The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
Thursday, September 10, 2015 — 3B
Artscapade leads
arts engagement
Arts at Michigan
brings art offerings
to students
By GRACE HAMILTON
Daily Arts Writer
“Our product is the student,”
said Joe Levickas, interim direc-
tor of Arts at Michigan. For
almost 16 years now, Arts at
Michigan programs have worked
on shaping, guiding and improv-
ing their product.
An ideal product — each ver-
sion different in appearance and
mechanics — is the well-round-
ed student who is engaged and
inspired by things outside of his
or herself. If you’re reading this,
you may very well be one of these
special models.
“Art presents the opportu-
nity for alternative perspec-
tives. It gives people the power
to connect things around them,”
Levickas said.
Artscapade, an event hosted
by Arts at Michigan each Sep-
tember, carefully engulfs stu-
dents with such opportunities.
Aside from Saturdays at the
Big House, graduation or events
like 2 Chainz and the New York
Philharmonic at Hill Auditori-
um, there are few events on cam-
pus that draw in students and
other Ann Arbor residents by the
thousands.
Artscapade has and contin-
ues to comfortably fit more than
3,000 students in the University
of Michigan Museum of Mod-
ern Art every year since 1999.
Inspired by Escapade, a similar
event for student organizations
held at the Michigan Union, the
goal of the program is to intro-
duce new freshman and other
students to artistic groups on
campus, and give them an oppor-
tunity to explore the ways other
Michigan students are partici-
pating in the arts.
This year’s Artscapade, which
took place Friday, Sept. 4, kicked
off with a performance by per-
cussion group Groove, as well
as WBCN DJs outside of the
museum, where a picnic feeding
thousands took place in front of
Angell Hall.
I stopped by this year to check
it out, the second time since I
attended the event two years ago
as a freshman. It was clear from
the wandering and offensively
bright blobs of yellow T-shirted
friends that many of these stu-
dents, if not most of them, were
also freshman.
The event is a sensory explo-
sion and tactile adventure. In
addition to having the chance
to view the impressive — and
arguably underexplored — exhi-
bitions on display, there is live
music, dance, film screenings,
games and opportunities to win
prizes from nearby businesses.
“Having thousands of people
who are all suddenly saying,
‘Oh let’s go to the museum,’ and
for other students to be able to
showcase their own work just
creates a totally different atmo-
sphere,” Levickas said.
“The museum is packed and
still everyone here is so involved,
either watching the perform-
ers or doing the activities set
up,” said Art & Design junior
Elise Haadsma, a member of the
dance group Cadence, said. “It’s
so fun because to perform in this
environment because the audi-
ence is so enthusiastic.”
Ann Arbor has long been
recognized for its vibrant artis-
tic culture, one that is largely
fostered by the presence of the
University and its students.
With K-12 arts education slip-
ping over the course of the last
three decades — due to budget
cuts and an increased focus on
testing, among other things —
the high level of engagement
between student organizations
and the arts is a big thumbs-up.
That being said, the number
of students who haven’t made it
to UMMA by their senior year
(or any arts event on campus for
that matter) is probably higher
than it should be. I asked Levick-
as about what the major barriers
to high engagement were.
“One of the big things that
seems to be insurmountable is
time — people talk about not
having any time. But another
major thing people say is that
they can’t afford it or ‘I don’t
know anything about it,’ so a
number of the things that we do
are meant to try and get around
those barriers,” Levickas said.
One of the finest examples of
this mission in practice is the
Passport to the Arts initiative.
Students can pick up a Passport
voucher every two weeks and
attend one of the events listed
with a free or discounted ticket.
Levickas, who has been with
Arts at Michigan for six years
and has a background in paint-
ing and arts education, empha-
sized that Artscapade is also
an important part of solving
these problems and the pro-
gram’s greater mission. “We
want to connect undergraduate
students to the arts; music, the-
ater, film dance, literary arts,
whatever it may be,” Levickas
said. “Our goal is to try and
be that connective tissue, find-
ing ways for them to build their
identities or to learn something
new about what’s happening on
campus.”
Measuring the effectiveness
of this connection can be dif-
ficult. One of the things that
Arts at Michigan does is survey
everyone who uses a voucher.
Questions
are
intentionally
open-ended, giving way to some
interesting results.
