The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.corrr
Friday, September
Mildly terrifying, yes. But the music? Quite goo
Riding off into a
great album
Opera visualized
Genius Grant-winning Shen Wei kicks off
China Now theme year
$y MERYL SCHWARTZ his first staging of a Chinese opera. In a state-
Daily Arts Writer mert on the artist's website, Shen Wei credits
the "rich music and singing rather than the
Renowned Chinese choreographer, dancer, story line" to his interest in "Empress." His
painter and designer Shen Wei is known for lead vocalists are certainly up to the difficult
dynamic contemporary performances. His task: the production's four lead performers are
staging of "Second Visit to the Empress," this widely considered the most luminous of the
weekend at the Power Conter, exhibits his Beijing opera world.
command of dance's vocabu- Joseph Lam, professor of music in the Schtol
lary - and traditional Chi- of Music, Theatre and Dance, said audiences
nese opera to boot. Second will grow familiar with the melody during the
The Shen Wei Dance Art's course of the performance, since traditional
production - for which Shen Chinese opera music consists of standardized
Wei choreographed and Empress structures with variations on the same melody.
directed as well as designed "once you get to know it, it's very-easy listen-
the costumes, makeup and Tonight and ing," he said.
sets - showcases both con- tomorrow at8 And then there are the dancers: 12 charac-
temporary dance and a p.m., Sunday terless perfformers using movement to interpret
canonical Beijing opera. Per- at 4 p.m. the music. David Rolston, associate professor
formances will run today of Chinese language and literature, summed
though Sunday. $20/$48 . up the dancers' roles in the production: "'They
There are distinctions At the Power work like the vizualizers on a computer when
between a Western under- Center you play a CD," he said. "The dancers embody
standing of "opera" and the the dynamics of the music, when it's soft, when
broader understanding of an it's loud - that is what the dancers do for me."
Eastern theatergoer. While Chinese opera cer- The dancers' movements are carefully cho-
tainly stresses music - the Chinese word for reographed, despite appearances of relaxed
"theater" is translated as "play-song" - Chi- arms and legs or improvisation. Moreover,
nese opera regularly intersperses dance, mar- gestures are strongly physical without sur-
tial arts, action sequences and speaking into rendering fluidity and suggest a delight in the
performances. exploration of every limb.
"Empress," though, is an atypical piece in in the strange and beautiful world of the
its sheer volume of music, its challenging score production, danc rs and singers co-exist but
and its marked lack of action. Because of these do not interact. " 'ere are two shows happen-
idiosyncrasies, there has been no change in ing at the same time," Lam said. " Shen Wei
staging in the last 200 years, despite the work's uses traditional music alongside very modern
standing as a pillar of the Chinese opera reper- content."
tory and a necessary stop on a student's road to Rolston went a step further and attests that
opera stardoni. there are actually three shows happening
But Shen Wei, who has studied Chinese simultaneously, when one also considers Shen
opera since she was 9, attests that it was, in Wei's careful costuming, staging and visual
fact, "Empress's" musicality that drew him to design.
By CAITLIN COWAN
Daily Arts Writer
Les Savy Fav's first album
in six years, Let's Stay Friends,
breaks through with a big,
bossy, face-melting track titled
"The Equestrian." The song's
video isn't a high-powered
production but fan-submitted
footage of a little blond girl, no
older than 5. The girl turns on
her Hello Kitty boombox, grabs
a plastic
microphone
and starts
lip-synching Les Savy Fav
in perfect
time. She Let's Stay
head bangs, Friends
makes her
plastic horses French Kiss
gallop across
the screen and rides her stuffed
pony into the floor like a rock-
star.
The video is an apt charac-
terization of Les Savy Fav by
all accounts. And while there
are many things about the New
Yorkindie rockers thatseemlo-
fi, do-it-yourself or even cutesy
from the outside, after listening
to their music, this accessible
indie fagade turns out to be just
that: a cool, cozy front for their
polished, angular and brilliant
music.
After starting out with the
ecstatic high of "The Eques-
trian," it would seem impos-
sible to follow its first single
on Let's Stay Friends. But Les
Savy Fav is a versatile band,
and the album skillfully oscil-
lates between sweat and strain
on tracks like "Raging in the
Plague Age" and style and sass
on mellower songs like "Brace
Yourself"
"Patty Lee" is one of the
best songs on the album. The
track explodes with a shout-
ing chorus, high-pitched gui-
tar line and an amazing bridge
that melts into a cool, echoing
refrain. The video for the song
-awkwardly shot with a hand-
held camera - features ayoung
woman dancing to the song
in what looks like an audition
setting. But it's real. Here we
see again the band's incredible
dichotomy of looks and sounds.
It's unions like these that are
"Second Visit to the Princess" is directed by one of
opera's most diverse minds, Shen Wei. It goes on at the
Power Center and runs through sunday.
