On Friday, Sept. 9, students, faculty and attendees of NextNOW Fest danced along to the infectious rhythm of Brazil’s forró music. Held in the Grand Pavilion, the full band – made up of percussion, drums, guitar, cavaco, bass and accordion – played for an hour while performers taught some basic steps.
Featured Photo Credit: Students, faculty, and visitors gather together for an evening of fun and dance. (Joe Duffy/Bloc Photographer)
If you missed NextNOW Fest, check out our gallery from both days of the festival.
Featured Photo Credit: Charly, of Chargaux, teases Margaux on stage while they perform, trying to distract each other. (Julia Lerner/Bloc Photographer)
Editor’s Note: This article contains mild profanity.
As I understand it, laughter is an involuntary reaction. We laugh when we hear or see something so outrageous it makes us blast air out of our diaphragms like a damn bellows. We might say laughter is an explosion of emotion, which—for reasons that I at least don’t fully understand—makes us feel good.
Those who make us laugh carry out a noble service. They rail against boredom and tedium with this magical weapon called humor, and even if only for an evening, they help us forget about all the bullshit that tends to plague our lives.
Friday night at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Kay Theater, the Upright Citizens Brigade Touring Company staged a 90-minute improv battle against boredom, tedium and bullshit in general. I bellowed quite a few times.
Before they took the stage to wrap up the first night of NextNOW Fest at The Clarice, I got a chance to speak with the company’s Matt Starr about UCB and the type of comedy the group performs. Some of the more remarkable tidbits will be reproduced below.
H: Tell me about the company you’re with. I’d heard that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey started out with you guys.
M: So that’s half true. As far as I know, Tina Fey got her start with The Second City in Chicago. Our company was founded by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh. We do improvisational comedy and have main theater locations in New York City and Los Angeles.
As a member of the touring company, I perform at college campuses, community theaters; basically anywhere with a good venue we can use. We get most excited about performing at college campuses and community theaters.
H: Why are you so excited to perform there?
M: I love performing at colleges because, for the most part, everybody is young and wants to have a good time. We get to discover what makes each school unique in the process.
H: Before you get there, do you do research as to what makes each crowd different?
M: Research is a little strong. But before we perform, we interview an audience member for the first segment of the show.
H: So at the beginning of your performance, you sort of grab somebody from the audience and interview them?
M: That sounds a bit violent. We don’t make fun of anybody or anything like that. We request for someone to come onstage so we can ask them honest questions and learn a bit about them. We just ask that our participant be willing to share their story and give us a feel for the crowd.
This last method is what gives the Upright Citizens Brigade an added layer of relevance and immediacy for their crowds.
At the beginning of their show, performers Andy Bustillos, Tanner Dahlin, Jessica Morgan and Starr introduced themselves to the crowd inside Kay Theater and requested that an audience member join them onstage for an interview.
A freshman materials engineering major named Eli acquiesced and told a story about finding a naked graduate student in McKeldin Library after having been given the intel by a German exchange student.
When asked by Starr about his friends, Eli described one, Miles, as “an intellectual badass” and briefly described his home life with two overachieving younger sisters.
The interview segment launched a series of uproarious improv skits by UCB.
In the first of these, Starr played the role of a student heading to the library to study, only to be stopped by Bustillos as a gossipy German exchange student requesting certain body parts of his be twisted in exchange for information. After Starr twisted Bustillos’ arm and then foot, he was asked to—
“Twist something else.”
“What do you want me to twist?”
“My nose … I’ll bet you thought I was about to say ‘my dick,’ didn’t you?”
And then we blasted breath out of our diaphragms.
Featured Photo Credit: Upright Citizens Brigade brings the crowd to roaring laughter with their improv skills. (Joe Duffy/Bloc Photographer)
Horus Alas is senior philosophy major and can be reached at heliocentricnonchalance@gmail.com.
Editor’s Note: This article contains movie spoilers.
By Lindsey Collins
1990 Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina — Kappa Sigma was starting their annual fall Rush Week. Let the week of binge drinking, strippers, sex and abuse begin.
Hazing in college fraternities and sororities has been notorious for decades in the U.S. There are countless stories of pledges facing physically and emotionally tolling tests in order to get a bid to their fraternity of choice. This experience “brings the group closer together;” after all they are brothers right?
Goat, directed by Andrew Neel, exposes fraternity hazing through the 1990’s events in Brad Land’s Goat: A Memoir. The film focuses on fraternity Kappa Sigma and the process each pledge, nicknamed “goats,” must endure to become a “brother.” Among the eager pledgees is 18-year-old Brad Land (Ben Schnetzer), younger brother to frat member Brett (Nick Jonas) and victim of a violent robbery.
The goats face both mental and physical abuse during the pledges’ “hell week.” Though some scenes portray stupid humor, such as forcing the boys to take care of a real live goat, others display disturbing tests and horrifying punishments.
On the first evening, Brad’s roommate Will is locked in a dog cage, soaked in alcohol and pee, and rolled in circles as punishment for spitting out alcohol after hours of binge drinking. Other events from the night include: pushups while drinking alcohol, starting physical fights between pledges and making each boy admit to being a “faggot that nobody loves” while naked in the basement of the frat house — and that’s just the first night.
The only member who seems to realize the sadistic connotations of these actions is Brett, who is triggered by his brother’s experience of being attacked. After one of the pledges dies of a heart attack, possibly induced by the physical abuse, Brett speaks out and gets the fraternity suspended for the rest of the year.
The University of Maryland was the first of a select five schools across the country that hosted a viewing of Goat and held a discussion with representives from HazingPrevention.Org as a part of National Hazing Prevention Week.
“Paramount allowed us to pick five schools,” executive director of HazingPrevention.Org, Emily Pualwan, said. “We wanted to pick schools that were really proactive in hazing prevention movements and UMD was a perfect fit for that.”
A majority of students who attended this event in Hoff Theatre at Stamp are involved in greek life themselves. Many agreed the movie was striking but did not think these horrors appeared in College Park Greek life.
“It really got its point across about how dangerous hazing is, but I think, for our campus, this is far fetched,” senior public health science major and Delta Phi Epsilon member Demi Varis said. “If it happens here, I don’t know about it.”
Regardless of whether hazing is a large issue on campus, many involved in Greek life came out in support.
“We aren’t required to go, but I really wanted to,” sophomore Alpha Xi Delta member Tess Simonson said. “I am really against hazing and people should see how bad it really is, and hopefully this changes the way they view hazing.”
Those involved in hazing prevention movement here hope this film leaves a lasting impression on each student who views it.
Pualwan concluded the event with her hopes for this university: “We saw it here tonight: the best way to prevent these things from escalating is through conversation. Students need to understand that if they stand up and do the right thing there are other students at their backs.”
