The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
Thursday, March 12, 2015 — 3B

Dance Mix a medley 
of styles and genres

By VANESSA WONG

Daily Arts Writer

In 2001, six University dance 

groups — FunKtion, EnCore, 
RhythM Tap Ensemble, Impact, 
Indigo and Element 1 — performed 
a show together, fusing tap, lyrical 
and hip hop genres together on one 
stage. And the next year, it hap-
pened again. And again and again. 
This year, Dance Mix celebrates its 
15th anniversary.

Dance Mix began partly to give 

performers a venue. It requires a 
great deal of planning and finan-
cial resources to put on an indi-
vidual show, which can prove a 
daunting hurdle, especially for 
young groups.

But more than that, Dance Mix 

sought to showcase the dizzying 
variety of dance at the University. 
What were originally six groups 
flourished into a broad-reaching 
collaboration between upwards of 
a dozen dance and musical groups 
on campus. The five core groups, 
still active since that first perfor-
mance, plan and perform in Dance 
Mix annually. The rest of the line-
up consists of six or seven rotating 
guest groups.

“We try to find a good balance of 

entertainment and diversity,” said 
Meredith Njus, an LSA senior and 
member of this year’s 13-person 
organizing team.

For the performers, Dance Mix 

fosters a tight-knit and lively dance 
community. Put 200 people who 
are fiercely passionate about the 
same thing on one stage, and it’s 
only inevitable that they bond.

“I didn’t really start dancing 

until I came to college. I grew up 
mostly with music and singing,” 
LSA senior Jay Park said. “So 
what dance means to me is just an 
entirely new opportunity. It really 
encompasses my entire college 
experience down to one medium 
of expression. Dance to me means 
community, it means family.”

In the month leading up to the 

show, groups take to Mason Hall’s 
Posting Wall and practice for an 
average of six hours a day, increas-
ing to upwards of 12 as the per-
formance draws closer. The time 
commitment may seem stressful, 
but preparing for a show is one of 
the fundamental rites of being a 
dancer.

“You’re forced to be there, but 

you’re with such a great group of 
people who love the same things 

as you do that it’s really such an 
unforgettable experience,” Park 
said. “And this is something that 
I’ll take with me for the rest of my 
life and I’ll look back on so affec-
tionately.”

That same adrenaline becomes 

a shared experience among those 
in the performance, widening 
the niche, genre-based dance 
networks and connecting the 
overall dance community at the 
University.

“As soon as you have a Dance 

Mix semester and you go through 
a Dance Mix, you start seeing all 
of the groups and you’re all back-
stage, and you’re all amped about 
the show, and I think that you 
start to get to know everyone in 
the other groups,” Njus said. “So 
you start seeing them at the Post-
ing Wall or you start seeing them 
around campus and you’ll see peo-
ple wearing Dance Mix shirts and 
you’re like, ‘Oh hey!’ ”

The sense of camaraderie in 

Dance Mix is what draws in so 
many guest performing groups 
to apply each year. It takes the 
passion that the dancers have for 
their individual dance groups 
and directs it outwards, making 
the show a sort of meeting of the 
minds.

Business senior Suhind Kodali, 

a captain of Michigan Izzat dance 
team, performed at Dance Mix 
last year and will do so again in 
the upcoming show. His team 
mainly performs at competitions, 
so Dance Mix offers a chance to 
showcase their talents to their 
peers.

“For us, it’s like, “Oh wow, look 

at all these dance groups on cam-
pus and we can show them our 
style and they can show us theirs,’ 
” Kodali said.

The enthusiasm for dance — in 

all its forms — is evident in the 
audience. The groups perform-
ing in the show don’t just do it for 
themselves; they eagerly support 
whoever commands the stage.

“It’s just the energy, that’s what 

we like best,” Kodali said.

Which is why after 15 years, the 

core team still devotes so much 
time to keeping Dance Mix alive. 
Following the show’s unified spir-
it, two to four members from each 
of the original core dance groups 
also come together to form the 
core organizing team.

“It’s 
a 
very 
collaborative 

and democratic process,” Park 

explains.

