The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, December 10, 2010 - 5A Reindeer tell all in expose Walgreen play Daft Punk's big.'Legacy' By BRAD SANDERS Daily Arts Writer Don't feel bad about finding coal in your stocking this year - Santa Claus has even added The EIght himself to the .d naughty list. Reideer In "The Eight: Monologues Reindeer Mono- logues," Base- Tonghtat 7 ment Arts's fall and 11p.m., season finale tomorrow written by Jeff at 7p.m. Goode, the idol- WalgreenDrama ized and peace- Center,StudioOne ful environment Free of the North Pole is tarnished forever as Vixen, a reindeer who pulls Santa's sleigh, reports that Santa has been sexu- ally harassing Rudolph. As the news spreads, reporters swamp the scene and each rejndeer each reveals an account of the scandal, often veering off topic and focus- ing on their own issues. "It's eight monologues, so it's funny - you don't get to see the reindeer interact at all," said director Emma Donson, a junior in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. "At least from what I feel directing, you will know their relationships based on what they say and who they talk about. It's pretty known how they feel about each other." In their monologues, the rein- deer reveal their quirks to the audience as well as their underly- ing humanity, regardless of their fur and antlers. Comet is a reborn Muslim, Cupid proudly gay and Prancer a producer who worked on his own film, "Prancer." At the same time, Vixen's best friend Blitzen defends her in a press conference and Rudolph's father, Donner, painfully regrets selling Rudolph to Santa. "Dancer ... is very skittish. She used to be a ballet instruc- tor and she's a Jewish reindeer," said Ariel Sobel, a sophomore in the School of MT&D who plays Dancer. "When she first comes up for her interview, she talks about her vacation days and her sick days, but she only works one day a year." Donson first performed Blit- zen's monologue for Janet Zar- ish from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, who came to the University to speak with the acting program. Zarish's encouragement pushed Donson to produce the show for Base- ment Arts. "She was really wowed and hadn't heard of the play or the material," Donsonsaid. "Ithought to myself, 'if she's wowed by this ... Hide your kids, hide your wife, Santa's coming. I think it's a good play to do.'" Donson, an acting major, used Basement Arts as a gateway' to experiment with directing, and found the Studio One atmosphere helpful for her^ show. Sobel has also found this space beneficial as an actress. "I think especially with the monologues, they're pretty long and for me to connect with the audience and whoever I'm speak- ing to for that long amount of time, it's helpful to have that See REINDEER, Page 6A French duo ditches the rave and recruits an orchestra By CHLOE STACHOWIAK For theDaily With Tron: Legacy, the soundtrack for the new Disney movie that opens Dec 17, Daft Punk unleashes its electronic power once again. A film Daft Punk pivoting on tech- nology, digital Tron: Legacy effects and the Walt Disney virtual world, it's no wonder direc- tor Joseph Kosinski chose the French duo for the job: their elec- tro-house dance music has graced clubs and raves since the early 1990s, and they've even racked up a few Grammys. The jolt of Tron: Legacy, how- ever, is a far leap from past hits like "One More Time" and "Tech- nologic" that commonly blast through swarms of partiers at night clubs. While the soundtrack is composed with Daft Punk's well-known precision and French house influences, it showcases a new depth and maturity, as well as an 85-piece orchestra. This change may come as a shock to glow stick-waving rave kids, but to everyone else, the soundtrack is musical bliss, a blend of mighty sounds and emotions woven together in intricacy. Daft Punk's development of sound is evident in the very first track, "Overture," opening the album with slow, passionate vio- lins and throaty horns. The inten- sity gradually builds throughout the song, transforming into a crescendo of crashing symbols. It seethes tragedy and strength without sounding over the top - everything one would hope to hear during a Disney movie about cyber battles in a digital universe. "Outlands" also features this internal maturation, as the track's opening violin part is met with the deep cries of the bass drum and brass section. What was initially a quiet string part is pumped up with the force of an entire orchestra, and the layers fuse together with fury. "Recog- nizer" operates similarly giving birth to energy between the dif- ferent textures of music. In these contexts, it's hard not to imagine virtual battles between heroes and super villains: the frantic violins and solid bass drum vio- lently rage against one another with every beat. Still, it's