Featured Photo Credit: Featured photo courtesy of Goat the Movie’s Facebook page.
Lindsey Collins is a freshman multiplatform journalism major and can be reached at lindseyc961@gmail.com.
By Teri West
Senior Solana Lazarte has a personal goal to go out and do something different every week. This past week, the opportunity fell into her lap.
As a new component of the ongoing partnership between this university and The Phillips Collection, a shuttle now, through Dec. 8 will offer free round-trip transportation to the gallery in Washington, D.C., every Thursday night for students, faculty and staff.
“I know that a lot of people that aren’t from the area are scared to use the Metro so they don’t really go to D.C. that much,” Lazarte said before boarding the bus with her friend Kevin Dominey. “This is … perfect that it provides the transportation there.”
The Stamp Gallery facilitates registration for the shuttle service which departs from Stamp Student Union at 5:30 p.m. and leaves the gallery at 8:30 p.m. It is guaranteed to run through Dec. 8, though the university hopes to continue it beyond this semester, according to David Cronrath, dean of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation on special assignment to The Phillips.
“[The shuttle] will allow students to take full advantage of the museum’s resources, visit special exhibitions, and study the Phillips’s permanent collection,” Klaus Ottmann, deputy director of curatorial and academic affairs at The Phillips Collection, said.
The Dupont Circle modern art museum hosts over 4,000 pieces by artists ranging from Vincent van Gogh to Whitfield Lovell. Particularly well-known series include Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party and Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series.
Double Monument for Flavin and Tatlin by Bettin Pousttchi, on display through Oct. 2, is a part of the Intersection series presented by this university which invites artists to design exhibits that interact with the building’s architecture and permanent collection. Pousttchi’s display includes neon-lit sculptures constructed with materials such as light tubes and crowd barriers.
“In addition to this access to The Phillips’ excellent collection of modern art, a number of events occur on Thursday nights at The Phillips Collection,” Raino Isto, Stamp Gallery Graduate Co-coordinator, said.
“Phillips after 5” is a program held on the first Thursday of every month with food and live music. The theme for October’s event is “Women of Influence” and will include a performance by the Yvonne Johnson Trio.
The free “Conversation with Artists” series is also frequently held on Thursday nights, and allows guests to learn from and interact with a contemporary artist.
“We hope that increased access to The Phillips Collection will increase the role that the visual and the performing arts play in the lives of our students, staff, and faculty, and that in doing so it will also create an opportunity for critical and creative thought to flourish in our community,” Isto said.
This university announced the strategic partnership with The Phillips Collection in October of 2015. The collaboration is intended to grow The Phillips Collections’ scholarship potential while increasing the university’s engagement with the arts.
“Enormous potential lies at the intersection of art with science, design, technology, management, journalism, and cultural diplomacy,” University President Wallace Loh wrote in an email to the university community in October of 2015. “UMD and The Phillips embrace convergence as a way to reach new audiences, disrupt conventional thinking, and inspire new heights of creativity and impact.”
Featured Photo Credit: The Phillips Collection House, courtesy of The Phillips Collection. Photo by Robert Lautman.
Teri West is a junior multiplatform journalism and sociology double major and can be reached at twest123@umd.edu.
The School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies is presenting The Call at The Clarice from Sept. 30 through Oct. 8. The play is a dynamic performance that brings up serious topics of discussion underneath all of its humor and playful bickering.
The Call centers around Annie and Peter, a couple who spent years trying to have children before deciding to adopt from Africa. Their best friends Drea and Rebecca, an African American lesbian couple, support them in the process. The play is about the tensions and conversations that arise when adopting from a third world country as a white American couple.
“It’s about family, and it touches on the responsibilities of our white American privilege and how far that extends,” said Eleanor Holdridge, the director of the play. “She [Annie] is up against her desire to be part of a worldwide solution and her desire to be unconditionally loved by her child.”
Playwright Tanya Barfield made communication a central aspect of the show. The overlapping dialogue, petty bickering and harsh honesty made the communication between the characters strikingly realistic. Barfield did this purposefully because she wanted the message to be as relatable as possible. Without this realistic aspect of communication, the gravity of the talk regarding adoption, especially a cross-cultural adoption, would be lost in translation.
The show brings up important topics we usually don’t think about, such as understanding privileges and awareness of different racial experiences. It also demonstrates the importance of putting forth an effort to understand something out of our personal experiences.
“There are things we don’t talk about that we need to, even if they threaten relationships,” said Alicia Grace, a theater major and the actress who plays Drea.
The tensions between Drea and Annie are prevalent in the play, but this dynamic between the characters enforces the importance of communication when dealing with serious topics, which is the play’s overall message.
“Amongst all this talking about everything, you actually have to go and do something about it,” Rachel Grandizio, a theater and civil engineering double major and actress portraying Annie, said. “We can talk about global poverty and we can talk about the problems countries around the world are having, but after talking we actually have to do something about it.”
The cast and crew of the show put forth tremendous effort into making the messages Tanya Barfield wrote come to life on stage.
“Eleanor Holdridge really fosters an environment for collaboration, and that’s in all aspects,” Grandizio said.
That environment of collaboration alongside the camaraderie that comes with a cast of five allows for Barfield’s ideas to be fully expressed.
The Call is a didactic play that beautifully meshes comedy and serious topics. The talented actors and actresses put forth amazing effort into creating a truly unique and entertaining show.
“Everyone in the show would agree that they want the audience to leave thinking about what each character has said,” Grace said.
Everything the characters say is both funny and poignant, but you’ll have to go see it to truly experience this unique play.
Featured Photo Credit: Picture of Jamaal Amir McCray, an actor in the show. Taken by Geoff Sheil.
Monica Pizzo is a freshman journalism major and can be reached at mpizzo@terpmail.umd.edu.
If I’m being honest, I’m more of a distant art admirer than an art enthusiast. But for some reason, whenever I hear about a new gallery I go running for the chance to see if somehow my eclectic spirit has suddenly emerged. So, when I heard about the Willie Cole: On Site exhibit opening in the David C. Driskell Center, I once again decided I would give in to my inner hipster wannabe and check it out.
The first installment of the exhibit I noticed was actually outside. A teepee-like contraption made of pieces of chicken wire sat to the right of the Cole Building with a plaque calling it “The Driskell Wishing Wall.”
Assorted colored slips of paper lined a table inside the building, just inside the door to the exhibit. Next to it sat a bin with a few recycled water bottles inside. Stacks of papers explained that people are encouraged to write a wish, stick it in a bottle and place it in a hole in the wishing wall.
It was supposed to be a metaphor for life. Water is something we need to live, as are hopes and dreams, the paper said. But I couldn’t help feeling like that, and thus the whole idea of the exhibit, was a reach.
