The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, April 7, 2011 - 3B 'SWAN LAKE' (1876), PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY Good girl, bad girl, great art My big, fat, Greek finale By ERIN STEELE Prince Siegfried falls for the pure, Daily Arts Writer virginal white swan Odette, who appears to him in human form According to the popular nurs- only by night. Later, the prince ery rhyme, little girls are made of is drawn in by the black swan two things: sugar and spice. This Odile's mysterious and seduc- dichotomized perception of femi- tive behavior. Both swans look ninity has pervaded American exactly the same aside from their culture for years and leaves girls white and black tutus. Both are hanging somewhere in between equally beautiful, and both roles two ideals - it's bad to be a goody- are typically danced by the same two-shoes, but it's just as unsa- ballerina. Each one has what the vory to be promiscuous. Despite other one doesn't - the two are being composed in 1876, Tchai- polar opposites on the scale of kovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" can femininity. Because the typi- be viewed as a commentary on cal ending of the ballet is tragic, modern society's contradictory with either Odette and Siegfried standards for females. drowning themselves in the lake or Siegfried being unwillingly tricked into marrying Odile, it's 'Swan Lake never really clear who wins. Of course, anyone who's seen still s inring. "Black Swan" has seen the central si tension of the ballet mimicked in the unlikely friendship-gone-sour of the sheltered Nina (Natalie The plot is essentially a glam- Portman), and the black swan-like orized, fairytale version of the Lily, whose reckless ways make inner conflict guys experience for an edgier, dangerous persona. when finding the right girl. This same idea has capti- There's the girl you bring home vated audiences of different to mom and the girl you don't. media across generations. A few years after the debut of "Swan Lake," Thomas Hardy published the literary classic "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," in which the sweet and virginal Tess is taken advan- tage of by a wealthy neighbor and becomes shunned by her com- munity after having his child. Tess lives in a place where there is no middle ground: One either conforms to society's standards of purity, or one becomes perma- nently marked with sin. Unable to reconciletwoextremes, Tess ends up being hanged for the murder of her neighbor. Though the plot isn't identical to "Swan Lake," it deals with the idea that an inabil- ity to balance the two aspects of femininity can end tragically. Fast forward about 100 years, and you have the smash-hit musi- cal "Grease." The "Sandra Dee" scene is a great example of this perennial theme. Quintessential bad girl Rizzo and her pack of Pink Ladies degrade Sandy and her angelic ways through song and dance: "Look at me, I'm San- dra Dee / Lousy with virginity." In the end, the Pink Ladies con- vert Sandy with a hot new hair- it'll transport peoplea little bit." Spinning a performance Meanwhile, Interarts senior Yonit Olshan's thesis, "Arachne: The Origin" premieres tomorrow night at the Walgreen Drama Cen- ter. Though it classifies as a play, "Arachne" includes live music, dance and puppetry, making it a truly inter-artistic experience. "I was really trying to think about what I wanted to say about myself as an artisan, as a perfor- mance artist," Olshan said. The play brings to life the story of Arachne and her feud with the goddess Athena over who is the best weaver in the world. Olshan sees it both as a play about an art- ist, fighting for her craft and try- ing to break tradition, and as an origin myth: the creation of the spider as a result of Arachne's eventual transformation. "Athena doesn't really have a lot of faith in mortals," Olshan said. "But the truth is that mor- tals have a lot of beauty in their uniqueness." Olshanhas had this show inher head for more than a year. "To finally see what other peo- ple can bring to it is so much more beyond what I could ever have imagined it to be," she said. "It's so exciting." Olshan's involvement in the play was inspired by her interest in different artistic backgrounds, as well as the idea of cross-cultur- al origin myths. She researched myths and performance tech- niques of different cultures to cre- ate the play. "The beauty behind it is that all of these different creation myths, even though they're so different," she said, "they really all hit on very similar things like love, orjoy - all these purposes in life." Though her primary back- ground is costume design, Olshan was drawnto creatingthings with groups rather than on her own. As a result, she transferred to