The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom New Student Edition - 3D
What the Ann Arbor arts scene is missing
While in China for a
summer, one writer
sees the shortcomings
of campus street art
By BEN VANWAGONER
Daily Arts Writer
Jan. 10, 2008 - They were a very
strange group of men. The three
stood in the same place every
day, always doing the same thing,
wearing the same clothes and
never once opening their eyes.
I spent last summer teaching
in China. I was in a city of about
10 million called Wuhan - one of"
the hottest cities in the country.
During the three months I spent
there, I learned at least as much
as I taught: I'd pick up Mandarin
words from my students, hear a
little more about the history of the
country or get a better feeling for
the way the culture worked. But it
wasn't until months after my flight
home that I realized the powerful
influence of what I've grown to
think of as "street arts."
This trio appeared to be, if not
brothers, old friends, and they
were all blind. Two played curi-
ous flute-like instruments, faces
twisted in concentration, while
the third (who always stood in the
middle) held a plastic bowl to col-
lect change from passersby. The
men always stood precisely in the
middle of the sidewalk, in front
of a large mall. Every day when
I passed I would consider giv- mats; ancient-looking monks
log them a few coins, and once in burned incense and told fortunes;
a while I would. Still, they-never teenage boys danced in crisp
quite seemed to fit my idea of beg- rhythm to Chinese rap. These
gars. people were as much a part of the
They weren't, really, not in Chi- streets as the vendors selling fried
nese terms anyway. They were rice - they belonged there. They
collecting money, sure, but in the added a touch of variety, a differ-
same way that a shoe shiner would ent environment to streets that,
collectmoney - as part of his busi- without them, would have just
ness, not as a begging technique. been grimy and loud. In a way that
They were street musicians, not wasn't easy to understand: They
beggars. Street musicians just like give the city a different dimension
the buskers in the through their art.
London subway The art of
- skilled, legiti- China doesn't
mate and decid- Slowly but surely, stay locked up in
edly not homeless. its museums or in
New York City and art in America is its exclusive, red-
Chicago have even carpeted music
developed systems becoming the realm halls. It spills out
for artists like onto the street
these that require of the educated in every possible
them to have way. The street
licenses. These artists and their
men were more performances are
like that - busk- just as much a
ers. And the three weren't alone. part of the culture as the temples
The sidewalks in China are or the rickshaws. They're invalu-
teeming with street musicians. able, inseparable. They give every
Wrinkly old men plucking their person - from the poorest noodle
battered Erhu ("two-string" in vendor to the black-suited busi-
Mandarin), their female counter- nessman - a chance to have a taste
parts playing some sort of flute a of their own artistic culture just
block down, and the 5-year-old I walking down the street.
once saw marching with a drum When I came back to Ann Arbor
around his father. They're every- this fall, just a few days after my
where, and they're really just a last stroll through the streets of
small sampling of the street art- Wuhan, I couldn't help but notice
ists. the difference. For a city that's
Artists of every kind lined the touted as multicultural there's not
streets of Wuhan. Little girls a lot of anything on the streets of
dressed as gymnasts did unbeliev- Ann Arbor. Some American cities
able contortions on small cloth offer more, certainly: New York
If these guys lived in Ann Arbor, walking to class would be so much more interesting.
City, San Francisco, Chicago per-' We're drawing in on ourselves, lis-
haps, but where else? In China, tening to music from our earbuds
even the smallest towns have a rather than experiencing it as a
few nien sitting in the town square living breathing culture.
strumming their huluhu (a gourd- So where does this leave us?
like stringed instrument). With a 'culture that's obsessed
Slowly but surely, art in America with art galleries and concert halls
is becoming the realm of the edu- and ticketed admission, is it possi-
cated, the people with the extra ble that we're robbing ourselves of
cash to attend $80 concerts and our own art? If nothing else, we're
the desire to put on a collared shirt limiting it. We're confining art to a
and visit the Met in New York. tiny part of our existence, and art
should be throughout all of it. It's
like putting all the great American
literature in a bank vault instead of
a library.
After six months back, it doesn't
bother me anymore. I hardly think
about it most of the time. Still,
I can't help but walk down the
streets of Ann Arbor without won-
dering, where are the three blind
men, and why are the streets sim-
ply grimy and loud?
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