A sign on one of the exhibit walls explained that Willie Cole created his art out of wood, recycled water bottles and shoes. The bottles and shoes were to represent things people get rid of but leave their DNA within.
With this idea in mind, I scoured the exhibit looking for meaning behind everything. Suddenly, the sculpture of shoes that resembled the shape of a couch was something more than just a place to sit. The couch is a meeting place for people. Each person who sits leaves a piece of themselves behind, even if it’s just a strand of hair or a fingerprint.
And the rectangles of mashed up water bottles showed how all people are related. Though our families are different, many parts of our DNA connect us.
Only then did I realize I’ll never know what the artist really meant. The ideas of Willie Cole are trapped inside his mind and I will never get to see them. I felt like maybe this all meant nothing.
Maybe that’s what people like about art: they can interpret it however they want. They can find their own definition of beauty within it. I, however, just cannot think that way. Because what if they’re wrong?
I can appreciate art, but I just can’t guess at what it all means. I’d much rather see a pretty painting of a nature scene than a mix of colors and shapes with an abstract title and no full explanation.
I admire the craft of piecing together objects and creating interesting shapes with them because I know I could never do that so artfully. It’s just hard to fathom how so many people can understand the ideas or meanings behind such far-fetched pieces. For me, they often straddle the line between deeply thought provoking and downright cheesy.
If nothing else, art galleries are at least peaceful. The Willie Cole exhibit made me want to quietly meditate underneath the chandelier of recycled water bottles all day.
The Driskell Center is open Monday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m, and until 6 p.m. on Wednesdays. The exhibit will stay open through Nov. 18.
Featured Photo Credit: Featured photo courtesy of Greg Staley and The Driskell Center.
Taylor Roar is a freshman journalism major and can be reached at troar@terpmail.umd.edu.
Ocean
Poojah Ganesh
Broadcast Journalism Alumnus
Life is an ocean,
unclear but shallow,
deep enough
to engulf in.
Water is thick
yet, life is continuous,
flowing precariously
without a moment’s waste.
Purity is blinded
by the acid in clarity.
Silence is forgiven
in the arcane depths
of the floor.
Treading off-balance,
my feet are too wet,
too used to
the burn of salt.
The delectable waves
sweep me into
their arms,
cradling and taking me
further and further
from the
realm of unfathomable reality,
secretly taking me
far from where I
should be.
Away and away
I sway somberly
to nowhere.
Sometimes I am
lucky and sometimes
I escape the
hands of danger.
The water gets too
comfortable to sit in,
too mesmerizing to leave
that reality is just a
cloud above me.
Too high,
too unreachable.
Reality thunders down
on me,
casting dark shadows
and worries of the future.
At times I drift,
not knowing who or
where I am,
or even
when I will touch
the ground and be
able to swim in
this big ocean.
There are too many gaps,
but all over-filled with
the fears of life.
It feels like the air
is being sucked out of me.
It’s like
breathing vehemently
underwater where
it is clear
at the superficial condition,
but really unclear
in the inside.
The pressure builds
and builds like a
possessed force,
ready to consume me,
threatening to drag me
deeper and deeper
to the darkest
and scariest nadirs
of the ocean.
No way up.
Just down, down, down.
Life is no easy swim.
There are no
boats or vests
to hold me up
every time I slip
from the fingers
of picturesque illusions.
The ocean of life
becomes larger
and larger everyday
that sometimes,
I’m scared
I’ll drown.
Featured Photo Credit: Courtesy of Stephanie Watson‘s Flickr account.
Student Entertainment Events hosted the Homecoming Comedy Show with T.J. Miller and Damon Wayans Jr. on Thursday Sept. 29, 2016.
Before the show, Miller and Wayans Jr. allowed the press into their dressing rooms.
I sat down at the table with Miller and he poured both of us an energy drink. All I could think was he definitely did not need the extra energy. Miller was already a mish-mosh of comedic energy that was sure to explode.
But as we began to talk, I realized that not only was he an energy filled artist, but he was a truly kind and intelligent person that wanted to give college students a good show.
“A lot of comedians don’t want to play colleges, and you seem amenable to playing colleges,” he said. “ And I said yeah. I think that college students need to laugh just as much as anyone else.”
Miller said he enjoys performing at colleges because it allows him to change up his act and test out his material.
“I think it’s important to be like, ‘Is my material so universal that even college kids will get it?’ I also like doing shows that aren’t like my act. My act is pretty heavy, and it works better for people who spend $20 or $30 on tickets.”
His philosophy of comedy is: “It’s comedy, it’s supposed to be for anyone that can benefit from having a laugh.”
Wayans Jr. was the calm before the storm. From his cool and laid-back demeanor, I expected his show to be the same.
“I’ll do family stuff. I’ll do observational humor and some R-rated stuff. It’ll be nice, a breath of fresh air,” he said.
I should have listened to him when he slipped in the words “R-Rated.” If Wayans Jr. was the calm, then his and Miller’s show was the storm.
The show began with Wayans Jr.’s act. He smoothly transitioned from his opening remarks and warm-ups into a story about his stoner brother and then into another one about him having sex with a midget.
Now, it might seem that the act couldn’t get more shocking than that, but it did.
After this story, he went on to talk about how he hated having the same name as his father because when his mother screamed “Damon” from the bedroom, he walked in on his parents having sex.
Damon’s act, although it sounded like a whirlwind of raunch, was actually quite refreshing. It was honest, playful and really got the audience laughing, but I don’t think anything could have prepared us for what was going to happen next.
From the interview I had with him, I thought Miller had planned an act. He was going to try to do a portion of his HBO set he had just filmed.
“I talk about the release of death anxiety, time theory, mathematics, reason, truth and science being renounced in favor of methos. I talk about a positive connotation on suicide, morbidity and morality being relative.”
From what I heard, I thought it was going to be more message-based and a balance of serious topics and his high energy style. That is not what we got. What we experienced was a tornado of emotion, riffing, ad-libbing, physical comedy and yelling. Lots of yelling.
He started with messing with the interpreters, spending five minutes making them say, “Hey girl, I’m the best.” He riffed a whole bit with both of the interpreters that he used throughout the show.
He then proceeded to ad-lib his entire show until about an hour in when he finally started with his material.
He did get to his material and he did accomplish that. But before he did, his show consisted of him screwing with the interpreters, pouring water on himself and fighting with the tech crew and lights.
He even tried to unplug the lights for “good measure” as he had said. He ended up unplugging his mic. Miller then threw it down and started walking over the entire venue screaming jokes at everyone. The audience bought into this, and some people started yelling, “Huh? I can’t hear you!”
