Culture

Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham is synonymous with American modern dance, her shadow on the field as strong and deep as the signature contractions her dancers execute. Known for her expressive and angular technique, female protagonists, and...

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Randy Newman

The time: a warm evening this past July. The setting: a Gallo-Roman amphitheater in France during the Nice Jazz Festival. My buddy and I were fortunate to be backstage, but we soon realized it was not the best vantage point from...

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Getting drunk with the RSC

Even if you know nothing about theater, you might guess that the Royal Shakespeare Company, based in London and Stratford-upon-Avon, is to Shakespeare what the Vatican is to the Catholic Church. When it comes to town October...

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Abigail Washburn

Abigail Washburn is one of the G'Earls — a member of the all-girl string band Uncle Earl (which has its roots here in Ann Arbor but now tours the country and wins all manner of tasty awards). One of the strengths of...

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Amilia K Spicer

Amilia K Spicer (the K is silent and has no period, she is quick to note on her website) is a songwriter, pianist, occasional essayist, and sports fan who likes to wear baseball caps. Her 2003 album Seamless found its way to me...

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Joe Reilly

One crisp fall night in 1989, some friends and I wandered into a cramped, stinky bar and stood three feet away from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band that none of us, until that very moment, had ever heard of. We sat right on...

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Magnolia Electric Co.

Jason Molina has lived in so many cities, toured with so many backing musicians, and put out so many albums that it's hard to get your head around him. So here are two places to start. The first is Trials & Errors, the...

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Prachi Dance Theater

With a deliriously gorgeous performance by world-renowned artists the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble in April and news of a professional company devoted to Indian classicism to call our own, it's been a great year for Indian...

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Susan Stewart

When you read the poetry of Susan Stewart, you are going to learn things. Interesting things. Things you never knew you wanted to know. Yes, she is indeed an award-winning critic and Princeton professor, but those occupations...

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NOMO at the Ark

Vampires don’t dance to the music of NOMO — the warm blood of the living courses not through their veins — but pretty much everyone else within, say, 100 feet of this A2-born-and-bred post-Afrobeat horn-heavy band will be...

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Blood Simple

When it was shown at the still fledgling Sundance Film Festival in 1985, Blood Simple astounded audiences around the world with its playfully professional yet grisly homage to the noir and horror film genres. Brothers Joel and...

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Del Castillo

They call this music flamenco rock, and Del Castillo is not the only band in Austin that plays it. Perhaps it got started with El Mariachi, Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's delightful low-budget romp in which a...

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Honus & Me

Hey, kids — if Superman's stunts had your heart in your throat, try watching an actor swinging a real baseball bat at a real pitch on the small Purple Rose stage. He's supposed to miss, but what if he hits the ball...

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Mason Proper

"I knew something like this would happen when their parents started listening to Devo." This was my companion's comment at a recent performance by Ann Arbor's Mason Proper. Only some of the music of these young...

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Vito Jesus Valdez

A lion with a heart of steel wool, a rainstick torpedo, and a lawn mower dog-man appear in the Ann Arbor Art Center's show of exuberant works by Detroit multimedia artist and muralist Vito Jesus Valdez. The nine large,...

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The Cowboy Way

The place: Way out west. The time: Not that long ago. The cast: Blond-haired, blue-eyed Young Man; gray-haired, grizzled Old Man. Young Man: Tell me, Father, what’s “The Cowboy Way”? Old Man: Son, we...

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Patriotic Fare

"Freedom fries" are only the latest manifestation of this country's 150-year-old tradition of linking patriotism with food, as documented in the Clements Library's exhibit Patriotic Fare: Abe Lincoln Tomatoes,...

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