Thursday
March 23, 2006
arts. michigandaily. com
artspage@michigandaily.com
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Creative Arts
improvises
By Andrew Klein
Daily Fine Arts Editor
FI N EA RTs P R EVIEW
The phrase "free jazz" carries a certain stigma for the
knowledgeable as well as those uninitiated. Random,
abrasive, unmusical - free jazz
is no stranger to these descriptors.
But for the University's Creative Creative Arts
Arts Orchestra, an improvisation Orchestra
group performing at Rackham Performance
Auditorium tonight at8 p.m., free Tonight at 8 p.m.
jazz is a misleading phrase. Free
Co-director Mark Kirschen-A
mann said he doesn't think of At Rackham Auditorium
CAO as "free jazz" because the
group is not limited to jazz musicians.
"Our improvisations often venture away from
what one might think of as jazz, though still filtered
through a jazz lens," Kirschenmann said. "I think a
more relevant term to describe what we do is creative
improvisation."
The group's makeup is a clear indicator of the creativ-
ity he described. There are cellists, pianists, percussion-
ists, a guitarist and violinists (to name a few), and each
member brings an individual and relevant background
to the group. This dynamic allows for a wide range of
sonic possibilities.
"For instance, a particular passage may sound like
contemporary classical music, rock, funk or ambient
sound, or we might start singing, narrating or yelling, et
cetera," Kirschenmann said.
The group's flexibility extends beyond its own com-
Orchestra of war
Courtesy of the Creative Arts Orchestra Performance
The Creative Arts Orchestra Performance will perform tonight at 8 p.m. at Rackham.
positions to include innovative collaborations. This
year alone, the CAO has performed with esteemed
avant-garde alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, the Hot 8
Brass Band from New Orleans and The Golden Age, an
improvisation-based hip-hop group.
While the term "creative improvisation" can evoke
a less-than-favorable impression (something along the
lines of randomly generated music), it's clear that both
Kirschenmann and the group are extremely knowledge-
able and conscious of their music.
Through "creative improvisation," the CAO attempts
to break down the constraints of composed music.
According to Kirschenmann, "a successful perfor-
mance goes beyond music into the realms of the demo-
cratic, social and spiritual"
Those aspects can be hard to absorb through a casual
listening. "We're also very deep listeners, which we
advise our audience to be as well," he said.
"Normal" jazz might be described as having one,
maybe two musicians improvising over a given struc-
ture. In the CAO, there is no structure. Every musician
is an individual entity balancing himself with and sub-
mitting to the whole of the group.
"On a certain level, it's utterly simple and intuitive,
but it's also deeply complex to get a large ensemble to
do this together as a unit or team," Kirschenmann said.
Don't expect to hear something along the lines of
Wynton Marsalis's interpretation of John Coltrane's A
Love Supreme. Don't expect an abrasive cacophony of
notes. The CAO, an organization with virtually no par-
allel at the University, provides a unique reexamination
of musical improvisation.
"We hope the audience understands that a given
performance may include passages of musical
transcendence or disaster at any given moment,"
Kirschenmann said. "It's the nature of what we do."
War does funny things to
artists.
For the German expres-
sionists, the onset of World War I
turned joyously incomprehensible
art into examples of sinuous, yet
incomprehensible agony.
For Francis Scott Key, the siege
and subsequent American victory at
Fort McHenry led to his penning of
the now-famous poem, "The Star-
Spangled Banner."
And for composers
of classical music, war
has become the starting
block for some of the
masters' greatest works
- pieces often seen as
nationalist and patriotic
anthems.
The European conti-
nent, with all its inter-
necine conflict, is the
perfect example l. ALIS
Jean Sibelius wrote G
Finlandia, which became
the de facto anthem for the Finn-
ish revolution. Later, the piece, so
ingrained in the nationalist mindset,
became Finland's actual anthem.
Russia, with its strong musical
tradition and constant susceptibility
to attack, has generated a handful
of monster wartime works.
Celebrating Napoleon's defeat,
Tchaikovsky penned the 1812 Over-
ture. Most recently, and oppressive-
ly, heard in James McTeigue's "V
for Vendetta," the overture serves
as an aural release from a totalitar-
ian regime - the Russians from
Napoleon, and V, Evey and all the
little Brits from the Hitler-like Brit-
ish chancellor.
Classical music, then, has a his-
tory of didactic art and political
change more pervasive than almost
anything else in European art. It's
communal, proud and oftentimes
designed to rouse and shock its
audience into pride, rebellion and
self-awareness.
Fast-forward to World War II.
Russia's new classical star is Dmitri
Shostakovich. Deemed a national
treasure and consequently barred
from going to war against the Ger-
mans, Shostakovich wrote his Sym-
phony No. 7 in 1941.