Eventually, Miller got up on stage, looked at all of us and asked, “Do you guys ever have nightmares?” That’s when he finally got into his act, which, although it was hilarious itself, was dull in comparison to the amazing material he had been ad-libbing the entire time.
“I don’t understand how he just came up with that on the spot,” said Sahana Raju, a freshman computer science major. “He connected everything back in the end and he didn’t say anything without a purpose. It was amazing!”
Kaitlin Leung, a freshman computer engineering major, had similar thoughts.
“He was talking gibberish half the time, but it actually made sense,” Leung said. “He was riffing a lot of the show, but it fit into his overall plans and story.”
T.J. Miller managed to shock the audience with his high energy and amazing ability to make up everything on the spot.
“I’m very happy performing at colleges because I think people need to check out for an evening,” Miller said. “And they don’t have to do it at a place like Bentley’s.”
Featured Photo Credit: Moments after tearing his own mic from its input, TJ Miller decides to confront the audience on their turf. (Joe Duffy/Bloc Photographer)
Monica Pizzo is a freshman journalism major and can be reached at mpizzo@terpmail.umd.edu.
Poetry can confront the racism that white supremacy pins on every black life, esteemed poet and 2016 MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine told a sold out audience at The Clarice late Thursday.
The free event included poetry readings, a conversation with Sheri Parks, an associate dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, and a question-and-answer period. The theme of white supremacy and the struggle to dismantle it was pervasive throughout.
“Through language we can bring back … what is actually real, rather than this constructed society where white dominance has to stay in place at all costs,” Rankine said.
The poet discussed how consistent racism is throughout black life, whether you are as successful as Michelle Obama or lose a loved one to police violence like Tamir Rice’s mother.
To inspire one poem in her acclaimed poetry anthology Citizen: An American Lyric, Rankine asked a friend about a time racism interfered with an everyday activity, Rankine said. The friend told her about how she went to an appointment with a new therapist who ordered her to get off of the property before finding out she was the patient.
Rankine also showed a video that interposed her narrated poetry with police officers’ brutal treatment of African Americans.
“When I watch those videos, what I’m seeing, what I’m paying attention to is white rage,” Rankine said later in the event. “And unfortunately we can’t look at that without seeing the death, but if we don’t look at the rage, when are we gonna be able to dismantle it? Because right now, according to the justice system, it doesn’t exist.”
The university hosted Rankine as the first guest of this season’s “WORLDWISE: Arts and Humanities Dean’s Lecture Series.”
“We invite speakers to engage in thought-provoking lectures and conversations about their ideas, their bodies of work, the stories that inform our understanding of what it means to be worldwise in the 21st century,” said Bonnie Thornton Dill, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities.
It was also the keynote event for “Democracy Then and Now: Citizenship and Public Education,” a two-month initiative that examines the role of public education.
There were approximately 200 attendees, many of them being student fans.
“I’m starstruck right now … so please forgive me if I run on,” one student said before asking Rankine a question.
Rankine’s work includes five poetry books and two plays. Citizen: An American Lyric was a New York Times bestseller and 2014 National Book Award finalist. She is currently the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University where she is teaching a course called Constructions of Whiteness.
“I think of Rankine as our 21st century’s fearless poet, unsettling the territory between poetry and social critique, calling into question the possibilities for what poetry can be,” Professor Mary Helen Washington said, introducing Rankine.
During the conversational period of the event, Parks said she felt obliged to ask how Rankine felt upon learning that she won the MacArthur “Genius” Grant last week.
Rankine turned to the audience and smiled.
“I was happy,” she said.
The audience erupted in laughter and applause.
Featured Photo Credit: Poet and recent recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant Claudia Rankine meets with students in the special events room of McKeldin. When discussing the title of her book, Citizen: An American Lyric, Rankine stated, “You don’t have to be my friend, but we are here together and we’re here together in this capacity … How much can we rest on that label? Are there tow Americas in terms of citizens?” (Cassie Osvatics/Bloc Photographer)
Teri West is a junior journalism major and can be reached at teri.west.14@gmail.com.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday evening, McKeldin Mall was teeming with activity.
Facing due east from the sundial in the middle of the mall, performers practiced with stringed objects that seemed mechanically similar to yo-yos, but were clearly something else. Close to them, a group of girls stood testing their skills with light-up hula hoops.
Along the walkway leading from the sundial to the prominent fountain at the eastern locus of the mall, a large group of students milled about. They spoke amongst themselves gregariously, often stopping by a stand directly overlooking the fountain.
The evening’s amber sunlight bathed the scene in a sort of picturesque elegance that was almost too much to bear. I sauntered over to the grassy area where the acrobats were practicing and lay down on my back with my face toward the heavens, taking in the ambiance for a few minutes.
The stage was set for the second iteration of Lunar Lanterns, an event hosted annually by the university’s Vietnamese Student Association.
The idyllic vibe itself did little to communicate what the intent or purpose of this event was, but after some research, I have the following to report:
Lunar Lanterns can be thought of as a campus adaptation of the Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival. The Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month (roughly late September to early October) and commemorates the rice harvest.
In Vietnam, the festival is an especially joyous occasion for children, who are given treats like Mooncakes to enjoy and spend the moonlit evening putting on performances with lanterns.
Event organizer Brian Tran, a junior biochemistry major, gave me a concise run down of the evening’s significance.
“Basically, this is a social event in which the focal point involves sending lanterns down the fountain of the mall. Everybody releases their lanterns into the fountain at 8:00 [p.m.]. We’ve got lanterns for sale at the counter over there, and the proceeds go to this charity called Catalyst that helps fight human trafficking in Vietnam.
“Other than that, it’s just an opportunity to come out and enjoy some bubble tea, snacks, live performances and hang out with friends.”
Things officially got underway when some of the performers on the plot of grass by the sundial descended onto the brick paving with their stringed accoutrements in hand. These, I later found out, were called poi—the performers were in fact part of the UMD Juggling Club.
Some of the students who’d been milling about before took a seat by the sundial to observe the complex interplay between physics, juggler and gravity. The weighted ends of the poi whooshed through the air like nunchaku — and no, this wasn’t a scene from Enter the Dragon, but it was still cool to watch.
A string of other performances followed. There was an a cappella duet, a singer-guitarist, an interpretive dance routine and more. In between performances, an emcee from the VSA would hype up the crowd, commanding:
“When I say ‘lunar,’ you say, ‘lanterns!’”
“Lunar!”
“Lanterns!”
“Lunar!”
“Lanterns!”
“It’s lit!”
This last quip was met with laughter and applause. Because, as you may suspect, being ‘lit’ was literally the Mo. of this event.
