In the prologue of his 2019 memoir, cho-
reographer Mark Morris wrote that “the
live aspect of performance is what appeals:
the dancers, the musicians, the audience —
all living beings in the same room. People
might say they’ve watched a dance on You-
Tube and they have. But they haven’t. It
isn’t live.” Morris is so passionate about this
point that he reiterates it in almost every
subsequent chapter. By the time the book is
finished, his emphasis of live dance set to
live music feels practically annoying.
And yet, on May 29, the New York Times
published an article on Morris’s new adven-
tures with Zoom — the choreographer used
the video communication platform to cre-
ate four new works, all now available on
YouTube. While Zoomed choreography
may feel like a monotonous phrase as we
approach the second half of August, Mor-
ris was one of the earlier pioneers in this
world of digital dance creation. In the May
article, dance critic Gia Kourlas framed the
process as inventive; she was excited by the
now-customary technique, curious about
his inspiration to still create amid stay-at-
home orders. Morris told Kourlas that he
felt annoyed by the idea that our lives must
be on hold throughout this pandemic. “This
is how we’re living,” he said, “and there’s no
real reason to fight it” — an admirably quick
adjustment for someone who, just last year,
published a book so adamantly in favor of
live performance.
At the beginning of May, I sat on my
living room floor and wrote the introduc-
tion to this series, telling the brief story
of theatres that still remain dark today. I
asked readers: What happens when we’re
left with a stage wholly mediated by posts,
shares, comments and likes? At the time,
I’m not sure if I thought the ghost lights
would be off by now, at the end of The Dai-
ly’s summer editions. In May, many ballet
companies still planned to return to their
stages come fall; many summer festivals
still had not announced cancellation. And
yet, as the days grow shorter, most Ameri-
can stages remain completely empty. Thus,
as this series comes to a close, it seems my
question should remain at our forefront —
what happens when we’re left with a stage
wholly mediated by posts, shares, com-
ments and likes, and what happens when
that digital stage continues indefinitely
into the future?
I have several potential answers, many
of which I hope remain embedded in my
various installments of this series. I wrote
about Christopher Wheeldon’s “Within
the Golden Hour” and examined how the
blooming natural world can provide in-per-
son beauty when ballet goes online. I wrote
about Tiler Peck’s online dance classes and
the larger movement of celebrity acces-
sibility afforded by COVID-19. I examined
and analyzed the many ways in which this
pandemic exposed structural failures of
artistic funding: Companies now face fiscal
meltdowns in part created and aggravated
by a government that does not acknowl-
edge the economic importance of an arts
sector. Millions of dancers and backstage
workers will likely be out of work for over
a year. With the rise of national protests for
Black lives, I wrote about the deep-rooted
racial prejudice of ballet’s past and pres-
ent along with this art form’s substantial
role in the ripples of white supremacy that
permeate our shores. I wrote about ballet’s
structural failures to support Black artists
and suggested that quarantine be used as
an active moment to listen, learn and lean
into the acknowledgement of such wrong-
doings. I also wrote about my deep love for
this art form. More than once this summer,
the sounds of ballet’s music and the pat-
terns of its movement have eased my head
and heart of depressing anxiety generated
by our country’s sociopolitical reckoning
that is no doubt far from over.
7
ARTS
Always keep dancing
Read more at michigandaily.com
ZOE PHILLIPS
Daily Arts Writer
SUMMER SERIES
SUMMER SERIES
It takes only a page or two of reading
to realize that the cover of “Milkman” is
deceptive. The binding of the 2018 win-
ner of the Man Booker Prize depicts an
innocuous, fluorescent-pink sunset —
one of those once a year, stop-and-snap-
a-photo sunsets that makes “Milkman”
stands out among its fellow books.