The core team starts the plan-

ning process as early as the fall 
semester each year, meeting twice 
a month for preliminary brain-
storming. Winter semester brings 
the bulk of the work, and the core 
team must buckle down to run 
auditions, figure out timing, make 
up themes, make T-shirts and set 
up the venue. The show is entirely 
student-produced, carried on the 
backs of the 13 dedicated core team 
members.

Having not only performed, 

but been members of the core 
team throughout their four years 
at Michigan, Njus and Park wit-
nessed Dance Mix’s evolution to 
keep up with the rapidly changing, 
technology-ridden culture, espe-
cially through social media.

“(Social media is) a big way we 

can reach out to a lot of people, 
reach out to our alumni, and just 
get people excited about the show 
very early on this semester or even 
early on in the year,” Njus said. 
“Before, it’s been, ‘Your friends 
come or whatever,’ but now we 
have alumni that are flying in from 
all over the country; all over the 
world. And I think that was always 
a thing, but now we have an easier 
way of reaching out to them and 
being like, ‘Guys, it’s Dance Mix 
season again. Come back!’”

Dance Mix has also benefitted 

from the growing popularity of 
performing arts in media. Reality 
shows like “So You Think You Can 
Dance” and “America’s Best Dance 
Crew” have driven a wider appre-
ciation for dance. More people 
unaffiliated with dance are willing 
and interested to learn more about 
it.

“We’ve been able to use that and 

connect it with the integrity of our 
show which has stayed the same,” 
Park said.

He stressed that ultimately, 

while Dance Mix has blossomed 
into a larger event over the past 15 
years, it still retains the original 
roots behind its inception.

“This is all fun, this is some-

thing that a lot of dance groups 
look forward to all year. You’ll see 
us practicing in the Posting Wall 
for hours, hours, in the weeks lead-
ing up to the actual performance. 
And I think that’s just what we 
want to keep. We want a very sim-
ple message, a simple approach: 
the unification of dancers and hav-
ing fun with it all.”

VIRGINIA L OZANO/Daily

Dance Mix members practice in Mason Hall.

SINGLE REVIEW

The word “evolution” is 

thrown around a lot when 
critics yak about an artist’s 
career. Is the band “naturally 
progress-
ing?” 
Are 

they 
con-

sistently 
improving 
from album 
to album and 
transforming 
their sound?

It 
seems 

to be coded in our DNA: in 
order for an artist to remain 
relevant, the aforementioned 
changes must take place — 
if not to appease the critics 
than to keep the artists’ fans 
shocked and interested (and 
the band from getting bored). 
It’s fun to hear new stuff, but 
too much change is a turn-
off for even the most pious 
groupie.

Enter Mumford & Sons, 

that group of British lads 
with 
the 
signature 
fast-

paced, folky banjo sound. 
They built their reputation 
on throwing it back and strip-
ping it down — no machinery 
required. Their latest release, 

“Believe,” sheds all Mum-
fordian quirks; it’s a slow-ish, 
techno-infused fantasy bal-
lad a la “Fix You” by Coldplay. 
It starts out eerie, weirdly 
synth-y and blossoms into 
an electrically charged cry 
for help. Lead singer Marcus 
Mumford’s smoky vocals are 
the only thing connecting the 
old to the new, and he sounds 
handsome as always.

It’s interesting, futuristic 

and melancholy; Snow Patrol 
and all the other I’m-a-vul-
nerable-man pop-rock groups 
would be proud. Mumford 

& Sons, however, shouldn’t 
be as thrilled — sure, this 
new schtick is catchy as hell, 
catered to pop radio and all 
its listeners looking for a bit 
of vanilla passion during 
their morning commute. But 
it’s been done before. We hear 
it on the radio all the time. Is 
the band truly “progressing” 
if they’re walking the exact 
same path as so many others: 
a mediocre, dead-end street 
of pseudo-rock (think: Life-
house) melodies? Not exactly.

Bring the banjos back.