As the evening wore on, the sun gradually descended behind the apex of McKeldin Library, to be seen no more. The sky’s amber and deep blue were replaced by a deeper blue with streaks of silver. Bubble tea flowed like the water in the mall’s fountain as students carried on with the evening’s events.
Featured Photo Credit: Glowing lanterns decorate McKeldin in the moonlight. (Heather Kim/Bloc Photographer)
Horus Alas is a senior philosophy major and can be reached at heliocentricnonchalance@gmail.com.
An evening rich in culture and full of exciting performances, the university’s Vietnamese Student Association’s Lunar Lantern event was one that brought a sense of joy to everyone in attendance. The event was held to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, a holiday looked forward to by many youths in Vietnam because of its enchanting lanterns, tasty snacks, and family oriented mood.
VSA did not disappoint as they sold both colorful handmade lanterns and beautiful water lanterns, along with delicious snacks, including bubble tea and fortune cookies. Under the moonlight with nearly perfect weather, students assembled to release their water lanterns on to McKeldin’s fountain, resulting in a surreal sight. The night concluded with good vibes and a feeling of community as everyone felt that they were a part of the Terp family.
Featured Photo Credit: Water lanterns after they have been released. (Heather Kim/Bloc Photographer)
Heather Kim is a freshman journalism major and can be reached at heather.kim42@gmail.com.
Exquisite, engulfed in the fabric of stars and enriched by the lands she touches, Ethiopian American performer Meklit Hadero, or simply Meklit, has done more in her life than people will ever dream of.
Before her performances at The Clarice Performing Arts Center on Oct. 14, The Writer’s Bloc interviewed her as she waited for her flight from San Francisco to D.C. We talked about the state of the world and what it means to be an immigrant and have a hybrid identity.
Meklit: Everything is going well! I mean, how should I say this? My life, is kind of constantly about performing, meeting with different communities and doing all kinds of workshops with young people.
For example, after the performance at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles, I went up to Seattle to perform at the Ethiopian communities in Seattle at their annual event, and then now I am headed over to you guys, and then next week, I am going to Manchester to do a program with pretty much all of the youth music programs in Manchester. We are going to do a big collaborative song process and culminate it with the performance with the BBC Philharmonic.
So, it’s going great! But it’s also kind of just, oh this is what life is, music, thinking about questions that music helps us to ask and meeting with different communities and young people all over the country and the world.
M: Yes, there are other ways. Probably the biggest thing is cooking; it is really important to me. It’s funny, but sometimes I think coffee is, as well. Every time I am making coffee sometimes, I roast it in the traditional Ethiopian style, and it’s just one of these acts that feels very connected and rooted.
I think it’s about eating well but it is also about slowing down. Life is extremely, extremely busy, but it is important to slow down, so food and coffee are a big part of my self-care. I work-out every day; I have to because, as my mother says, I jump around for two hours onstage for a living. So, if I don’t work out, I can’t possibly have enough energy to do that. I also meditate, and that’s important because, in a way, it’s kind of about music, as well, because when you are onstage, you’re constantly battling your inner dialogue you know?
Everybody has an inner dialogue and it can be from “Is it ok?” to like, “I really wanted to change that horn part and I didn’t do it,” and then suddenly, it doesn’t matter what the inner dialogue is; as soon as it gets going you are outside of the music and it’s important to have some kind of practice that can help you stay grounded in the moment. So, it’s kind of like everything that I do to help me practice music is also helps me in life, so they’re kind of the same thing.
M: When you listen to someone’s music, you are kind of listening to the inside of their mind. So, in a way it is about seeing the dimension. I hope that when someone listens to my music, you do get the dimension that I kind of exist in, which is something that is very hybrid and intersectional, but I try very much — I feel that those three cities in particular, I call them my “sonic homelands.” They’re my sonic touch zones and they are absolutely the spaces that have influenced the sounds that I am trying to put out into the world. It is all about those three places coming together. Music comes from life.
M: Absolutely! I think when I was deciding what this body of music would be called, I was thinking of, kind of what we were talking about before, is this idea of the intersection of sonic homelands but the idea of it being a very American experience. That in fact, our country, this country, is build on those intersections. Whether it was migration by choice, or forced migration, whether it was the African-American traditions of music that have become blues, jazz and hip-hop but born out of a experience that stems from slavery, that is still migration.
So, I think the experience of migration, you know, if you are not Native American, you’re an immigrant from somewhere, you are from somewhere else. You found your roots here, you renamed, reimagined a culture here, so that’s a very American story. So I was thinking about the ways that as we travel, as we go through those ships and those migrations, you know how do we take responsibility for what assimilation means? How do we choose our hybridity, how do we create the culture that we want to see as 21st century citizens?
In a time when migration is going to become a greater part of our international story, whether it’s because of everything that is happening now politically or whether it’s because of climate change, which people are saying that climate change is going to create huge migrations of people in the future. This is going to be affecting culture. So, the idea of “This Was Made Here” is me saying, “Hey, this music that I want to create, this music is about Brooklyn, it’s about San Francisco, Ethiopia, is inside one human being.” I want to make music that could only have come from that experience.
M: But also, that everybody — millions of people — will be going through the same thing, and they are going to have different answers to those questions. I really can’t wait to hear what those answers are like. What are they going to sound like?
M: I don’t think that I integrate the chaos into the music. What I am trying to do is to create a sound that expresses the perspective that is very open arms; it is very open arms and a wide perspective that includes a lot of people, and I am also, in a way, for me music is about joy and it’s about the validity of your experience and it’s also about the ability to draw strength from a narrative that is very outside a mainstream narrative. But it’s also about how are we going to get through this with our spirits intact? We gotta sing it and we gotta dance through it and we have to be together through it and that’s what music is.
There’s a song on the record, a song on the body of music that’s called “You Are My Luck,” and at first, this song is very much describing a love situation, so like this person “you are my luck” so this person has brought me joy and all of these things. But then at the bridge, the idea changes and it becomes about the fact that these are monsoon storm times and I don’t want to find shelter from the intensity in love but through love, I want to have the strength to do what I need to do in the world, to deal with it. Let’s draw strength from our joy so we can do what we need to do to survive and thrive through the chaos.
M: Know that you are not alone. Know that your hybridity and through your knowing multiple ways of thinking and ways of being in the world, like that’s actually a huge offering in the world; it’s not something that makes you weaker, it’s something that makes you stronger. It’s that kind of thinking that we need to get us through what we are all going to be facing in this crazy 21st century so you’re not alone, you are the way of thinking that we need.
Featured Photo Credit: Meklit and Picasso Guitar 2. Photo by Ibra Acke. Artistic Direction Wangechi Mutu.
Karla Casique is a sophomore journalism major and can be reached at karlacasique@hotmail.com.
