Slam Nahuatl makes its semester debut at The Nile

Margaret Karles

Contributing

Writer

Slam Nahuatl hosted its first slam poetry event night of the season this past Monday, Sept. 3.

The group began with a poetry showcase and then a Rookie Open Mic. Lakesha Conway, who was a VCU student for two years and is now a nursing student at Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing, said she’s been supporting the Slam Nahuatl group for five years.

“They are great, and are helping the community. [They are] a positive group, that’s what draws me to them,” Conway said.

Nahuatl was started in 2007 by Daniel José Custódio and Vlad �Vitamin V� Rodriguez who wanted to help support the Richmond community and raise money for people in need. There is a Slam Nahuatl and Slam Richmond. Both teams finished in the top 20 of 72 teams at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C. on Aug. 7-11.

In between the performers, Chris Johnson, the announcer, entertained with poems of his own, one of which

Advertisement was, “When you’re at his house, why is his cell phone always face down? Suspicious.”

Rob Gibson, president of the VCU branch of Slam Nahuatl, recited poetry Monday night. One of his selections, “Take Care,” was written using only Drake song titles.

Miracle Allums, a VCU student who has attended slam poetry before, said that she loved it.

“The energy always vibrates, and is very powerful throughout the place,” she said. “It is something that’s always real for me.”

“The atmosphere was amazing,”Akan Umo, a spectator at Slam Nahuatl, said. “Coming from a writer, it was inspiring.” Slam Nahuatl will be hosting their next event on Sept. 17, featuring Andrea Hope, who is a poet and activist based in Seattle, Wash. at The Nile. CT

For more information, follow Slam Nahuatl on Twitter at @slamnahuatl

Continued from page 3 asking Kennedy and Villagrana to lay on their backs.

Speaking over meditation music, McKenzie repeatedly read and reread Mary Oliver’s poem “White Flowers,” occasionally emphasizing certain words or phrases such as “sticky and untidy,” “plush” and “resplendently empty” for the dancers to keep in mind.

As McKenzie repeated the poem, Kennedy and Villagrana began to stir as the words and music influenced them. They moved slowly at first, using their toes and fingers, but soon began rolling their heads, arching their backs, and contorting their limbs, somewhat like hypnotized circus performers. By the end of the exercise, the pair were up and moving about in their spaces, albeit somewhat wobbly.

“I was basically trying to figure out how I can get them to internalize the poem without just pumping it out,” said McKenzie. “Today… was basically just to get them more acclimated with the environment that I’m trying to create.”

Next, McKenzie instructed them step-by-step on a series of movements, much like the audition earlier that morning. Soon after, however, instead of having the pair repeat the movement, McKenzie had Kennedy and Villagrana experiment with combining the separate movements in whatever made most sense to them. From here, McKenzie worked with the pair on tweaking the movements, synchronizing them in some areas, adding physical contact in others and adding new moves altogether until the end result was barely recognizable from where the trio had begun.

“The style or the vocabulary that really influences me is Ohad Naharin’s Gaga technique,” said McKenzie of the entire process, which he summarized as a very condensed version of the various improv techniques he’s experienced over the years. “It’s really sensory and more about your own individual body.”

Kennedy, who had practiced the Gaga dance style at the American Dance Festival over the past two summers, said he was excited to find someone doing the same thing.

Later that day, Kennedy received word that he was cast in both Brady’s and Hannah Weber’s senior projects. He was also cast as an extra in Christina Kolb’s project.

Brady’s piece will deal with the dark abstraction, heavy symbolism and grotesque imagery of German Expressionist film, translated and reinterpreted using the human form.

Weber’s will explore “continuity, rhythm, musical expression, and subtle percussive movement.” Kolb’s piece draws inspiration from the idea of disorientation as a result of form alteration.

