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The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Drive to Downtown

weekend
essentials
Sept. 15 to 18

How the University's
artists are re-imagining our
connection to Detroit
by Sharon Jacobs, Managing Arts Editor

ON STAGE
Did you know that
Ann Arbor is home to
one of America's most
important contempo-
rary composers? This
Saturday at 8 p.m., the
Ann Arbor Symphony
Orchestra will perform
a work by William
Bolcom, a University
professor emeritus of
composition, as part of
its opening night con-
cert. Also on the pro-
gram are Schumann's
cello concerto, featuring
cellist Julie Albers, and
Shostakovich's tragic
Soviet-era Symphony
No. 5. Tickets from $10.

The question ea yF
'How do you create
a viable, sustainable
and enriching mode
of life for the people
who are living there?'

he area around Detroit's Zug Island It is what it is
is full of empty buildings in a state
of slow collapse, linked by pothole- Catie Newell, an assistant professor in the Taub-
riddled roads - a ghost town within man School of Architecture, grew up in the Detroit
a living city. Approaching the island, metropolitan area but didn't plan to live and work
the air pulsates as if a large engine is vibrating in the middle of the city. Newell's first artistic foray
beneath it, and a latent wariness pervades. into Detroit was as one of the "Five Fellows," a
A man-made testament to industrialization - cut group of Taubman teaching fellows who purchased
off from the mainland by a shippingcanal in 1888 and a house in the NoHam neighborhood in Detroit, just
peppered with blast furnaces and steel mills - Zug north of Hamtramck.
Island is closed to the public. But it supplies the back- Each fellow transformed one part of the house
drop, impetus and title of LSA senior Perry Janes's in an architecture project. Called "Weatherizing,"
film "Zug," currently in pre-production and sched- Newell's project - which still stands - creates its
uled to premiere at the Michigan Theater this spring. own atmosphere, in a sense, from clear glass tubes
The secrecy surrounding the Rouge River island that puncture the garage wall, connecting the
spawns rumors - some say Zug is a government inside and outside.
prison, others a zone of lethal contamination. "I've always been very interested in atmosphere,
Spurred by a classmate's dare, the protagonists of in lightness and darkness, in the idea that our
Janes's film sneak in to find what the writer/direc- spaces end up making sort of an atmosphere on the
cor himself has never seen: the real Zug Island. interior and shutting out or somehow altering the
"What's cool about Zug is that even people who atmosphere on the exterior," Newell explained.
live in Detroit aren't really sure what's going on Her most recent project, "Salvaged Landscape,"
over there," Janes said. To him, Zug and the mys- deals with similar themes of inside and outside.
teries that surround it form a metaphor for - s'- a ,of-burnt wood from an a oreedhHrse,
a city beset by mythic imaginings, stuffed back together and nailed into place to create
The central characters in Janes's "Zug," Lee and a newspace. "Salvaged Landscape" is part of an ini-
Donovan, live in the outskirts of Detroit. They've tiative by the Detroit nonprofit Imagination Station
grown up along the fuzzy line separating "urban" - Newell is the group's lead architect - to convert
and "suburban," and struggle with their relation- a pair of neighboring damaged houses into a public
ship to the city. It's a familiar feeling to Janes, who art gallery and a center for technology education,
himself grew up skirting central Detroit - and a "I thought that I was actually only going to be (in
familiar complexity for the University, a 45-minute Detroit) for a year with the fellowship," Newell said.
drive and yet worlds away. "I now have no idea how long I'll be here, but leav-
"There was a part of me that felt like an insider ing right now seems absolutely ridiculous, and sort
and a part of me that felt like an outsider," Janes of counter to the trajectory of my career."
said of his own Detroit upbringing. "I wanted to Newell is one of many outside artists bringing
take ownership of my experiences in Detroit, and their work to the city. These newcomers are luredby
then another part of me felt like I couldn't." low housing prices, a burgeoning community of the
Founded in Detroit and irrevocably connected, young white and creatively minded and the city's
yet celebrated independently for its high stan- particular vibe - Detroit artists are "doers" rather
dards of research and education, the University too than "dreamers," Newell said. But the migrant art-
struggles with its role in Detroit. Arewe "insiders" ists aren't always welcome, and their interactions
or "outsiders"? Do we have an obligation to inter- and relationship to the city, with its established his
relate? Among the University's artistic community, tory, culture and problems, are far from uniform.
there's no one answer. See DETROIT, Page 4B

TELEVISION
The 63rd Primetime
Emmy Awards will be
aired live this Sunday
at 8 p.m. on FOX. Will
Steve Carell finally
win Best Actor in a
Comedy Series? Will
BBO o r=M*ke Bost
Drama? What snack
will you step out to get
during the Miniseries
or Movie categories?
Find out this weekend.
Jane Lynch of "Glee"
hosts for the first time.

-Beth Diamond,
Assistant Professor

FILM
You know it's summer
when Marvel releases
yet another super-
hero movie, featuring
one of its little-known
peripheral characters
and buoyed by a mil-
lion cameos. If you're
missing that summer
feeling and want to
turn back the clock just
a bit, go to the Natural
Science Auditorium on
Friday at 7 p.m., where
M-Flicks will be hosting
its first screening of the
year, a free showing of
this summer's "Thor."
CONCERT
Feel like getting down
to some thumping live
bass this weekend?
You're in luck. Gram-
my-nominated DJ Ties-
to is coming to town.
The world-renowned
purveyor of electronic
music responsible for
critically acclaimed
albums such as Kalei-
doscope and In My
Memory will be playing
at EMU Convocation
Center on Friday night.
Doors open at 7 p.m.

PHOTOS BY ANNA SCHULTE
DESIGN BY KRISTI BEGONJA AND ARJUN MAHANTI