The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, October 25, 2019 — 5A

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

The University Musical Society first invited 
Sankai Juku to Ann Arbor in 1996. Now, over 
20 years later, this weekend will mark their 
eighth and ninth performances at the Power 
Center. Between those visits to Michigan, the 
Japanese dance group has performed in over 
700 cities and 48 countries worldwide. 
That may be a lot of travel, but Artistic 
Director and Choreographer Ushio Amagatsu 
is not tired by his international reception. 
In an email interview, he told The Daily that 
he has found a “universality” between those 
hundreds of different microcultures, writing 
that “this difference composes a culture” of 
its own. 
He uses this concept to continue his ongoing 
fomentation of the Butoh dance style. 
Born in the aftermath of Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki’s atomic bombings, Butoh is not 
loved for its prettiness. Instead, the dance 
form garners attention for its grotesque 
imagery 
and 
uncomfortable 
movements. 
Dancers use Butoh’s uneasy nature to bring 
attention to darker and more complex aspects 
of modern Japanese culture. When Amagatsu 
founded Sankai Juku in 1975, he melded that 
history with his training from other dance 
techniques to create the second generation of 
Butoh that we see today. His group performs 
with the traditional head-to-toe white body 
makeup and shaved heads, and the effect 
draws dramatic lines between the dancers 
and the negative space that surrounds them. 
Using this contrast, performers move 

through 
undulations 
in 
a 
process 
that 
Amagatsu describes as “conformity with 
gravity.” Some claim the result is simply slow-
motion movement, but Amagatsu disagrees. In 
his email, he took care to point out that “it’s 
the careful correspondence with gravity.” 
That hyper-control is far more distinct than 
a description of speed, and the effects are far 
more powerful. Even through the video clips 
on the UMS website, the performances leaves 
your heart feeling uncommonly still. 
This weekend, the group will perform 
“Meguri: Teeming Sea, Tranquil Land,” 
a work that found its inspiration in a bio-
history book that Amagatsu read. The work 
first premiered in Paris in 2015 and focuses 
on the rhythmic repetitions of earthly 
processes. Given his childhood spent by the 
ocean, Amagatsu added that he’s especially 
interested in the “boundary between land 
and sea.” In the work, dancers focus on the 
universality and timeless nature of oceanic 
processes, which Amagatsu connected to 
the “universality beyond the differences of 
cultures” that he has found through his years 
spent abroad. 
“It is difficult to explain the details (of that 
simplicity) in words. The image in my mind 
leads me to construct a creation,” Amagatsu 
said. With that, he touched on the very 
essence of dance; conveying a concept that 
comes from deep within. Though we often 
share these ideas or feelings with everyone 
around us, they often sit untouched until a 
dancer comes along to uncover them. 

‘Meguri’ to bring culture
and feeling through dance

ZOE PHILLIPS
For The Daily

It’s not often that a man just shy of 80 has the 
energy of a twenty-something. It’s especially rare 
for that man, famed jazz pianist Chick Corea, to 
have continued touring through his later years, just 
as excited to perform as he was at the beginning 
of his career. In fact, when I sat in Hill Auditorium 
Saturday night to hear him perform with bassist 
Christian McBride and percussionist Brian Bladee, I 
couldn’t quite put my finger on his age at all. 
Corea seemed to transcend any expectations the 
audience may have had for him, bounding out onto 
the stage in jeans, sneakers and a striped t-shirt that 
I swear my 14-year-old brother also owns. For the 
legendary musician, it was clear that age, looks and 
anything else superficial doesn’t actually matter 
in the long run — for him, it’s the music that really 
makes the difference. 
They began with a typical tune-up of their 
instruments, until Corea began to riff around with the 
audience. “We’re just gonna tune our instruments up 
real quick,” he chuckled, “then we’ll tune you all up, 
too.” The quip led to a burble from the audience, and 
as soon as the three musicians finished perfecting 
their respective instruments, Corea turned to them, 
mischievous smile across his face. He played a riff on 
the piano, then waited patiently for those seated in 
the auditorium to repeat it. They did, and on and on 
until we were all buckled over with laughter. It wasn’t 
until then that I realized how full Hill was that night, 
as the voices of everyone from the front row to the 
back of the balcony echoed into the space. 
The concert was a special performance to support 
the trilogy’s newest album, Trilogy 2, which follows 
a 2014 collaboration between the three that won two 
Grammys that year. The title of that one? You guessed 
it: Trilogy. All three of the musicians have a penchant 
for finding beauty in simplicity, but also in a contained 
chaos that jazz thrives on. There is power in restraint 
with modern jazz improvisation, and Corea, McBride 
and Blade know this all too well. 
Despite that fact, they seem to make the craziest 
riffs seem simple in their own right, moving from 
chord to chord with a cascade of notes that seem to 
appear out of thin air, much less produced by human 
hands. But that’s the magic of their collaboration: 
Though the group is listed as the Chick Corea Trio, 
they could easily be the Christian McBride Trio or 
very believably the Brian Blade Trio. They are all 
musicians at the top of their game and the second act 
of their careers, resting comfortably in their status as 
jazz greats. 
Beginning with classic Corea composition “La 
Fiesta” and moving between renditions of other 
songs like Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” 
and Thelonious Monk’s “Work,” the performance 
was widely varied in its creative choices. It seemed 