The sedative lightness of the cover
seems to admit innocuousness. But
“Milkman” is not innocuous. Nor is it
gentle, or quiet, or apologetic — nothing
that the cover may suggest about a sub-
dued, romantic narrative. To say I wasn’t
excited to read the Booker winner would
be a lie — based on the superficiality of
covers and excerpts, I have rooted for
“Milkman” since its nomination on the
long-list — but the way I fell in love with
reading “Milkman” was not in the pleas-
ant, blushing manner I had expected. It
was a cycle of shock, recoil and return.
Anna Burns’s third novel narrates the
story of an 18-year-old girl (referred to
as “Middle Sister,” as none of the charac-
ters in “Milkman” are prescribed actual
names) over the course of two months.
Her unnamed town is saturated with vio-
lence — violence from the ubiquitously
demonized enemy countries “over the
water,” violence from the renouncers
of the state that control Middle Sister’s
town and violence from the state police
as they intervene in a village of scattered
revolutionaries.
Surprisingly,
though,
this war-zone setting is but an offhand
normality in the book. Instead, it is Milk-
man, a paramilitary that begins making
unwarranted advances on middle sister,
that takes the place of chief antagonist
in the book.
At first glance, Burns lays out an invid-
ious landscape that seems to hyperbolize
the dark experience of growing up as a
woman in the late 20th century. Maybe,
Burns seems to suggest, the descent of
society would look like this for all gen-
ders. But on second thought, the land-
scape Middle Sister walks — and how
her
hyperaware,
rightfully-paranoid
thoughts congeal in it — becomes pain-
fully real. Middle Sister’s encounters
with Milkman while walking, her fears
of being drugged, the pernicious com-
ments coming from third brother-in-law,
all resonate uncomfortably with the real-
ties meeting women today.
This daring, critical kick at that expe-
rience of being a woman pays off. The
apotheosis of the book’s dark and appli-
cable portrayals is perhaps Tablets Girl,
a “girl who was actually a woman,” that
is one of the local outcasts in Middle
Sister’s town due to her propensity to
poison people. This usually takes place,
most suitably and without retribution,
in bars. People flee from Tablets Girl,
people watch their drinks when Tablets
Girl is around. It’s not just Burns’s clear
allusion to date-rape that that is to be
appreciated here, but her spiked humor
and exaggeration also.
This is not to reduce “Milkman” down
to a forced, constricted focus on gender-
politics though. Burns’s writing alone is
remarkable (something I refuse to say
passively). “Milkman” is brimming with
endlessly long paragraphs, lose-your-
train-of-thought stretched sentences and
digressing thoughts from Middle Sister
that render the book incredibly complex.
At first, I was perturbed by this formal
and royal-esque writing, especially upon
an encounter with a paragraph spanning
four, almost five, pages. But as I contin-
ued, I found myself — in an unlikely way
— reading Middle Sister’s voice in an
uninterrupted pattern even more critical
and translucent than I expected possible.
This is assisted by Burns’s near-perfect
draw of synonyms through the book,
making her writing appear dependably
careful and personal.
I was enamored by the characters in
“Milkman” and the abrasive humor that
was tacked onto them. It isn’t often that
I get a full cast of characters (narrator,
antagonist, family) that are so real, so
exciting to encounter. Most memorable
are the “wee sisters,” Middle Sister’s
three younger sisters who, despite their
young ages, are infatuated with topics
such as French revolutionaries, going
through “Kafka phases” and eavesdrop-
ping every moment they get. Characters
like the wee sisters offer unexpected
gratification along Burns’s dark time-
line of events. The real humor displayed
make “Milkman” all the more authentic
and pleasurable.
I love “Milkman” because it is a fruit-
ful attempt to offer me hints of a human
experience I will never be able to under-
stand, let alone be familiar with. Perhaps
the most evocative and vivid account in
the vein of social-rebellion and unwant-
ed-gaze I have ever encountered, “Milk-
man” is a narrative that has been told
repeatedly, even frequently in the 21st
century. Burns’s unequivocal writing
turns this narrative into a fearsome
chant, one well worth shouting along to.
JOHN DECKER
Daily Arts Writer
‘Milkman’, an unfor-
giving look at gender
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thursday, August 13, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com