impossible for a die- hard Daft Punk fan to listen to the soundtrack without feeling some sense of longing for the group's typical music; the album bears few similarities to the duo's dance albums. These tracks just don't have the same peppy vibe as past work and the intensity can almost feel a bit weighty at times. But tracks like "Derezzed" and "End of the Line" help to counteract this, with the fiery beats and syn- thesizer parts that brought Daft Punk to popularity in the first place. None of these songs are as upbeat or dance-worthy as the artists' past work, but they offer light, rhythmic relief from the heavy currents charging through the rest of the album. Parisian clubbers may be mourning the loss of a new week- end dance mix, but as far as the big screen is concerned, Tron: Legacy is far from a power failure. It delivers the ferocity and storm of sentiment expected from a major motion picture, charged with excitement without feeling forced. Each track flows cohesively with- out sounding monotonous, con- stantly changing and challenging the last with new layers of beats and sounds. A war of words erupts in MT&D's'Much Ado' By STEPHEN OSTROWSKI DailyArts Writer If gossip is the currency of a col- lege campus, then William Shake- speare's "Much Ado About Noth- ing," brimming Much Ado with he-said About she-said decep- No.h.n tion and beguile- Nothfg ment, seems the Tonight and perfect selection tomorrow at 8 for adaptation p.m., Sunday . by the Univer- a 2P.m. sity's School of Power Center Music, Theatre, Ticketsfrom $18 & Dance. The Messina, Italy-based comedy, to be show- cased this weekend at the Power Center, features a dichotomous set of relationships: Hero and Clau- dio are fresh-faced lovers whose relationship is threatened by the destructive plot of a conniving outsider. Meanwhile, the silver- tongued, romantically unlinked Beatrice and Benedick are unknowingly subject to match- making. "Much Ado" director and School of MT&D professor John Neville-Andrews praised the play's multiple dimensions. "What I love about 'Much Ado About Nothing' is that it has so much variety in there," Neville- Andrews said. "It's not just a straight comedy. It's certainly not a tragedy, although very tragic events take place, and it's not just a straight drama; it has all of that in there." School of MT&D junior Allison Brown, who plays the witty Bea- trice, detailed the comedic signifi- cance of her character. "She's definitely part of the comic relief and part of the love story within 'Much Ado,' " Brown said, "because her and Benedick fight all time, and they really end up loving each other despite their wits." Neville-Andrews further acknowledged the anchoring effect of the Beatrice/Benedick dynamic, which he described as "verbal jousting" in an e-mail to the Daily. Shakespeare meets the 1920s. "This merry war of words cre- ates a great deal of enjoyment for an audience because they recog- nize the painful situation these two lovers are in, but eagerly anticipate a positive and romantic ending," Neville-Andrews wrote. Providing a foil to the word- smith Beatrice is her cousin, Hero, played School of MD&T senior Erin Cousins. She explained the difficulties of portraying a See MUCH ADO, Page 6A Salto's wintry dance mix By LUCY PERKINS For theDaily As age-old holiday traditions are rekindled this season, the newest ballet company on campus will A Winter present cho- Wonderland reography to a mix of classic Tonight at Christmas mel- 7:30 p.m. odies and more Arthur MillerTheatre contemporary $5 tunes. In its second semester on cam- pus, Salto Dance Company, com- posed ofnine female students from different disciplines, will pirou- ette and jet6 as Sugarplum fairies, Spanish hot chocolate, Arabian coffee and other personified char- acters from "The Nutcracker" in their "A Winter Wonderland" per- formance. Salto's first-ever holi- day show will feature music from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" as well as other holiday songs, and will incorporate a contemporary dance style known as lyrical. Lyri- cal uses the techniques of ballet as a foundation but differs in that it incorporates modern dance and contemporary styles as well. "When we started the group, we sort of had the concept of the winter show to .e half 'Nutcrack- er,' half regular, more lyrical of a show," said Anna Badalian, an LSA junior and Salto's co-founder. According to Badalian, the first half of the show will show- case selections from the second act of "The Nutcracker," leaving Combining ballet and lyrical styles. I1 II out the ballet's iconic party and battle scenes. The second act of "A Winter Wonderland" will be more contemporary. "Most of the dance groups on campus are more purely lyrical and we wanted a ballet compo- See SALTO, Page 6A great location to U of M north campus. affordable rates.