like the three were close enough to not even have a 
tracklist, as Corea stood up from his grand piano to 
murmur with the other two before each song was 
decided. But that spirit of off-the-cuff ingenuity is 
what made the trio stand out on the stage, as each of 
them held up their part with a nearly effortless talent. 
To put it simply, the trio are all monsters of 
jazz, imbued the creativity that comes from years 
of practice with the best of the best. Beyond that 
irreproachable savvy for music, they’re some of the 
coolest guys you could ever be in the same room 
with. I was stunned by everything they mentioned in 
between songs, the intention that every word came 
with, and also Brian Blade’s incredible baritone voice. 
The same goes for McBride’s skills with the bow, a 
special, almost classical interlude in a sea of straight 
jazz. 
The shimmering cymbals and undulating bass 
tones of the group flowed freely through the 
auditorium’s rapt audience, and at one point Corea 
even played the strings inside the piano to complete 
a composition’s otherworldly sound. When the three 
came out for an unexpected encore, my heart lifted 
with delight. They played a Coltrane composition, the 
simplest, most classic sound to round out the night. 
From the craziness of the last two hours, it was a 
beautiful example of their love for jazz in all its forms, 
especially those that put them where they are today. 
The night was a perfect example of what can happen 
when friendship and genius come together, creating a 
partnership in which innovation can flourish.

Chick Corea & co. aged well

CLARA SCOTT
Senior Arts Editor

If you were a teenager between 2010 and 
2016, you’ve probably been caught with the 
smoky cover of John Green’s “Looking for 
Alaska” propped open on your lap. It’s the now-
classic tale of the skinny loner at a new school 
who gets mesmerized by the mystifying girl 
with the strange name, only to have his friend 
group rocked by tragedy. The book is filled 
with cigarettes, books, sexual promiscuity and 
pranks. It’s halved in two sections — “Before” 
and “After” — centered around the tragedy. 
Fortunately, all of this finds its way into this 
aesthetically-polished adaptation for television.
Miles Halter (Charlie Plummer, “Granite 
Flats”) knows famous peoples’ last words. 
Anyone could quiz him on them. But no one 
would because he’s a bit of a loner. So, he 
leaves Orlando, Florida for Culver Creek, a 
boarding school in Alabama, trading beaches 
for sweat and oak trees, so that he can “seek a 
Great Perhaps,” in the final words of François 
Rabelais. There, his roommate — The Colonel 
(Denny Love, “Lucifer”) — shows him the ropes 
of Culver Creek. This brings him to Alaska 
Young (Kristine Froseth, “Sierra Burgess Is 
a Loser”), the troubled yet alluring girl with a 
room full of books and a knack for trouble. 
The 
first 
episode 
follows 
the 
Colonel 
instructing Miles (dubbed “Pudge,” for his slim 
physique) how to smoke. But when Alaska’s 
roommate gets kicked out for drinking, smoking 
and “genital contact,” drinking and smoking, 
the Weekday Warriors — a collection of rich 
students who go home on the weekends — think 
someone ratted on her and her boyfriend, and 

they mean to make them pay. So they go after 
Pudge.
“Looking for Alaska” takes place in 2005, but 
it certainly doesn’t feel like 2005. Everything 
about the show — from what the kids are wearing 
to the music featured — feels very modern. At 
first, this felt like a bad thing. It felt wrong, 
lacking the grungy, sweatiness of puberty that 
the novel so eloquently utilized to its advantage. 
It almost felt fake, too polished and false for 
the kind of emotions the novel induced. Hulu’s 
“Looking for Alaska” did not feel like the one 
I grew up adoring, then growing out of, then 
loathing.
Realizing this made me understand that the 
show wasn’t meant to feel like the “Looking 
for Alaska” that helped usher me through 
adolescence. The unfortunate fact of adulthood 
is very much upon me. If the same is true of you, 
then you, with the dog-eared, creased-spined 
copy tucked discreetly in the back of your 
bookcase, will also not see yourself in any of the 
main troublemakers of Hulu’s version.
But after coming to terms with my youth’s 
mortality, it became evident that “Looking 
for Alaska” serves much the same purpose for 
modern disgruntled teenagers that it did for 
the ones of yesterday. For all its sleekness and 
freshness, “Looking for Alaska” does resemble 
its source material in many ways. It is still the 
same story with the same message, stylized in 
its “Before” and “After” chapters. It also suffers 
from the same pretentiousness that plagued the 
novel. Ultimately, whether or not “Looking for 
Alaska” is good depends purely on where you’re 
at in life. If you’re older than the novel’s target 
audience, the show will fall flat. But if the novel 
currently has you torn to pieces, the show will 
be a great supplement.