The composer wrote the major-
ity of his 30-minute first movement
S
O
rapped in Leningrad at the onset
of the 900-day siege. Not surpris-
ingly, the symphony has withstood
the test of time, and in celebration
of Shostakovich's 100th birthday,
Russia's Kirov Orchestra came to
Hill Auditorium this weekend to
play the piece.
Mind-blowing, to say the least,
but its power - and the program
notes - highlights why America,
the great supercountry with all its
war, conflict and military
prowess, has little to show
for in terms of great war-
time compositions.
Why? For one, there
has never been a great
instrumental classical
tradition in America. The
few exceptions - Cop-
land, Gershwin, Joplin
- have succeeded in cap-
)N turing, however cliched
it sounds, the simplicity,
hope and escapism of
American life.
But most importantly, wartime
music is a nationalist outcry of sur-
vival and victory over oppression.
I've been hard-pressed to find a
globally aggressive country that has
produced a timeless patriotic com-
position. At least in the 20th centu-
ry, when American classical music
gained some acknowledgment, there
hasn't been a war or conflict that
has struck the hearts and minds of
Americans and American artists
- at least not enough to inspire a
memorable work.
Contrary to what some may say,
the United States hasn't been under
siege in recent history, and that's
probably a blessing. We don't have
a classical composition that's raised
our country from the ash of a dicta-
tor, but at least we can say we never
had to deal with Napoleon.
But unfortunately for us, instead
of Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich for
our dosage of patriotic listening, we
get modern-day pro-America rant-
ing to fill our ears. Who's up for a
Toby Keith concert? Anyone?
- Go likes it when guys
dress up like dead white men
who wrote compositions about
war. Help her indulge in her
fantasy at aligo@umich.edu.
Film student hits it
By Michelle Zellers
Daily Arts Writer
When LSA junior Doug Nicholas com-
pleted a four-and-a-half minute film for
his video art class, he had no idea it would
eventually be among the 5 percent of Ann
Arbor Film Festival entries selected to play
at the Michigan Theater. He just wanted to
create something beautiful for his grand-
mother, who passed away in May.
Nicholas visited his grandmother in
New York City last year just before she
died from pancreatic cancer.
"It was very psychologically painful,
and I was just trying to work through
those feelings on the way home from the
visit," Nicholas said.
It was while reflecting on one of his
grandmother's last creations - a stuffed
dragon she made as a birthday gift for his
sister - that Nicholas got the idea for his
experimental short film "Hermann." The
dragon, as well as a teddy bear made by
Nicholas's great-grandmother, became
his subjects. Nicholas shot the movie last
semester in his Ann Arbor apartment and
his house in Plymouth. He animated the
figures by pulling them into various posi-
tions with thin fibers and taking a series
of pictures that were later converted into
black-and-white images.
"It's kind of the brainchild of the strong
affinity for stop-motion photography I had
as a kid;' he said.
While the animals' world is monochro-
matic, a television in the film plays color
footage from Nicholas's childhood, featur-
ing him and his grandmother. The cen-
tral image involves Hermann the dragon
attempting to move through the TV set to
bridge a sense of removal from his creator.
Because Nicholas was unable to make
his software play more than 30 seconds
mg at A2 fi]
of the film at a time, he didn't see his
movie in its entirety until the last day of
his video art class, when he had to present
it to his peers. He described that moment
as the most rewarding of his filmmaking
experience.
"Everyone in the class was very support-
ive, and they gave a lot of great criticism. It
was a great environment to work in"
Nicholas is co-president of the Film and
Video Student Association, which hosts the
annual "Lightworks Festival" to showcase
student films within the Screen Arts and
Cultures department. After "Hermann"
seeing the film, AAFF executive director
Christen McArdle invited Nicholas to sub-
mit it to the festival.
It wasn't until earlier this month that he
learned "Hermann" would indeed be shown
at the Michigan Theater. Along with LSA
senior Chris Huth and LSA sophomore
Geoffrey George, Nicholas also created
[mfestival
one of three trailers for the film festival,
chosen from a student contest to precede
the screenings for two nights this week.
Nicholas said he enjoyed the process of
photographing and animating his subjects,
which he found more "methodical and
serene" than working with human actors.
"Dealing with stuffed animals is just
great," he said. "They're not very temper-
amental, apt to take direction."
Though he is unsure if he will special-
ize in any particular type of film in the
future, Nicholas said short films have a
number of advantages in addition to the
obvious upsides of being less expensive
and time-consuming than features.
"I like not being tied down to (conven-
tional film) structure or even characters
or dialogue ... I like to create something
visually arresting."
"Hermann" will premiere tonight at
7 p.m. at the Michigan Theater.
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