"Empress" is merely the first of many
upcoming University events that encourage
reflection on the East-West dichotomy. In con-
junction with its ChinaNow theme year, at
least six other Asian-inspired productions are
about to hit a University Musical Society stage.
Rolston, for one, is glad that Chinese theater is
being incorporated into the yearlong event.
"A modern, economic perspective on China
is too narrow, we need to also study history
and humanities," he said.
Added Lam: "It's a challenge for the audi-
ence to think about the East and the West, old
and new, but that is the fun part."
most representatvve oft is
ented band. Thanks t oit
efforts, Les Savy F n, :
urnspoiled. Ever ytl my,,,
the album art orn tln in
- a colorful accour 1
anianis in the Gardein
turning on Aslnrnm arnsd l's
bared teeth - to it's rec :1s
and distribution is s s s
group's control.
This year the Lst
based band Jetplane L'td t
released a song called 'Vh 11
No glory, but
the band
definitely
wins.
They Never Play Les S n
on the Radio?" While tl' s
timent is sure to elicit a si
of "I know, right?" from
listening to the sharp lyri-
tracks like "Pots & P<t ,s
it clear that the harnd s 1
aware of its own stt.s Ti
Harrington sings, "'Ie pe
say n onor /But the (ftrstt
says yes yes yes / This tsur is
test."
The fate of the indie b
often a fight against obsci
failure or infighting.
overwhelming feeling'
Stay Friends is one oft
ofstickingtogether of t
get tough. Maybe Les
has been "missing out ts
ing in for over a deer:.
their website proclnt
far as their music go t i t
definitely turmnirg it sit
FILM IN BRIEF
A 'Party' you've
been to before'
"The Hunting Party"
At Quality 16 and Showcase
Weinstein
If you believe everything you see
on television or in the newspapers,
you're a fool. That's the basic idea
that drives "The Hunting Party"
into painful obviousness. Director
Richard Shepard ("The Matador")
doesn't extend the film beyond a
mundane observation we've all
made at one time or another.
The film follows the stories of
foreign-news correspondents who
cover war and the deyastation of
post-war nations. Simon (Richard
Gere, "The Hoax") is the best war-
time American reporter, and his
sidekick, cameraman Duck (Ter-
rence Howard, "The Brave One"),
follows him into the heaviest of shit
storms. Simon's conscience breaks
when he can no longer stand the
brutality he witnesses while cover-
ing the conflict in early-'90s Bosnia.
After Duck receives a promotion
and the war ends, he returns to
Eastern Europe and runs into a run-
down, desperate Simon, who claims
to have a source leading them to the
location of the most-wanted war
criminal from the previous conflict.
In the process we get this: The
international effort to track down
war criminals is half-assed, the
United Nations is a joke and don't
believe everything you hear. It
reverts to the classic fallback with
international investigation stories:
The United States government is
behind everything.
Luckily, "who is responsible for
what" and "where the bad guy is"
are not the points of "The Hunting
Party." It's about truth and belief
therein. T'Pie opening intertitle of
the movie reads: "Only the most
ridiculous parts of this story are
true." Considering how absurd the
ensuing tale turns out to be, most of
this dubious movie should be true,
but hey, don't believe everything
you'd told.
ELIE ZWJEBEL
High school the
same as college?
"Sydney White"
At Quality 16 and Showcase
Universal
porary teen comedies, "Sydney
White" is an update of a classic
story, this time "Snow White." This
new take is unusually smart for a
formulaic teen romantic comedy,
most notably with the poisoned
apple becoming a hacked Mac eom-
puter. But the movie's message of
fringe groups coming together so
everyone can embrace her inner
dork is full of as many conventions
as the designer-toting blondes and
tough men of Greek row. There
are the black-clad Goth kids, the
always-practicing band, the ROTC
members and Jews, who are all
Orthodox and shout "L'Chaim" at
every opportunity. Few characters
get more than one note to play, and
all look and act like they belong in
high school.
SARAH SCHWARTZ
"Sydney White" will have us
believe the stereotypes of high
school apply directly to scollege.
Those girls in the popular clique of
high school will become materialis-
tic sorority girls; the jocks become
the frat boys; and the nerds, well,
stay nerdy.
This is the PG-13-rated version
of college catered to high school
girls who, like the actress Amanda
Bynes, are hoping to try their mani-
cured hands at playing more adult.
Bynes ("She's the Man") has made
a career of playing plucky heroines
with parental issues swho upset the
social hierarchy, and here she plays
Sydney, a plumber's daughter who Stu entUruverse com
hopes to join her dead mother's
sorority at the fictional Southern
Atlantic University. But Rachelf
(Sara Paxton, "Aquamnarine") has it
in for Sydney, apparently because
she has brown hair and the audacity,
to eat breakfast.
Taking cue from many contem-
R O N HOWARD P R E S ENTS
OF THE
MOON
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