Fall senior projects will take place at Grace Street Theatre, Nov. 14-18thbeginning at 8 p.m., with tickets at $15 general admission and $10 for students. Spring senior projects will take place April 24-27. CT

Dan Deacon’s America: Never lingers, always racing

Richard DiCicco Staff Writer

eponymous subject and somehow got stuck in the middle. On this album, the sound of “America” exists somewhere between an electrical buzz and a gust of wind, but he makes it work.

Animal Collective’s “Centipede Hz”: Attacks listener instead of beckoning

Awe·some [aw-suh m]

- adjective

Grade: B

1. inspiring awe: an awesome sight.

2. showing or characterized by awe.

3. Slang. very impressive: That new Dan Deacon album is totally awesome.

I am in awe of this record. Composer Dan Deacon's newest release is a sprawling electronic tapestry that unfolds in nine carefully paced segments. The pontifically-titled “America” oscillates between bombastic songs reminiscent of Arcade Fire's most anthemic moments and tracks that remind me of the brand of noisy adrenaline-soaked punk I typically associate with No Age.

As a result, this wide dynamism affords the record a curiously narrow stylistic core, as if Deacon was trying to reconcile the flux of natural and artificial landscapes that shape the record's

Sonically, Dan Deacon builds a landscape alight with color and life but devoid of the kind of wild idiosyncrasies I would expect from an album called “America.” Where are the deserts, the mountains, the lakes? I see these in the track titles but I don't hear them in the compositions. Each song moves with the pace of a locomotive; they never linger, they always race by.

Set aside the record's questionable execution, though, and you have a spectacular set of electronic songs. These tracks all have a very human quality to them — at times enthusiastic, at others reverent. There is a lot of variety here, and its immediacy and smart editing works to its benefit (most tracks wisely hover around the five-minute mark).

Its wide screen drama may not be able to fully capture a subject as broad as America conceptually, but who ever said a concept record had to strictly follow its concept to be good?

Listening to “America” straight through is a lot like flying from coastto-coast: you move far too fast to truly appreciate the sheer majesty of the continental landscape, but you are thrilled by the journey nonetheless. CT

Richard DiCicco Staff Writer

vited endless comparisons to The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd. But on “Centipede Hz,” it feels as if they have taken a step back, or at least to the side.

Grade: C+

How do you follow up one of the most celebrated records of the past twenty years? Apparently, Animal Collective thinks you try your best to distance yourself from it. “Centipede Hz” is Animal Collective's anxiously awaited ninth album, and in it we can see the band struggling to redefine themselves.

Now the poster-boys of Brooklynbased alternative, Animal Collective had been critical darlings of the indie world for sometime before their eighth studio album “Merriweather Post Pavilion” dropped in early 2009. Lavished with praise and instantly canonized into modern rock history, “Merriweather” was and is an instant classic.

Prior to this point in their career, the quintessential Brooklyn group had been known for everything from spontaneous acid folk to disorienting sample-heavy psychedelia. With “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” the band embraced pop songwriting with open arms, a turn that in-

There is not a moment on “Centipede Hz” that beckons the listener in. Where the opening moments of “Merriweather” were drowsy and mysterious before blowing apart dramatically, Centipede's opening track "Moonjock" is an industrial foot stomper with a beat like hammers on steel. They waste no time in attacking the listener, and for the next 50 minutes they barrel forward relentlessly.

This album is far more aggressive than anything Animal Collective has ever produced, almost as if they are overeager to regain their fringe appeal. Each song hangs on a hard beat and a maelstrom of ethereal instrumentation. Unfortunately for them, the product is off-putting and cacophonous. It lacks the grace that made “Merriweather” such a majestic and hypnotizing beauty.

Instead, these songs are blunt, flat, and quite frankly nowhere near as engaging. While I would not go so far as to call it hookless, there is little to hold on to in many of these tracks. Instead they just spin in place, heading nowhere, revealing nothing.

To be clear, “Centipede Hz” is not bad. Each song is composed with care and each performance is spirited and alive. It may be spastic and unnerving but it is also clearly inspired and focused. It just happens to be focused on an aesthetic that I find far less intriguing than any of their previous output. CT