-MELINA GLUSAC

GLASSNOTE

C

Believe

Mumford 
& Sons

Glassnote

STYLE RECAP

When Carol Lim and Hum-

berto Leon joined KENZO in 
2011 as Creative Directors, they 
sought to fuse their revolu-
tionary flavor with the house’s 
heritage. That isn’t to say the 
original label, started in 1970 by 
Kenzo Takada, didn’t have the 
spunk and color for which Lim 
and Leon have become known. 
It did — in fact, it toyed with 
stripes, brights, loudness, all of 
it. The new CDs have expand-
ed KENZO’s scope, at once in 
sophistication 
and 
pattern-

making. There’s a lot going on 
here, which is likely the result of 
the duo’s creative synergy over 
solitude.

If Rick Owens centered his 

pieces on shoulders, KENZO 
draped in particular from the 
neck up. A navy knit hoodie that 
could double as a turtleneck for 
an entire head obscures an elec-

tric blue cap and cuts diagonally 
through the torso. The muted 
hoodie gets louder with a green-
yellow tribal printed maxi cape 
that barely hits the floor. Base-
colored fishtail anorak jackets 
float atop schizophrenic striped 
trousers, as a matching rolled 
scarf keeps the face front and 
center invariably.

There are doubtless nods 

to the serenity of nature, here, 
with its hearty greenish hues, 
but never deviating too distant-
ly from its around-town urban 
wearability. Maroon suits with 
a mild sheen and snow-white 
shearling coats with misplaced 
oversized epaulettes feed into 
its more urban, spontaneous 
history.

-ANDREW MCCLURE

KENZO

MUSIC COLUMN

Dusty old songwriters 

still relevant

L

ast week I was listen-
ing to Van Morrison’s 
“Cyprus Avenue” — 

the live version, one I absolute-
ly love and have written about 
before, and 
I think to 
myself, This 
song is life-
changingly 
great, but 
the one thing 
that’s miss-
ing is the 
harpsichord 
that’s in the 
studio ver-
sion of this track. And I keep 
thinking about that for the rest 
of the song: what if we also had 
the harpsichord in there? But 
then another voice barges into 
my head and tells me, Adam, 
this is a 45-year-old song about 
a street in Belfast you’ve never 
been to. You wouldn’t even have 
heard of if it weren’t for this 
singer. How is this relevant to 
you? Why are you spending so 
much time on this? What does 
the presence (or lack thereof) 
of a harpsichord possibly mat-
ter to you, an American teen-
ager whose parents couldn’t 
even walk when this song was 
released?

I’m on a kick where I’m 

listening to tons and tons of 
singer-songwriters 
from 
a 

very specific era — your Joni 
Mitchells, your Paul Simons, 
Van the Man, even a little Bob 
Dylan — and I keep thinking 
to myself why is this relevant? 
I’ve never felt the need to 
justify what I listen to, but 
with 
this 
brand 
of 
music 

that’s very quiet, very white, 
seemingly pretty detached from 
the modern world, I’m really 
questioning why I can’t stay 
away from it, why I should be 
returning again and again to 
these old songwriters instead of 
searching for the next big thing.

You 
see, 
the 
answer 
to 

the 
question 
of 
relevancy 

for almost all other kinds of 
music is obvious. Many years 
ago, Public Enemy’s Chuck 
D called hip hop “the CNN 
of the streets,” and while I 
don’t think there were any rap 
songs about missing airplanes 
last year, the sentiment still 
stands: hip hop is still where 
minority experiences are most 
visible 
and 
understandable 

to many Americans. Hip hop 
is where a young, oftentimes 

Black person — someone whose 
voice is far too often silenced 
by the mainstream — can step 
into the spotlight and amplify 
his or her voice for all to hear. 
Considering 
Ferguson, 
Eric 

Garner and disproportionate 
poverty as well as centuries 
of racial discrimination and 
cruelty 
towards 
minorities, 

it’s probably America’s most 
relevant genre (more on this 
next column, after Kendrick’s 
new album drops).