“We ask questions like, ‘Have
you ever been to an event like
this?’ And that can lead to many
answers. But whatever it is, a
third are saying they’ve never
been to an event like that one,
and literally 99.5 percent fol-
low that by saying they would
go to an event like that again,”
Levickas said.
With that idea in mind, the
most important thing to know
is that participation, or just
observation, does not mean
expertise. You need not under-
stand the art of film, contem-
porary painting, or be writing
a dissertation on modern dance
in order to criticize it, enjoy it,
laugh at it or cry. Not only are
these valid responses, they’re
good ones.
And someone wants to hear
about it. Don’t deprive them of
your voice, and certainly don’t
deprive yourself of realizing you
have one.
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Groove performs at Artscapade.
AACT revives classic
Addams characters
By BAILEY KADIAN
Daily Arts Writer
The Ann Arbor Civic Theatre,
an organization dripping in histo-
ry and opportunity since 1929, will
open its next
feature:
The
Addams
Fam-
ily, the musical
comedy
based
on
the
well-
known Charles
Addams
car-
toons.
Written
by
Marshall
Brickman and
Rick
Elice,
with
music
and lyrics by
Andrew Lippa,
“The Addams
Family”
depicts the story created from
Addams’s
original
cartoons,
rather than from the numerous
adaptations of TV series and
film. The simplicity of his work
leaves room for creativity while
adapting these iconic figures to
the stage.
“We stay true to the origi-
nal cartoon characters, but I
really think people will forget
halfway through the show that
these characters are supposed
to be weird.,” director Trish
Fountain said.
Fountain described the story
as relatable and she stressed
that
the
characters
should
“come off as accessible, while
also being fun.”
The original directors and
designers
of
the
Broadway
musical,
Phelim
McDermott
and Julian Crouch, described
Addams’s reality as different
and inverted. While bringing
these cartoons to the stage, they
hoped to properly represent the
macabre world of the Addams
cartoons, while bringing new
elements to the Addams’s work.
There is a challenge with
a work so well known to stay
loyal to an audience’s expecta-
tions, but designers must also
focus on taking risks in how
the humor of the piece is rep-
resented, as well as the charac-
ters within it. This production
should honor the simplicity of
the Addams cartoons, without
falling into the clichéd versions
of these familiar characters.
“Because this is a modern ver-
sion of cartoons that were created
decades ago, we wanted to freshen
up the look a bit,” Fountain said,
while explaining the approach to
designing the show. These mod-
ern elements are incorporated
into the stage design, as well as
the costume, hair and make-up
design.
The original Broadway pro-
duction of “The Addams Fam-
ily” opened in April 2010 at the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New
York City, and closed in Decem-
ber of 2011 after 35 previews and
722 performances. The produc-
tion won a Drama Desk Award
for Outstanding Set Design and
won multiple audiences awards
including Broadway.com’s Favor-
ite New Broadway Musical.
The musical tells the story of
Wednesday Addams, who has
fallen in love with Lucas Beinek.
Lucas and his “normal” family are
invited to a dinner at the Addams’s
mansion in Central Park. Wednes-
day’s father, Gomez, is put into
further turmoil towards this visit
when his daughter chooses to
share the news of her recent love
with him, begging him not to tell
her mother. Gomez finds himself
in a conflict between honoring his
daughter’s request and keeping
secrets from his wife Morticia,
which is something he’s never
done. The ensuing chaos is comi-
cal and wild, calling for actors
that can portray distinct person-
alities and sell an audience on the
story of a family of misfits as they
attempt to interact with those
considered “normal.”
“When casting a musical,
vocal range and the color of the
voice are just as important as
the look and characterization
of an actor,” Fountain said. “We
were incredibly lucky to find
people that fit each character
really well, and complimented
the other actors in the show.”
University of Michigan stu-
dents and recent alumni are
involved in both the cast and
production of this show, as
A2CT aims to include as much
of the Ann Arbor community as
possible in their productions.
And the humor and enjoyment
of Addams’s original cartoons
has no doubt rubbed off on
A2CT’s team.
“I want audiences to know
how much fun we’ve had creat-
ing this production, and I think
that will show in each perfor-
mance,” Fountain said.
“I want
audiences to
know how much
fun we’ve had.”
Comical and
wild
The
Addams
Family
September
10-13
Lydia
Mendelssohn
Theater
Tickets: $19-
$25 (Adult)
$13 (Student)