By Gabe Fernandez
Two University of Maryland students are looking to bring the school’s first ever record label to campus.
Mike Houser, a senior mechanical engineering major, and Nick Arnold, a junior communications major, met last semester at a WMUC Radio Third Rail, a weekly concert hosted in the radio station’s live room, and found they shared a common skillset and passion for the more technical side of music.
“I always knew I wanted to do something with music so I took a bunch of audio and musical engineering classes in case the music I was making at the time didn’t take off,” Arnold said. “When Mike mentioned he wanted to start this record label, we linked up and that’s how we got started.”
The duo also discovered that a lot of their knowledge in the field of audio engineering and music business came from hands-on experiences. Arnold got his start from a DJ business in high school while Houser started when he was appointed the station manager at WMUC his freshman year. Both wanted to take the music technical skills they had both learned over the years and apply them in a larger context.
“We thought it’d be cool to start a club where we could sort of benefit the surrounding community and teach people some of the skills we’ve learned over the past couple years,” Houser said.
As a result, the Terrapin Record Label was born. The college record label would not be the first of its kind on a national scale. Both Temple and Drexel University in Philadelphia each have their own campus record labels. Temple’s label, Bell Tower Records, even produced the first album of one of Houser’s favorite bands, Mo Lowda & the Humble.
Both Houser and Arnold hope the Terrapin Record Label can fill a void the university has in terms of music business and music talent.
“The University of Maryland has an extremely vacant spot in terms of music business and I think this could be a very beneficial club to help fill that void,” Houser said.
“There’s a lot of potential and talent here at UMD to fill that void that’s not just in music business, but also in artist culture,” Arnold said. “We need to utilize the community and energize them to get their music out and bring attention to the shows in and outside of campus to help make artists as big as they should be.”
Much like the record labels at other universities, the Terrapin Record Label would look to provide artists with assistance in recording, promotion and other managerial services, according to the two founders. Sometimes the assistance can even come in the next step of artist development as Arnold explained.
“I’ve met a handful of people already who have all of these songs and I’ve asked, ‘So what are you going to do with these?’ And they say, ‘Oh i’m not sure, I just have them here,’” Arnold said. “They have all of this great music on their computer when there are so many people who would love to hear it and see them performed.”
They also want to create space for those who want to be involved in the organization as non-artists who are just interested in gaining experience in music industry-like tasks.
“There will be a fairly good number of people needed for promotional material,” Houser said. “There will also be a need for people who are good with videography, photography and graphic design and to make sure that people get branded correctly.”
“There are a lot of different areas we’re trying to cover for involvement but the idea is mostly development,” Arnold said. “In every aspect of this label, we want to open it up and have it more be a learning, give-and-take experience for everyone, not just the artists, but also the members.”
Ultimately, both Houser and Arnold have made it clear their goal is not to get everyone on campus to listen to one genre, even one label. They just want to make a meaningful impact in the musical community of College Park and the surrounding D.C. Metro area in terms of support.
“The dream is that everyone on campus at least knows that we can be a source that artists and bands can go to,” Arnold said. “You know where to go if you want to get a record done and recorded. We want to keep people in the know that this is a thing that exists that will help artists as much as it can and if we could do that, that’d be great.”
“For the record label itself I want to support local artists who are really talented but might not have the funds to go forth and produces a record and advertise themselves or have the knowledge base to put something together,” Houser said. “Five years from now, I hope we’re still getting bands and artists from the university and the larger DMV area, and promoting bands and artists in a way they couldn’t have done themselves.”
For any questions about becoming a part of Terrapin Record Label as a member or as an artist, email Mike at president.trl@gmail.com or Nick at vicep.trl@gmail.com.
Featured Photo Credit: Mike Houser (left) and Nick Arnold (right) hope to create the first on-campus record label at the University of Maryland. (Gabe Fernandez/Bloc Photographer)
Gabe Fernandez is a senior journalism major and can be reached at gfernandez@umd.edu.
This past Thursday, Jai Wolf and Gryffin played at Ritchie Coliseum as part of the Student Entertainment Events’ (SEE) Fallapalooza. Opening for the two artists was Tealeavs, a student performer who won this year’s opener mixing competition.
Fans came dressed in varying Halloween costumes, excited to start the weekend with music and dancing. Though the floor did not fill up, those fans that arrived went all out with costumes and energetic singing and dancing.
Gryffin came onstage to a crowd eager to dance and gave them just what they wanted. He slowly built up the music, harnessing the crowd’s energy before letting them loose with an explosion of sound that fluctuated and grew throughout the set.
Gryffin accompanied his remixes with live guitar and drums, making explosive and exaggerated movements to capture the audience’s attention. A colorful light show accompanied his set, adding interest and an element of excitement to the show.
Gryffin closed out his set by playing his own original songs “Heading Home” and “Whole Heart.” He left the crowd excited, ready to keep dancing and eager to hear the headlining artist.
As the lights in the room went dark, Jai Wolf came on stage to massive cheers from the audience. The anticipation in the crowd was palpable as the room waited for the music to begin again.
With an explosion of strobe lights and electric sound, Jai Wolf’s music immediately had the crowd jumping and cheering. Colorful images on the screens in the background provided an extra element to the show, giving it a more exciting and dreamlike feeling.
This was one show the audience won’t forget.
“Fallapalooza was unlike any concert I’ve ever been to,” said freshman marketing major Alexandra Stifelman. “Strangers became friends and I had a blast dressing up and dancing with everyone!”
Gryffin and Jai Wolf are both currently on headline tours, making this show a special event on their journeys.
Featured Photo Credit: Tealeavs sings along to the music while he mixes songs. (Emma Riley/Bloc Photographer)
Emma Riley is a freshman multi-platform journalism major and can be reached at emma13811@gmail.com.
This is a party you don’t want to miss.
From Nov. 4-11, The Clarice’s Kogod Theatre will be transformed to a speakeasy from the late 1920s. The set, complete with a functioning bar, is designed to include audience members in the performance of The Wild Party.
“The audience is sitting in the club, and the whole club is our space, so we’re using all of it,” said Morgan Scott, who portrays Black. “We’re walking around the room and we’re sitting on the stairs and we’re moving through the audience in certain scenes … so it’s really, really exciting.”
The cabaret-style production is one of the reasons this version of The Wild Party is different from any other.
Directors Alvin Mayes and Scot Reese tailored this script to center around four main characters: Queenie, Burrs, Black and Kate. To do so, they eliminated every set other than the speakeasy, enhanced some of the songs and added some character development, Mayes said.
“The idea of it is we didn’t just want to do another musical; we wanted to do a musical that’s going to enhance the training and enhance the experiential elements for our students,” Mayes said.
