The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.comr

Friday, September 21, 2012 - 5A

'Tempest Replica' to
explore revenge, passion

LOKI
'Yeah, Mr. White! Yeah science!'
Close-up view
of Detroit

New Kidd Pivot
show inspired
by Shakespeare
By LAURA KAYE
Daily Arts Writer
Fortuitous winds bring with
them upheaval, destroying the
calm of a community. But in this
case, "Kidd
Pivot: The Tem- Kidd Pivot:
pest Replica" The Tem-
is taking the
Power Center peSt Replica
by storm with Tonight and
an intense and
dramatic pro- Tomorrowat8
duction, as they p'"'
retell Shake- Power Center
speare's classic
story, the Tem- From $16
pest.
The story relates how the
magician Prospero and his
daughter Miranda are betrayed
by his duplicitous brother Anto-
nio and have been abandoned
on an island for 12 long years. As
the play opens, Prospero utilizes
his magical powers to create a
tempest, causing a ship carry-
ing Antonio, the King of Naples,
and his son Ferdinand to become
shipwrecked on the island. As the
play unfolds, a rebellion ensues,
murder plots are revealed and a
passionate love affair develops.
"The Tempest" is a tale com-
prised of violent strife, romance
and certainly compassion and

forgiveness..
The performance is separated
into two parts: In the first piece,
the public will encounter a replica
of the characters from the play, in
which the dancers present a neo-
pantomime style.
"In a sense, the first part is not
dance," said Eric Beauchesne, the
dancer playing Prospero. "It's
instead a bridge between dance
and pantomime and theater. For
me it's the first time, as a dance
artist, that I have done this type
of movement."
All the characters, except Pros-
pero, appear in white costumes
with white masks, making the
dancers appear subhuman. How-
ever, the white costumes also
create a unity among them, hop-
ing to convey how humans are
comprised of many of the same
emotions, such as hope, love and
anger. Furthermore, Beauchesne
explained that white is very sim-
ple, forcing the audience to focus
on the language the dancers are
communicating. Even though the
audience won't be able to recog-
nize the faces of the performers,
they will be able to determine
whom they represent by specific
elements of their costumes.
In the second part of the piece,
choreographer CyrstalPiteimple-
ments a more traditional dance
style, focusing on the abstract
movement and the physicality of
the dancers. The costumes are
also altered to an urban style.
Beauchesne explained how Pite is

interested in telling a story with
alternate perspectives and thus
uses the two sections of the per-
formance to allow the audience to
enter the work through different
doors. Prospero, for example, is
more than simply the main char-
acter. As the only one not dressed
in white, he acts as a creator of the
entire production, manipulating
the white puppet-like dancers.
"At the beginning, I make
the show happen," Beauchesne
said. "And in the second half, I
get caught up by the show, as if I
was swallowed by it. In the sec-
ond half, I perform a very physi-
cal dance, which includes a lot of
partnering. The dancers in the
second part are not in white any-
more but they are still embodying
a certain color of these characters
and you can still feel that. You can
relate to them as the real charac-
ters and notthe replica ones."
Beauchesne believes that
"Kidd Pivot: The Tempest Rep-
lica" is not only about the nar-
ration of a classic tale, but about
Pite's choreography and how her
intense style formulates a set of
emotionsandimages for the audi-
ence to experience.
Even though this performance
is based on the story of "The
Tempest," Pite focuses on the
plight of the main characters and
the motifs of revenge and passion
in emotional and psychological
terms. She also plays with the ten-
sions and violence that develop
between the characters.

