V O L . I I , N O. X V I
C E L E B R A T I N G T H E P R E C I O U S H U M A N TA P E S T R Y
18 APRIL, 2008
Culture X wows audiences despite changes
New Spingold venue presents challenges outweighed by great performances
BY STEPHEN SUKUMARAN Editor
during runthroughs. What should be noted was the foresight of the Culture X coordinators. Those observing Shabbat were placed in the second act with the obvious purpose of performing later in the evening. The second act was also allowed to perform first during Friday evening’s runthrough. Another issue with the new venue involved ticketing. The Spingold Theater Center is exactly that, a theater. Thus, it was not surprising that tickets were required to be picked up prior to the show for admittance.
This year, Culture X was included as part of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts. Needless to say, Culture X is the largest and one of the best shows held on campus. This year’s show was no different, with more than the usual handful of outstanding acts. Another more noticeable change, however: Spingold as the venue. The latter proved to be very interesting. Performers and choreographers, having been accustomed to Levin Ballroom for several semesters now, were This new performance forced to adapt to a new environment. Not only group combined traditional were they facing a larger Arabic rhythms with jazz stage but also a cramped and confusing (to newcom- instruments. ers) backstage. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One would However, unlike events and assume that the performers were shows in Levin, where performers allowed to practice on this someare allowed in regardless and may what foreign stage. Nevertheless, watch the show wherever they very most performances first graced the well please, tickets were required in stage the night prior to Culture X
order for proper seating. Those performers unable to get tickets to their own show were not allowed in, without exception. But that’s not to say that several performers didn’t sneak in behind the stage curtains or climb up to the lighting area for optimal and hassle-free viewing. These trivialities certainly put a damper on what is usually a laid-back and comfortable experience for a performer. Regardless, Culture X delivered in every other way, showcasing the extraordinary talents of Brandeis students. Aside from the usual dance routines, seemingly ubiquitous with shows like this, Culture X ofPHOTO BY Napoleon Lherisson/The Hoot fered something more. Student Union Treasurer THE X FACTOR: Students use Culture X to showcase their performance talents. Choon Woo Ha ’08 and South mance was without a doubt was The night proved to be, once Asian Students Association Copresident Richa Sahay ’09 belted Mochila. This new performance again, a tremendous success, deout two dynamic duets that were group combined traditional Ara- spite the various obstacles faced by well received from audience. Ada- bic rhythms with jazz instruments. coordinators and performers alike. gio dancers accompanied this act The successful result could easily Showcasing the best Brandeis has during a rendition of “You Raise be interpreted by viewing the silent to offer, Culture X will surely be crowd holding on to every passing around for a long time to come. Me Up.” Another noteworthy perfor- beat followed by the well-deserved applause.
Improv Collective performs annual show
Hit-or-miss show rewards patient listeners with eclectic jams BY MAXWELL PRICE Deputy Editor
Improvisational music remains one of the most exhilarating forms of performing art. Artists who can tame its fickle muse have the power to manifest the flotsam of a group’s collective unconscious, exploding traditional notions of creative conception. When they fail, however, the results sound more like a bad acid trip. When I went to see the Brandeis Improv Collective on Monday night in Slosberg, I came with the skeptical expectation of experiencing the latter, and I can’t say that certain moments didn’t validate my presumption. Nevertheless, several transcendent breakthroughs by the final ensemble reestablished my faith in the sacred art of the jam. The director of the collective, Tom Hall, introduced the ensembles, interjecting little bits of musical and philosophical wisdom between the performances. “The improv class is based on the as-
sumption that…all humans are improvisers through their very nature,” he mused. “Whether you’re cooking or driving a car or playing music, improvising is part of what we do naturally as people.” Three ensembles of different instrumentations and musical styles tested this assumption that improvisation is a natural human impulse, alternating between painfully stilted constructions and whimsically spontaneous creations.
Several transcendent breakthroughs by the final ensemble reestablished my faith in the sacred art of the jam.
The first ensemble, comprised of a guitarist, bassist, pianist, and drummer set the tone for the first half of the show, which was dominated by meditative, minor key atmospherics. Despite being
IN THIS EDITION:
introduced they were introduced the elegiac strain of the first group as a “groove-based ensemble,” I to the context of a duet featurnever quite bought into the idea ing piano and stand-up bass. The that their lugubrious reflections fit the descriptor. While the drummer displayed Three ensembles of different a knack for slicing through the instrumentations and musical thick layer of crepuscular haze styles alternated between with tight high-hat rhythms, he couldn’t quite compensate painfully stilted constructions for a lack of overall structure. and whimsically spontaneous The pianist, on the other hand, creations. tended to contribute to the ensemble’s murky ambience, though at his best he called to mind the stark beauty and warmth of Norweigan jazz pianist brooding romantic tone called to Tord Gustavsen. The weakest link mind Beethoven, one motif bearof the quartet proved to be the ing an eerie resemblance to the guitarist, who wielded a repertoire “Moonlight Sonata.” The pianist’s of motifs smaller than his selec- use of pedal point phrases and detion of effects pedals (which says scending chord progressions made as much about his cornucopia of the jams sound like they were reverb settings as it does about his constantly spiraling into oblivion. limited musical palette). His unin- Unfortunately, if the duo seemed spired three-note riffs make Joey to turn around in circles, the cenSantiago sound positively baroque trifugal force often wasn’t strong by comparison. enough to hold them together. The second ensemble adapted After the lukewarm success of
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the first two groups, the final ensemble—featuring piano, bass, drums, guitar, and two saxes— stole the show. Bursting at the seams with creative energy, they were by turns raucous, jazzy, vociferous and just plain weird. Bypassing genre constraints, they found no problem inserting squalls of avante garde between passages of impressionistic jazz. The backbone of the group was a muscular rhythm section in which drums interlocked alternatively with rollicking piano chords, skittering bass lines, and even dexterous sax riffs. The final jam of the night was a high point, especially when the guitarist pounded out a ricocheting chord progression that sounded so unmelodic and clubfooted that it actually passed itself off as a killer hook. The funny part is that the group didn’t even have to reject the acid trip paradigm to achieve success; they did just as well by embrace its mind-bending majesty.
DID YOU KNOW? "The Leaf," thought to be the first photo ever and taken by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839 is now thought to be one of the oldest photographic images in existence, dating to the 1790s.