The Wild Party is based on an epic poem that was written in the 1920s and has since inspired other works, including movies and two musicals.
Monica Albizo said part of her preparation for her role as Queenie was watching renditions of the show.
“I watched versions of the show before I even auditioned just to get a feel for what it was actually about,” Albizo, a junior in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, said.
However, Scott, a senior TDPS student, said he tries not to watch other performances, especially avoiding any videos of his character.
“I really try to make it my own and not follow anything that anyone else does,” Scott said. “I definitely try not to watch videos becauses it really gets in your mind and you’ll end up sneaky doing things that they do that you don’t want to because you don’t want to do someone else’s portrayal of a character.”
Outside of the 40 rehearsal hours each week, the cast does extra preparation and studying of their characters, their role in the story and the time period the musical is set in.
Something that helps Scott is creating an adjective star. He comes up with five key adjectives about his character, picking two that are polar opposites. For Black, Scott’s two opposing adjectives were manipulative and sensitive.
One of the activities done as a cast was creating fables, which is telling the story from each character’s point of view and then reading them back to each other.
“It was really interesting seeing what Queenie’s version of the story is and what my version of the story is and what the other versions were because it’s all the same story, it’s just very specific,” Scott said.
When researching the time period, the students were able to make connections between the 1920s and the present, relating goings-on in the world at both times and applying those experiences to their characters.
In the end, the show speaks to larger issues outside of singing and dancing, Albizo said, but is still both visually and musically stunning while getting the audience involved.
“I don’t come into the show until the sixth number,” Scott said. “The first time I saw them all do it [during rehearsal], I thought, ‘Oh, my god! I wanna come to this party! This is so exciting.’”
Featured Photo Credit: Feature photo courtesy of Geoff Sheil and The Clarice, featuring Morgan Scott and Molly Boyle.
Maya Pottiger is a senior multi-platform journalism major and can be reached at mpottige@terpmail.umd.edu.
Theatre aficionados, history buffs, lovers of great show tunes, this one’s for you: The Wild Party is running at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center from Nov. 4-11, and it is not to be missed.
From the minute I sat down at Tuesday night’s show, presented by the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, I knew it would be a refreshing change from traditional drama performances.
“We wanted it to be completely immersive,” said Alvin Mayes, co-director of The Wild Party and director of undergraduate studies for TDPS. “We wanted the audience to be involved in the performance, we wanted the actors to interact with the audience in as many ways as we could feel possible.”
Immersive it was, as the 1920s speakeasy decor made audience members feel as though we had been transported back in time to Prohibition. Some were even seated in front of a bar, next to a small stage, which allowed for interaction with the actors and added to the illusion that we were actually patrons of “Queenie’s Nightclub,” as was scrawled on the walls of the room.
The opening number, “Queenie was a Blonde,” gave a Greek chorus-style summary of who exactly Queenie was: a spirited, beautiful dancer who had taken many a lover until she fell under the spell of a man called Burrs — who, it was quickly revealed, was not so charming, after all.
It was hard to tear your eyes away from the explosive couple, played by junior and senior theatre majors Monica Albizo and Kyle Travers, respectively, who portrayed their characters with impeccable timing and dramatic, yet not over the top, deliveries.
The rest of the cast soon filed in for the titular extravaganza during the number “What a Party” as Queenie and Burrs’ esteemed guests – a lesbian, a minor, a hooker and others- introduced themselves to the audience.
The arrival of one guest, Kate, made quite a scene, as the thinly-veiled hostility between her and Queenie became apparent. Aryssa Burrs, a senior vocal performance and music education double major, masterfully played the role, her soaring vocals heightening the drama that ensued in all her numbers.
The main source of contention between the characters arose after Kate introduced her friend, Black, to the guests of the party. Black, played by senior theatre performance major Morgan Scott, was immediately taken by Queenie’s beauty and wished to rescue her from her abusive relationship with Burrs.
“I don’t really think of it as me playing a lead, I just kind of think of telling the story and what my part in the story is,” Scott said.
“It’s really awesome to just be more in touch with humanity and different sides of people…making the person three-dimensional and human. They have their flaws, they have their strengths,” he said when asked about his favorite part about performing.
Black’s expressive ode to Queenie, “Poor Child,” was just one of many outstanding musical numbers. My personal favorites? Madelaine’s, the lesbian, lament about her love life, “An Old-Fashioned Love Story,” a hilariously tragic tale brought to life by junior theatre major Whitney Geohagan.
The rowdy ensemble scene “A Wild, Wild Party” was another highlight, featuring a catchy song that will stick with you long after the play’s end.
The second act of the play felt brief, but was action-packed as the love triangle between Burrs, Queenie and Black came to a head. Albizo’s stunning vocals and theatricality took the deservedly spotlight during the last few numbers as Queenie was forced to make her decision.
The conclusion, although unsurprising, did not fall flat, which was a testament to the raw emotion present in the performances of our three main leads.
“The cast is an amazingly talented and great group of people that I’ve felt the most comfortable around of any cast that I’ve worked with in this department,” Albizo said.
That chemistry within the group, and the sheer talent of the entire cast, makes The Wild Party a must see – perhaps even more than once.
Featured Photo Credit: The cast of The Wild Party, courtesy of Stan Barouh and The Clarice.
Setota Hailemariam is a freshman journalism major and can be reached at setotah98@gmail.com.
By Uyen Nguyen
Opera The Rape of Lucretia is timeless, especially today, as it resonates with 2016’s rape culture and the politically charged atmosphere.
The Maryland Opera Studio graduate program’s fall production will be a white opera on the The Rape of Lucretia.
A white opera has minimal scenery and props, and the performers wear different shades of white, the opera’s conductor and director of the Maryland Opera Studio, Craig Kier said. It gives the audience a chance to focus on the story and performers, rather than on the intricate set.
Benjamin Britten wrote the The Rape of Lucretia in 1946. Although it took place in ancient Rome, the Maryland Opera Studio’s production will be told from the “Christian perspective as though they are in modern times,” Kier said.
The Rape of Lucretia is about a woman who was raped by her husband’s friend named Tarquin while her husband was away – the two men were Roman warriors. Tarquin threatened to murder Lucretia and her servant and tell everyone he killed them after finding them together in bed if she didn’t comply while he raped her.
After Tarquin left, Lucretia was ridden with shame and committed suicide, but not before telling her husband, Collatine, who avenged her death by carrying Lucretia’s bleeding body through the streets of Rome, which caused the enraged citizens to drive Tarquin and his family out of the country.
The opera will consist of a male and female chorus and a chamber orchestra. The male chorus narrates what happens to the men in the story and the female chorus narrates what happens to the women, said Alexis Aimé, a music school graduate student who will be playing female chorus.