Inter- arts, a major newly rendered by the University that combines pro- grams from the School of Art & Design and School of Music, The- atre & Dance to give the students involved a truly holistic view on performance arts. "That sort of sense that it actu- ally is an Interarts performance is one of the main inspirations for do and a black leather jumpsuit instead of a tutu. In 1989, the creators of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" stole a page from the "Swan Lake" book when they had Ursula attempt to stop Ariel's marriage to Prince Eric by arriving at the castle in the form of a black-haired bombshell with Ariel's beautiful voice. Again: two beautiful girls, physically iden- tical except for their hair color - one a young, impressionable princess and the other an evil, seductive sorceress. This part of the plotline practically screams "Swan Lake." Of course, since it's a Disney movie, Ariel eventually triumphs and finds love with her Prince Charming. Whether nice girls really finish last is an issue that is still up for debate and has been in the fore- front of societal consciousness for a long time. One thing's for sure: Going to see "Swan Lake" and having the feminine dichotomy represented with gorgeous scen- ery, tutus and a storybook plotline is a much more enjoyable way to ponder the dilemma than reading an academic analysis of it. the piece itself," she said. "The collaboration and the meaning behind performance art is still a new sort of emerging art form." As an Interarts collaboration, "Arachne" has received assis- tance from a host of different studies, from a director from the Department of Theatre & Drama to a composer from the School of Music to a choreographer from the Dance Department. "It's really cool right now, in tech week," Olshan said. "It's one of the first times we're seeing a lot of it come together. We put the cello recording with the dance choreography for the first time and it's just goes so well. It's excit- ing and nerve-wracking, but they really do just make each other so much better." For Olshan, directing a collabo- ration introduced her to a whole new world of creative potential. "Typically, I'm the costume designer," she said. "I'm not used to being the person who gets to make the final decision. We just go by what the director wants, but right now I'm playing that role ... I've learned how to trust myself to be the leader amongst all these other amazingly talented artistic people." The opportunity to bring danc- ers, musicians and actors togeth- er in such a way was a learning opportunity in and of itself. Olshan said it, was inspiring to work with other people to bring out their best. "It's about all of these artis- tic things, but it's really about Arachne," she said. "It's about her wanting to fight to be creative, which I think is what we're all doing. We're fighting for our indi- viduality and we're fighting to be unique against society." She hopes the audience takes away the importance of Arachne standing up for who she is and trying to accomplish a feat that others thought tobe impossible. "It's ahope,"she added, echoing the sentiments of fellow aspiring artists. "It's ahope and an inspira- tion to be unique and creative and be who you are. It sounds really cheesy, but it's beautiful." Senior Arts Editor Jennifer Xu contributed to this article. D Seea multimedia piece about this story on MichiganDaily.com Sticking out like a sore thumb at the corner of Main and Liberty is Ann Arbor's decaying classic, the Parthenon Restaurant. What -puzzles and amazes about this seem- ingly unre- markable establish- ment is its longev- ity. Brothers LILA John and KALICK Steve Gavas opened it here back in 1975. The fading paint of the res- taurant's teal and cream facade, with a sign advertising gyros, fine Greek foods and cocktails, indicates that any aspirations of grandeur are long gone. There's nothing shiny or new about this place. The reasons I chose the Par- thenon as the location of my last food column are twofold. First, I'd never been there before and I was curious. Second, I was han- kering for some good Greek food. While Detroit has it in spades in Greektown, Ann Arbor is lacking in places to get a good saganaki, the ever-popular Greek flamingcheese dish. So I dragged Sharon, the fearless leader of The Michigan Daily's Arts section, downtown for lunch on Friday in search of a last hurrah. Everything inside was deco- rated in muted blues and creamy whites. Walking by a barrier made of stacked glass bricks, our waiter seated us at one of the five or so booths lining a wall with windows. We passed pictures of famous Greek archi- tecture and plaster reproduc- tions of vases. Above our table and the other booths hung a snaking fake grapevine. This