"Her choreography makes you
feel that the dance is just happen-
ing to the dancer," Beauchesne
said. "It looks like someone is
puppeteering that person. It
seems that the human being is let-
ting go and giving up to a deeper
language and energy, which as a
viewer I found very compelling
and touching to watch."
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Be there or
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By JACOB AXELRAD
Assistant Arts Editor
If James Agee were alive
today, "Detropia" is the kind of
work he mightbe producing. Like
Agee, the direc-
tor-producer
team of Heidi
Ewing and .o
Rachel Grady Detropia
(who brought At the
us the powerful Michigan
yet disturbing
documentary Loki
"Jesus Camp") -
combines factual reporting with
a poet's sense of lyrical beauty
hidden beneath human sorrow.
Their latest project focuses
on Detroit's downfall as a sym-
bol for the disappearance of the
country's manufacturing base.
Though, perhaps more impor-
tantly, Ewing and Grady pres-
ent individuals who embody the
. resilience of Detroit: No matter
how bad things get, no matter
how many abandoned houses
burn to the ground, the people
shown here are Detroiters for
life, wedded to the city they call
home.
To its credit, "Detropia" is
an exercise in restraint - never
preaching, simply telling and
showing. It's not a cautionary
tale. What happened in Detroit is
an old story to most by this point.
What it is, rather, is a snapshot
- a close-up examination of the
pathos and humor present with-
in the complex web of economic
problems plaguing the Motor
City.
There's Crystal Starr, an ama-
teur video blogger, who explores
and documents the wreckage
of old office buildings. Like a
kind of tour guide of American
ruins, she describes what these
sites may have looked like in
their golden age. There's George
McGregor, an official from the
United Auto Workers, who des-
perately tries to offer counsel to
union members facing extreme
pay cuts. And then there's bar
owner Tommy Stephens, the
film's emotional core, whose bar
depends on the success of the
General Motors plant down the
street. Stephens' narration rings
of grandfatherly wisdom. Capi-
talism might be a good system,
but it exploits the weak, he says.
His words don't ring of contempt
or frustration, just the weary
tone of a man who's seen and
been through too much struggle.
Nothing in this film is sugar-
coated. Throughout the movie,
facts appear on screen, remind-
ing viewers of Detroit's drastic
population decline, of its battles
with bankruptcy. We see young
men razing decaying buildings
for scrap metal. We see pan-
oramic shots of Detroit's skyline
in the evening, golden rays of
a sun setting on structures that
can still be described as majes-
tic, metaphors for a city that just
won't quit.
In a sense, this movie is a char-
acter study of a city that refuses
to fade into collective memory as

a place that once was. Because,
according to those depicted, it's a
place that very much still is.
At a town meeting, citizens
erupt in outrage over a strange
idea from Mayor Dave Bing's
office: concentrating Detroiters
in the few populated areas left
in the city, leaving the rest of
the land open for urban farming.
These people's lives and homes
are at stake. Why should they
place their faith in the hands of
city officials who have clearly
failed them? -More poignantly,
a group of men are interviewed
on their porch. They laugh when
asked about the mayor's urban
farming initiative, noting the
absurdity of a gangbanger with
a gun trying to plant vegetables
on a farm.
From a city-planning perspec-
tive, however, you can see how it
might make sense. After all, pub-
lic services such as streetlights
and buses have had to be cut.
Why not downsize and, to quote
the over-used adage, "do more
with less?" The reason, as Ewing
and Grady so skillfully demon-
strate, is because a city, unlike
a company, is a living, breath-
ing thing. And it can't be fixed
overnight. Change must happen
organically, the movie suggests.
Statistics and
storytelling in
eye-opening
'Detropia'
Employment once readily
available to middle-class work-
ers at the Big Three automakers
may have been outsourced to
China and Mexico.
This doesn't stop a James
Brown impersonator from fall-
ing to his knees in a small Detroit
nightclub, feigning the panting
sweat the King of Soul made
famous. It doesn't read as tragic
or even pathetic. It's more like
a sign of hope, like the singer
knows desperate times can still
be overcome, if you just have
faith.
"Detropia" is dedicated to
those who work every day to
improve the city. While a few
bohemians rave about cheap
housing and the numerous
opportunities for artists Detroit
offers, the movie doesn't end on
any sort of contrived note - it
makes clear that Detroit is still
hurting.
But in the final scene, as we
watch an opera singer's voice
fill the now deserted Michigan
Central Train Depot, it's hard
not to feel a little bit optimis-
tic. From here, the screen goes
to black, abruptly concluding. It
feels cut off, unfinished. Which
may in itself be a sign of hope:
Detroit isn't over. It persists.
And the future of this once-great
American city is a story that still
remains to be told.

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