‘Looking for Alaska’ does
try to seek a Great Perhaps

MAXWELL SCHWARZ
Daily Arts Writer

HULU

TV REVIEW

Looking for Alaska

Hulu

Miniseries Premiere

Streaming Now

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

Meguri: Teeming 
Sea, Tranquil 
Land

Oct. 25-26 @ 8 p.m.

Power Center

Student Tickets $12-$20

Regular Tickets starting at $24

Dancers use Butoh’s 
uneasy nature to 
bring attention to 
darker and more 
complex aspects of 
modern Japanese 
culture

The shimmering 
cymbals and 
undulating bass tones 
of the group flowed 
freely through the 
auditorium’s rapt 
audience, and at one 
point Corea even played 
the strings inside the 
piano to complete 
a composition’s 
otherworldly sound

We’re all living cable free, right? We’re the 
digital generation, we cut the cords, we use 
streaming services and we don’t pay for cable. 
But would we be better off if we did? While fewer 
college students have cable subscriptions than 
in the past, I would hazard a guess that most 
still watch an impressive amount of television. 
Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube 
TV, CBS All Access, Apple TV, HBO Go, soon 
Disney+ and more; the number of streaming 
services continues to increase year after year 
and the ways in which people of our generation 
pay for the right to watch slowly become more 
and more convoluted.
In many college units, at least one of the 
aforementioned services is being provided 
by a parental unit of some member of the 
household. How long will that last, though? 
My generation has slowly come to expect that 
all forms of media will be provided for them 
for free, but that’s not reasonable for the 
entertainment industry or a given consumer. 
Surely, Netflix and HBO know how many 
people share their accounts with each other, 
right? Is this something technology can stop, 
or is it simply a matter of time before this 
entire ecosystem begins to resemble the cable 
packages that everyone so despised?
No one knows for sure what the streaming 
landscape will look like in a few years, but 
most are in agreement that consumers are 
not going to shell out five to 10 dollars per 
network they want. Bundled streaming deals 
feel inevitable, and when they do come, it will 
be right back to where we started. Sports in 
particular have a difficult road ahead. Last year 
it was estimated that the NBA is losing billions 

of dollars a year on people illegally streaming 
the league’s games through sites as open and 
accessible as Reddit. Personally, I used to use 
r/cfbstreams all the time to watch college 
football games that weren’t being aired on 
a network someone in my house had access 
to. This fall, Reddit seems to have cracked 
down on the existence of threads like that, 
which just funnel people to illegal streaming 
sites, costing the corporate content creators 
boatloads of money.
I think one of the main reasons streaming 
is so prevalent is that it feels like a victimless 
crime. ESPN doesn’t need more of my money, 
nor does Disney, Warner Bros or any of the 
rest. Is it really so bad so deprive them of 
my five dollars so I can watch Michigan play 
a basketball game at Illinois? This is pure 
speculation, but I suspect many people who 
are guilty of illegally streaming would never 
consider stealing so much as a candy bar from 
a Walgreens. In reality, illegally streaming 
content is just as much of crime and just as 
much of a theft as stealing a candy bar is, but 
it doesn’t feel that way. Stealing from a store 
feels like stealing, whereas illegally streaming 
something from a billion dollar corporation 
feels like getting one over the man.
Even film majors like myself have seemingly 
little moral issue stealing films and TV show 
files from the internet and costing content 
creators money, despite the fact that they 
themselves one day hope to be the ones creating 
the content. Surely at that point we will hope 
that illegal streaming has been limited or 
erased entirely. Surely then we will see that 
what we are doing is wrong ... maybe. But until 
then, I’m going to keep watching Netflix on my 
parents’ account and borrowing CBS access 
from my roommate. I don’t need to pay money 
to watch the Lions lose on Sunday — I’ve got 
enough problems as it is.

None of us have cable, OK?

IAN HARRIS
Daily Entertainment Columnist

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN