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 r 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 * - '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 ' #° i : i' : s , . 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