious beginning: It was
May 1959, at a dance performance in
Japan - where a man was dancing, if
you could call that dancing - but there
Kathy Bates and Mark Rehme announce
the nominations for this year's Oscars.
finish out the Best Actor category, anoint-
ing Javier Bardem ("Before Night Falls"),
Ed Harris ("Pollack") and Geoffrey Rush
("Quills").
Another Academy alum, Dame Judi
Dench landed yet another nomination,
this time for Best Supporting Actress in
"Chocolat." She faces stiff competition
from Marcia Gay Harden ("Pollack"),
Julie Walters ("Billy Elliot") and the one-
two rocking punch of Kate Hudson and
Frances McDormand from "Almost
Famous."
"Almost Famous" scribe Cameron
Crowe scored his second Best Original
Screenplay nomination along with
Kenneth Lonergan ("You Can Count On
Me"), Lee Hall ("Billy Elliot"), Grant and
the writing crew behind "Gladiator."
No year would be complete without a
few snubs. Those left on the outside look-
ing in yesterday morning include Michael
Douglas, considered a near lock for
"Wonder Boys," Cameron Crowe, whose
"Almost Famous" was passed over for
Best Picture and Best Director, and the
film's "Fever Dog," denied in its bid for
Best Original Song.
And now the real games begin, as you
can speculate on who will win, who won't
and what they'll wear up until the awards
are passed out on March 25.
Dairakudakan
Power Center
Tonight at 8 p.m.
of the audience and
was no music.
Then another man
comes out with a
chicken squeezed
between his
thighs and mimes
sex with the bird,
before succumb-
ing to the sexual
advances of the
first dancer.
The stage lights
are cut in' order to
protect the honor
curtail their shock
the human body as a medium.
Butoh aspires to a radical minimalism
and an acute sensitivity of movement.
Dancers have been known to dance
naked and to cover their bodies in white
paint. Their movements can be painfully
slow, their body frozen in contorted
poses, or hypnotically bizarre, seeming-
ly inhuman yet disarmingly familiar. The
pieces create an otherworldly atmos-
phere, and the dancers themselves disap-
pear into it. The result is a sci-fi, ghostly
terrain that only faintly, and eerily,
echoes our own.
This Wednesday, the world-renowned
butoh dance group Dairakudakan (pro-
nounced dye-rah-koo-dah-kan) will per-
form in Ann Arbor. Led by Akaji Maro,
the group has brought butoh to interna-
tional dance scene by adding theatrical
elements, thereby breaking away from
traditional butoh. Maro originally study-
ing under Hijikata Tatsumi and Kazuo
Ono - the original two men with the
chicken - and went on to found
Dairakudakan, producing large-scale
spectacles that have shaped the history
of butoh.
He encourages his own students to
break away and create their own style, an
attitude that has engendered several new
incarnations of the butoh aesthetic. The
piece he will be performing on
Wednesday is called "Kaiin No Uma,'
meaning Sea-Dappled Horse, which
begins with the creation of the world and
ends with its hellish destruction, popu-
lated by spirit figures from Japanese
ghost stories.
Rush tickets - only ten bucks - can
be purchased at the Power Center Box
Office on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 6
p.m. Before the performance, at 7 p.m.,
there will be a talk given by Kate
Reman-Wait, UMS Dance Education
Specialist, on "Humor and the
Grotesque: Inhabiting the Far Reaches of
the Butoh Continuum." The talk will be
held in the Hussey Room of the
Michigan League.
and disgust. The two men are banished
from the All Japan Artistic Dance
Association who had sponsored the
event, ignorant of the content, let alone
the scandal that would ensue.
And so the avant-garde dance form
known as butoh (pronounce boo-toe)
was formally introduced to the world.
Originating in post-war Japan, butoh
is born from cross-pollination between
traditional Japanese theatre and German
expressionism. Butoh dancers often look
like the tortured figures of an Egon
Schiele painting brought to life and
imbued with the taut contrasts and disin-
genuous calm of Japanese aesthetics.
The chicken-sex was not only for shock
value. It was part of the overall aim of
butoh: To focus on what is frightening
and grotesque in nature - the physical
world's and our own - and to paint
these forces in all their subtleties, using
ThER ABLE NOMINEES INCLUDED ..
BEST ADAPTED CREENPLAY: "CQOCOLAT,"
I "CROuCHING Ti ;ER, HIDDEN DRAGON," "0'1
BROTHER, WHE ART THOU?," "TRAFFIC,"
"WONDER 80 .
BEST SoUND:" .sT AWA,""GLADIATOR,""THE
PARIT,.TE - ECT SToRM"L-
BEST VisUAl. E E CTS: "GLADIATO ," "HOLLOW
MAN," "THE PE ACT STORM"
1EST DOCUMENTA IY (FEATURE): "INTO ThE ARMS OF
STRANGERS," "LE( ACY," "LONG NiGHT's JOURNEY;
INTO DAY," "SCoi TSBORO," "SOUND AND FURY"
BEST FOREIGN LAI GUAGE Fi M: "AMOREs PERROs,"
"OoucHING TIGE , IDDEN DRAGON," "DIVIDED
E FALL," "EVER . ODY FAmous!," "THE TAsJE OF:
OTHERS"
Courtesy of UMS
From sticks through faces to menacing hand gestures, Dairakudakan presents the
grotesque side of avant-garde dance.