all could've been cheesy, but it was actually quite cute and cozy. In the back, a large family enjoyed a lively lunch. We made our way through the menus slowly. The waiter didn't pressure us. Finally we decided on the saganaki made from kasseri cheese. The waiteryelled "Opa!" and lit the plate dramatically. Flames flew high above us - purple, then blue, then finally orange. It was the best and most theatrical part of our meal, hands down. In the flambeed crust, flavors danced together elegantly. The taste was sour and subtle all at once. The dish came with a basket of ambigu- ous white bread that we barely touched. The bread is unneces- sary - this cheese stands alone. No goats were harmed in the writing of this column. The menu at Parthenon is extensive, offering an array of Greek and Mediterranean dishes. I'd been warned that the portion sizes were large, but was relieved to find they had a half- order of their moussaka avail- able for lunch. The restaurant's take on moussaka missed the mark a bit. The bechamel sauce was splen- did, but the pieces of potatoes were too thick-cut, preventing See KALICK, Page 4B LSA senior Jacob Mendel's thesis film is shot in stereoscopic 3-D. THESES From Page 1B Czech for "The Goldfish." "It was avery surreal premise," Mendel said. "Someone's goldfish is kidnapped and these weird cat people are responsible. It involves reincarnation ... you know, weird, short surrealist film." "Zlata Rybka" earned Men- del an award at the International Surrealist Film Festival, which is organized by the surrealist film- maker Paul Yates, and eventu- ally led into the dream-infused venture of "Train of Shadows." It seems appropriate that the medi- um should match the film's theme of memory - the half-hour movie was shot completely in stereo- scopic 3-D. "The process is using two cam- eras simultaneously," Mendel explained. "You get two Canon 5Ds side by side and bend them inward ... one is going to one eye and one is going to the other eye. Through polarized projection, this basically tricks your visual cortex into perceiving depth." Mendel quickly embraced the technical and creative challenges of shooting a "surreal film noir" in 3-D. "I'm nerdy and I'm artsy, so it's a nice mix of the two,"he said. "To do a shot, you basically have to do trigonometry. You have to do the angle in which the two cameras are bending ... where they inter- sect is the perceptible depth of the screen, so everything in front of that is popping out at you and everything behind that is reced- ing." "Train of Shadows" is an exhaustive collaboration between more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students, with areas of study ranging from per- forming arts technology to media arts to theatre performance. Mendel spoke about the his- tory and challenges of shooting in three dimensions. "The thing about 3-D is that it's actually very old," he explained. "The technology of stereoscopy was invented before cinema ... Every now and then, it's rediscov- ered and there's a lot of hype and then it kind of fades away." Added Mendel: "There's not really 3-D film schools, so you have to teach yourself a lot." The film may be a project for the University, but it is also an integral part of Mendel's future beyond graduation. He and a friend plan to start a Michigan- based 3-D film company in the fall, called Giant Eel Productions, through which they hope to push the boundaries of 3-D cinema. "What would a 3-D Western look like? Why isn't there a 3-D documentary?" Mendel asked. "Now that indie 3-D is possible ... you can use digital video cameras that are affordable. That's what we're trying to do. People are already ready to watch 3-D - we just want to make more interest- ing content with that medium." Mendel is not a subscriber to conventional 3-D as it is used in popcorn movies. "A lot of films now overuse that, I think," he said. "Things flying at you and explosions and all this sort of stab-you-in-the-face sort of amusement park 3-D. We're try- ing to do something more subtle." "Train of Shadows" premieres tomorrow at the Michigan The- ater as part of the TEDxUofM conference. RealD 3D donated free glasses to Mendel and his associates as an incentive for stu- dents to continue experimenting with 3-D technology. "I'm a cinematographer by training," Mendel said. "I think mostly the film will be aestheti- callysomethingnew and different and kind of exciting. I hope that cOURTESY OF CLAIRE ROWLAND The restaurant Parthenon opened in 1975 A.D. The Athenian temple Parthenon opened in 432 I.C. 1.15mcnes vt$1 Off All $andwich Platers Killians/ Coors Lighh MW -0 ma hadS-f,100 i i fA#y M fIe SALAM RiDA/Daly Interarts senior Yonit Olshan's thesis "Arachne: The Origin" includes live music, dance and puppetry.