“As a woman, especially, it’s been a very trying and difficult time,” Aimé said. “When Britten wrote this in 1946 … it was prevalent then and still prevalent now, with the Stanford rape case, [today’s] rape culture” and a presidential candidate who spoke about sexually assaulting women.
Kier said the opera can “give [the audience] a safe place to explore these things” by giving them a chance to see conversations about sexual assault that they otherwise might not have been able to have before.
When speaking with everyone who has worked on this piece, we realized that “all of us know someone who has experienced sexual assault in [his or her] life,” he said, and there should be consequences for the abuser.
Speaking on how the opera can be relatable for “everyone” and shows a basis of humanity, Aimé said, “[It’s] just a mirror of our own lives, everything is just heightened to an extreme.”
It’s great to be able to bring art to life, she said, adding, “A lot of hard work has been put into this show, and I think everyone will see … we want to hear what everyone else thinks; it’s for everyone, not just for people who like opera.”
There will be a pre- and post-show talks called “Lucretia Speaks” about the story and how it relates to today’s time.
Due to the intensity of the show – if any audience members are “triggered by it,” Kier said – the University of Maryland’s CARE to Stop Violence counselors will be in the lobby of The Clarice to bring awareness to sexual violence and allow people to sign the university’s Rule of Thumb pledge against sexual assault.
Opening day for the opera is 7:30 p.m. Friday. Other performances will be at 3 p.m. on Sunday, 7:30 p.m. on Monday and the final show will be on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for the show are sold online and at The Clarice Performing Arts Center. Tickets cost $10 for students, $25 for the general public and $20 if you have a NextLEVEL membership, according to The Clarice’s website.
Featured Photo Credit: The feature photo shows Tshegofatso Moeng as Tarquinius and Sarah Best as Lucretia, courtesy of Geoff Sheil and The Clarice.
Uyen Nguyen is a junior journalism major and can be reached at u.nguyen13@gmail.com.
Ocean
Poojah Ganesh
Broadcast Journalism Alumnus
Life is an ocean,
unclear but shallow,
deep enough
to engulf in.
Water is thick
yet, life is continuous,
flowing precariously
without a moment’s waste.
Purity is blinded
by the acid in clarity.
Silence is forgiven
in the arcane depths
of the floor.
Treading off-balance,
my feet are too wet,
too used to
the burn of salt.
The delectable waves
sweep me into
their arms,
cradling and taking me
further and further
from the
realm of unfathomable reality,
secretly taking me
far from where I
should be.
Away and away
I sway somberly
to nowhere.
Sometimes I am
lucky and sometimes
I escape the
hands of danger.
The water gets too
comfortable to sit in,
too mesmerizing to leave
that reality is just a
cloud above me.
Too high,
too unreachable.
Reality thunders down
on me,
casting dark shadows
and worries of the future.
At times I drift,
not knowing who or
where I am,
or even
when I will touch
the ground and be
able to swim in
this big ocean.
There are too many gaps,
but all over-filled with
the fears of life.
It feels like the air
is being sucked out of me.
It’s like
breathing vehemently
underwater where
it is clear
at the superficial condition,
but really unclear
in the inside.
The pressure builds
and builds like a
possessed force,
ready to consume me,
threatening to drag me
deeper and deeper
to the darkest
and scariest nadirs
of the ocean.
No way up.
Just down, down, down.
Life is no easy swim.
There are no
boats or vests
to hold me up
every time I slip
from the fingers
of picturesque illusions.
The ocean of life
becomes larger
and larger everyday
that sometimes,
I’m scared
I’ll drown.
Featured Photo Credit: Feature photo courtesy of Poojah Ganesh.
By Rosie Kean
Rita Zoey Chin was only 11 when she started running away from her home. Fleeing an abusive father, Chin found herself living on the streets for much of her teenage years.
Chin, an alum of the Masters of Fine Arts program at this university, shared some of her stories from her memoir Let The Tornado Come Wednesday night in Ulrich Recital Hall as part of the Writers Here and Now series. Alum Hayes Davis also read several poems from his book Let Our Eyes Linger, which was published in April of this year.
Chin read her excerpts sitting down with her right leg folded up on her chair. She said that she wanted to sit rather than stand on the stage because “it feels more intimate and I’ll be less fidgety.”
In a soft-spoken voice, Chin vividly narrated scenes from her rebellious and troubled youth, telling the audience of when she hitched a ride from some men she met in a 7- Eleven when she was just 13 years old, and her time spent in detention centers and rehab facilities.
“She described it so that you felt like you were with her,” said sophomore general business major Maggie Keller.
Most importantly, though, Chin detailed the moment when her life began to change. She was walking by a field in the middle of a lightning storm. No rain, no thunder—just lightning, Chin said. In that field, Chin saw galloping horses, producing thunder with their hooves.
“I can’t move,” Chin read. “Maybe because this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Chin spontaneously decided to ride horses, which became an integral part of helping her cope with her future anxiety.
“Strangely, getting on top of a large animal when you feel like fleeing yourself, it helps,” Chin said.
Chin said she decided to write her memoir after experiencing panic attacks as an adult. Not knowing how to handle these sudden attacks, Chin tried going to a bookstore to find a book that could help her. However, she did not find any books related to her situation.
“There were a lot of self-help books,” Chin said. “But no books that just talk to you, like ‘Hey, I know how you feel.”
After working through her panic attacks, Chin decided to write her memoir to help other people with anxiety and panic disorders.
“I wanted to tell my story so other people can see that they can get through it, so I wrote that book,” Chin said.
Chin wasn’t the only writer who shared personal experiences.
Davis read a poem called “Vessel,” which described him scattering his father’s ashes on Island Beach State Park in New Jersey.
Other pieces were inspired before Davis’s father’s passing, like including one about his father teaching him to drive.
Junior neurophysiology major Vivienne Edwards said she admired both Chin’s and Davis’s talents.
“They were incredibly raw. I think it’s incredibly brave that they were able to stand up there and talk about things we instinctively want to press down,” Edwards said.
For Davis, poetry is all about slowing down time.
“What inspires me is poetry’s ability to slow the world down into its incremental moments,” Davis said.
In addition to reading personal poems, Davis also read several poems from the perspective of a literary character — Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
“The narrative is limited by Huck’s limited perspective,” Davis explained.
Davis is also a teacher at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., which is also why he was inspired to create poems that are told from Jim’s perspective.
“The poems are my attempts to, even outside the classroom, get people to notice his character in the book and get people to think about his point of view if they’ve read the book,” Davis said.
Featured Photo Credit: Feature photo courtesy of Brian Stetson on Flickr.
Rosie Kean is a sophomore journalism major and can be reached at vrosekean@gmail.com.
