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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1989)
Arts & Entertainment Dancers present impressions By Micki Haller Senior Editor Reviewers across the country have raved about David Gordon/Pick Up Co., which will dance in Kimball Recital Hall Friday at 8 p.m. The group, known for creative ideas and simple natural movements, will perform “Words, Music, Wild life and Weather,” a dance inspired by the western United States. Alert audience members will recognize the Comhusker Football Fight song, “Hail Varsity” and a list of famous Nebraskans. The piece is part of a large dance called “United States.” Each section was initially inspired by a specific region or city in the country. The dancers will also perform “Mozart, Memories and the First Frost,’ ’ based on Minnesota. The western section was commis sioned by 27 patrons in 17 states, including the World On Stage UNL Performance Series at Kimball Hall. Commissioners not only gave money, but written material, music and visual art from their region. “It’s like a collage,” said Cynthia Oliver, a dancer with the company. “We’re not trying to necessarily represent a region ~ we’re not trying to become that region,” she said. Instead, the dance is about impres sions of a region. “I don’t know if David’s been to each and every one of the places represented,” she said. “It’s not like a tour guide to the United States.” Instead, Gordon was able to gather impressions for each place without necessarily spending a lot of time there, she said. She is often able to incorporate text with movement, sometimes with humorous results. For instance, the New England section has the text to a Robert Frost poem spoken, Oliver said. The speaker may stutter or repeat himself, and the movement “stutters” or re peats also. “I know there’s a lot of humor in David’s work,” she said. “I think that’s enjoyable for an audience.” “David has a good sense of tim ing,” she added. Getting a job with the company also involved a sense of liming, she said. “To be honest, I was looking for a job,” she said. Oliver was making the transition from modeling and com mercial dance to concert dance. She looked in the paper, she said, and found the job. Oliver has been with the company for 2 J/2 years. Oliver said she likes being with a group interested in making Gordon’s movement come to life, but she also has a little more freedom than in other groups. “With David, there’s a little more space and time for exploration,” she said. “We have a lot of input. David encourages that often.” Most people stay with the com pany for a fairly long time, she said. She knew of one person who was in the group for seven years. David Gordon and his wife, Valda Setterfield, also dance with 10 other dancers in the group. “We’re an ensemble of working artists,” Oliver said. Although David Gordon/Pick Up has been described as post-modern, Oliver said it’s best to see the per formance without any preconceived notions. “To walk into the theater cold is good enough, unless they’re dance aficionados,” she said. Tickets for the performance are $13 and $9, half-price for University of Nebraska-Lincoln students. Andrew Eccles/AT&T David Gordon/Pick Up Co. Debut album needs rock ‘n ’ roll sound, human touch Hy Matt liii rton Staff Reporter Siren All Is Forgiven Polygram Here’s an idea: Make an album and don’t tape it. Polygram uses this gimmick hop ing a consumer will buy the record. The result is “All is Forgiven,” the debut album by Siren, another pop/ heavy metal band. “All is Forgiven” marks the in iroduction of new recording tech nologies navigating the “primitive” need for rccl-to-reel tape and replac ing it with “superior” capabilities to process the sound directly onto disk. — Consequently, the record has an extremely polished synthesizer/gui tar-based sound that’s blind to a fun damental rock V roll approach. This could be attributed to Haas and Massey, the apparent creative forces behind Siren and their musical back grounds. Haas and Massey concentrate on keyboards and guitars with too much synthesizer meshed with electric gui tar, resulting in a modern, technical sound. In the title cut, former Cheap Trick replacement Jon Brant lays down a heavy bass line that sounds similar to Living Colour’s “Cult of Personal ity.’’ Between the bass lines are fast, unoriginal and plastic guitar riffs. The song also features drum machine noises lacking a personal or human touch. The synthesizers and vocals combine to add a Gothic sound, tacky in a rock ‘n’ roll album. “One Good Lover” is another futile attempt toward a rock ‘n’ roll song. Again, the overbearing synthe sizer ultimately detracts from the guitar riffs. The synthesizer fades out for a moment to highlight Haas’ cli che guitar solo that will disappoint even the most loyal headbangers. Siren uses the ol’ “Jimi Hendrix wah-wah pedal” on “Good Kid.” The opening note sounds vaguely like the intro to “Arc You Experi enced,” but the similarities end there. Overall, Siren appears to be a clas sic example of what is wrong with ' music today. The group is caught up with tech nological breakthroughs and tries tc rely on supposedly hot guitar licks. In the process, the members have made an album lacking fundamental rock ‘n’ roll abilities. In the end, all is forgotten. A Theft breaks new ground in 109 pages By Mark Lage Senior Reporter Saul Bellow A Theft Penguin Books Saul Bellow’s latest book, ‘‘A Theft,” ventures into new territories for one of America’s most celebrated authors, in both subject and form. The novella of 109 pages is Bel low’s longest story to feature a fe male protagonist, and his first book to be released as a paperback original. Clara Velde, the heroine of the story, has a husband (her fourth), who does nothing all day but read paper backs. One day Clara becomes so exas perated with this practice that she grabs his book and hurls it out the window of their apartment building. This scene is detailed in the cover art, and the book being thrown out the window is ‘‘A Theft.” Clara, a high-fashion executive in r—11 1 . 1 ■' 1 l ner lorues, nas me compacuy ana intricately constructed background of any Bellow character. A strictly religious, Midwestern small town upbringing, a coming of age in New York, four rather uninter esting husbands and a lifetime male friend who has remained Clara’s only real love are a few of the things that have made up her struggle. Teddy Reglcr, important behind the-scenes governmental thinker, is Clara’s friend, and he gave her the emerald ring which she treasures above all else. The theft of this ring gives the story its title and main thread. For a writer with a Nobel Prize for Literature, a Pulitzer Prize and three r,—■■■■■.Ml. ,-Tn-g . iiTinr'it.,"." — National book Awards, a paperback original (usually reserved for ro mances, Westerns and bad science fiction) is a puzzling move. In attempting to widen his audi ence, Bellow is apparently running into the same kinds of problems that many of his characters have faced in his stories — mainly, the incredible shrinking attention span of the aver age American. One hundred pages is about as short as Bellow ever gets, and when he couldn’t find any magazine that would lake it, he decided to release it as a paperback. Still, Bellow doesn’t seem en tirely comfortable with the idea, since ‘‘A Theft” takes a couple of -" il digs at ilsclt. Besides being short and in paperback lorm, Bellow’s style is as massively digressive as ever. Un like many of his long novels, the digressions in this story stay away from the philosophical and theoreti cal and frequent Bellow stars like Marx, Freud and Spinoza arc absent. The subplots in ‘‘A Theft” arc of a more intra- and interpersonal na ture, as Clara thinks about her rela tionships with Teddy, her children, her confidante Laura Wong, her hus bands and the baby-sitter who is indi rectly responsible for the theft of the ring. Also important are Clara’s re flections about the ring’s importance as she attempts to get it back. Clara Velde is the latest in a line of convincingly created .vibrant charac - tcrs who move intelligently and deci sively through their difficulties, and who never cease trying to dig as deep within themselves as possible. At $7 her story is an incredible bargain. However, none of this is likely to gain Bellow many new readers, and there probably won’t be much of a rush on this book in the near future. Occasionally, though, someone will wander into a bookstore accus tomed to paying big money for a good new book, sec the new Bellow story in the paperbacks section, blink sev eral limes in disbelief, and then in stinctively suck a copy of the book directly up the nose. Don’t get in the way. PERMANENT PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT Gain valuable job experience while earning extra money. We re currently looking for dependable individuals to conduct market research tele phone surveys. There is no selling involved. 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