But there’s room for other 

types of music, too. Punk grew 
out of the disenfranchisement 
of the British working class, 
and still today functions as a 
space where rebellion, anger 
and 
protest 
can 
run 
wild 

and untethered (think Pussy 
Riot). 
Jazz, 
once 
dominant 

and 
controversial, 
still 

exists today as a magnet for 
some of our most talented 
musicians; hearing them play 
is as impossibly breathtaking as 
watching an Olympic gymnast 
nail 
every 
element 
of 
her 

routine. Beyoncé and Taylor 
Swift, meanwhile, have both 
this past year reinforced what 
we already knew very well: 
pop music is the simplest, and 
possibly the best, way to unite 
everyone 
you 
know. 
Even 

rock music, lately the most 
conservative of genres, has for 
decades brought together folks 
of different races, broken down 
gender norms and served as an 
inspiration to suburban kids 
that they, too, can form a band 
with their friends, write a song 
and hit it big.

So 
what 
is 
this 
singer-

songwriter stuff good for? It’s 
old, it doesn’t change the world or 
bring millions of people together, it 
doesn’t give a voice to the unheard 
and, though oftentimes beautiful, 
the 
instrumentation 
typically 

isn’t particularly virtuosic. What 
value does it have? What purpose 
does it serve?

I think a lot about music as a 

social experience, a force that 
connects us and allows us to 
be in each other’s’ company, 
sharing 
in 
the 
pleasurable 

sounds we hear. What I and 
many others don’t think about 
as much, it seems, is music in 
isolation, music that we listen to 
with nobody else around, with 
no distractions other than our 
own thoughts.

I’ve been thinking, too, about 

the times Joni Mitchell and Bob 
Dylan and Nick Drake were 
living in — the late ’60s into 
the ’70s. Back then, when you 
were alone late at night, you 
truly were alone. You couldn’t 
fall down a YouTube rabbit hole 
of old Steve Yzerman goals, 
or check Twitter to see what 
people in other time zones 
were up to, or even consume 
any media that you personally 

didn’t own a physical copy of.

That sounds so different 

from the world I live in. But 
then I picture where I’m at and 
what I’m doing when I listen to 
these great singer-songwriters. 
When 
I 
was 
listening 
to 

“Cyprus Avenue,” my house was 
dark, I had finished everything 
I had needed to do for the day, 
and was just calming down 
before going to bed. I listened 
to all of Joni Mitchell’s Blue the 
last time I had to shovel snow. 
Nick Drake and even the more 
contemporary 
Elliott 
Smith 

are perfect when I’m writing. 
And even with I’m with people 
and listening to these types of 
artists, it’s never more than one 
or two close friends, and we’re 
always lost in thought or deep 
in conversation with each other. 
Even though I live in a world 
where I’m constantly plugged 
into my phone and the Internet, 
when I find the time to turn all 
that off, Joni Mitchell and Van 
Morrison and Nick Drake are 
there to provide perfect music 
for me. It’s music to explore the 
mind to.

So why does it matter if Van 

Morrison 
is 
accompanied 
by 

a harpsichord or not? I don’t 
want to take anything away 
from contemporary artists, and 
I certainly don’t think I should 
spend all my energy parsing the 
past instead of looking to the new, 
relevant music of the future, but 
when I hear Bob Dylan’s half-
detached sarcasm, Joni Mitchell’s 
hopeful longing, Nick Drake’s deep 
sadness, Van Morrison’s ecstatic 
celebrations of life and I can 
identify with it and feel what the 
artists are feeling, try to think what 
they’re thinking, I’m reassured 
that music is greater than time, 
that the most important emotions 
can be communicated across 
generations, and that sometimes, 
one voice is all that matters. When 
you can express yourself with as 
much feeling as these artists can, 
when you can make somebody 
from an unimaginable future care 
about your small musical choices 
and subtle emotions behind the 
lyrics you sing, even if they don’t 
always understand why, you’ve 
done something immeasurably 
valuable.

Theisen has dusty old 

people on his mind. Send him 

yours at ajtheis@umich.edu.

ADAM 

THEISEN

So what is 
this singer-

songwriter stuff 

good for?

It’s music to 
explore the 

mind to.