'Buckleyville' to debut n mght of film, music.
Rv l I UH ntt iter-based variety shows. He is excited to be debutingr his film on his birth-
y Lyl eenrezy
Daily Film Editor
Senior LSA film student Aaron Dennis is helming an evening of his own
short films and live music this Thursday night at the East Quad auditorium
d~~tzl uld1J~~u VdIK~ty 01tW . Gi n~tUt t lV tlr laltukl 10V11
day, and hopes that.the campus will come out to support his effort. The show
is free and begins at 7:30 in the East Quad Auditorium this Thursday,
February 15.
Buckleyville
RC Auditorium
Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
on East University. Dennis is attempting to add a variety
show flavor to the event by mixing his funny shorts and
an instrumental rock performance by local band
"Curious Few." The evening's feature presentation is
entitled "Buckleyville," a half-hour mock-sitcom that
Dennis produced for about $1000.
"Bukleyville" takes place in a trailer park and explores
how the Buckley family deals with Val a European
exchange student. Chuck, the patriarch of the Buckley
family, is a recovering alcoholic of a bed-ridden wife and
two delinquent children. Davis guarantees that hilarity
will ensue. It was an unofficial joint venture with the RC
players, and stars Graham Atkin, Peter Rothbart and
Emily Freeman. Along with the independently filmed
feature, Davis will show a number of shorts he has done
for various film classes. He is currently shopping
Feed Your Honey for
112P rice!
With purchase of your entrie at regular price
Today only!
Not valid wiWh any other offers.
Offer good for enitree or big b'owls only.
"Buckleyville" around to different film festivals. "Buckleyville" was shot on
digital video, as were all of the shorts (save one 16 mm).
Davis, who is slated to graduate at the end of this year, will travel Europe
and may return to Ann Arbor to work with his friends to develop more the-
Courtesy of Aaron Dennis.
Mix a wife-beater-clad young boy and a rucksack-carrying hobo, and hilarity is
bound to ensue in Aaron Dennis's "Buckleyville."
Versatile non-dance majors find
artistic outlet in UAC's Impact
magic% Mrqwff
natit ,, generation asian cuWne
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'34)222-9454
By Elizabeth Lee
Daily Arts Writer
There's a little something for everyone
Michigan
Union Food Court
(7
Impact
Dance
Mendelssohn Theater
Thursday at 8 p.m.
who attends a per-
formance by
Impact Dance
Theater. With
choreography set
to an eclectic
range of music
from Guns 'N
Roses to Britney
Spears to
Candlebox, this is
one smorgasbord
of a dance performance that will cater to
anyone's taste.
As a part of the University Activities
Center, Impact Dance has sought to pro-
vide students who are not dance perfor-
mance majors an opportunity to shake
their bootys and get funded for it. No
frills or bizarre interpretive kitsch, just a
group of students whose talent for dance
stems from their love and dedication to
the art form.
Three students who felt the need for a
suitable outlet for non-dance majors
formed Impact Dance in the 1970s, and
participated for a space in UAC.
Needless to say their vision was fulfilled
tir wUmichdu.-udc
Th sda Fob, 5th
Frig, Fe. 1 6th
8 PM
Mende Theatre
in thE gay Lagu
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and the rest is history. There is no spe-
cialty or inclination towards a specific
type of dance with Impact. Currently
comprised of 16 members, 13 of who
will be performing, almost every set or
act is choreographed by a different mem-
ber, making repetition impossible.
The group's co-chairs, Jennifer Frink
and Julianne Manske both emphasize
that the definitive word for Impact
Dance is "Versatility" - each number
includes a variation of jazz, tap, funk,
modern and hip-hop. Members of
Impact Dance also present an interesting
amalgam of Art, English, Psychology
and Organizational Studies majors.
Auditions for Impact Dance Theater
are held in September and all of fall
semester is spent rehearsing.
Tomorrow's performance will also fea-
ture Amazin' Blue. Tickets run at $5 pre-
paid,s$6 at the door and $7 for non-stu-
dents.
IMPORTANT
DAILY ARTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
THE VAGINA
MONOLOGUES ARE
BEING PERFORMED
FRIDAY AT 8 P.M. AT
THE MICHIGAN
THEATER, NOT
TONIGHT AS
REPORTED
YESTERDAY.
AL-SoSUISSIN
FOR TE MICHIGAN
DAjLY's LITERARY
MAGAZINE ARE DUE
WEDNESDAY,
FEBRUARY 21. PLEASE
EXPLORE TEACHING OPPORTUNITIES
Diversity Job Fair
Hosted by Herlong Cathedral School
Sunday, February 25, 2001
3:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Meet with staff from many independent schools including
Tickets avail hible at MUTO
or call 763.TKTS
Food For Thought
II