THE GAMECOCK ♦ Monday, April 14, 2003 5
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DANCE REVIEW
USC dancers capture audience’s imaginations at Spring Gala
2003 SPRING DANCE GALA
Roger Center
★★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆
BY MEG MOORE
THE GAMECOCK
With sparkling stage decor, fairytale
costumes and a story line infused with
spells and sea sprites, USC Dance
Company achieved a magical theatrical
combination Saturday evening, attract
ing everyone from parents to college stu
dents to wide-eyed little girls.
The 2003 Spring Dance Gala opened
with “Visions of the Amazon,” a work in
spired by choreographer and faculty
member Miriam Barbosa’s impressions
of the South African landscape.
The curtain rose to reveal a lone bal
lerina dangling upside down center
stage. In an impressive show of strength
and poise, she slithered to the floor, em
bodying the fluid motion of a snake’s de
scent from the forest canopy to the
ground. She was soon joined on the
sparsely decorated stage by a colorful,
bird-like character, who fittingly
swooped through the foreground, red
wings unfurled.
Tribal figures soon entered the scene
— some plainly clad, others dressed in
leopard skin — interacting with the two
animals and each other in a climactic bat
tle scene that transposed the instinctive
rhythm of the rainforest onto the Roger
Center stage.
The night’s opening performance was
spiked with a few moments of discord, but
it proved to be a spirited aperitif, prepar
ing the audience for the evening’s main
course, “Ondine: The Sea Sprite.”
An original work by the USC dance
program’s Artistic Director Susan
Anderson, “Ondine” chronicles the ad
ventures of an ill-fated group of treasure
hunting sailors.
The crew members and their captain
are tossed overboard amid the throeS of a
violent storm and sink toward a seem
ingly inevitable death beneath the
waves. Yet they are saved by Ondine and
her fellow sea-sprites, who work their
magic to allow the sailors to survive un
der the sea.
Of course, as with any good story in
volving spells and sea-sprites, there is a
catch: The sailors will only be allowed to
live for 24 hours unless impressed with
true love’s kiss.
The crew takes an immediate liking to
Ondine and the sea sprites, yet Griselda,
the resident sea witch, tries to wreck their
revelry. She lures the sailors into the cur
rent-filled depths, alienating them from
the sprites in hopes that the crew’s time
to find true love will run out.
Ondine hurriedly employs the help of
her father, King Neptune, pleading with
him to release the entranced crew and
avenge Griselda. He kills the sea witch
and concedes to the marriage of Ondine
to the crew’s Captain Forsythe, allowing
him and his crew to live freely beneath
the waves.
Although it clearly took place high and
dry within the Roger Center, Saturday’s
production captured the magic of
Ondine’s undersea world with its decora
tive set and glitzy costuming. The wreck
age of the sailors’ ship, its broken mast
and tattered sail rising starkly behind the
onstage action, provided the background
for both of the ballet’s acts. Treasure
chests and glittery riches were crowded
along the base of the ship’s hull, stretching
from one side of the stage in a collage of
vibrant hues.
After the show’s darkened, storm-rav
aged beginning, the stage remained a ca
cophony of color for the rest of the per
formance. Purple sea horses, dazzlingly
dressed sprites and the fluidly shrouded
sea witch shimmered across the stage, the
coloring of their costumes corresponding
with the resplendent stage decor.
The evening’s true gem, however, was
the dancing. The USC Dance Company —
having had to rehearse, work out logis
tics and perform all in one day — came
out in full force. Yet the performance ap
peared genuinely polished and showcased
the assortment of talented dancers that
call the company home.
A bevy of performers had solos and
took their turns in the spotlight while oth
er cast members sat and stood attentively
in the background. Both lead performers
— Misha Eady as Ondine and Evgueny
Tourdiev as Captain Forsythe — main
tained an engaging stage presence, re
maining in character despite minor mis
takes.
USC Dance Company truly delivered a
top-notch program Saturday evening to ef
fectively mark the end of its season with
the Spring Gala. Although there were a few
unison issues among the dancers, the pro
duction otherwise progressed seamlessly,
with sea scene flowing into sea scene amid
Ondine’s underwater world. With its ac
tion-embodying score and decorative back
drop, “Ondine: the Sea Sprite” undoubt
edly captured the audience’s imagination,
engaging the college students in atten
dance and the future ballerinas alike.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com
PHOTOS BY MEG MOORE/THE GAMECOCK
Evgueny Tourdlev, as Captain Forsythe, performed in ‘Ondine: The Sea
Sprite’, at the Koger Center on Saturday night.
SHOW REVIEW
Wesley Willis ‘cuts the mullet’ in Columbia
WESLEY WILLIS
New Brookland Tavern
★★★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆
BY JOSH WATSON
THE GAMECOCK
Diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia, obsessed with
Batman and mullets, Wesley
Willis visited the New Brookland
Tavern for the first time last
Saturday.
Willis, one of the most unique
musicians of his time, mixes his
distinctive voice with the prepack
aged riffs on his Technics KN2000
keyboard.
Early in the evening, Willis
strolled into the Tavern, his black
cowboy hat mounted firmly on
his head. Immediately after sit
ting down at his merchandise
table, he began asking passersby
to purchase his CDs and paint
ings.
Willis stared intensely at ev
erything surrounding him.
He began offering his opinions
on many things, including the
war with Iraq. Willis said, “War
is crazy. People are getting
killed.” While continuing to pitch
his merchandise, he announced
that his show would begin at mid
night.
Kathryn Michaelis, a first-year
English student, acquiesced to
Willis’ forehead — he demanded
from her one of his mighty head
butts. Afterward, he requested
that she chant the word “ra,”
which reappeared later in the
evening during an improvisation
alpart of a song.
Following Angry Atom and
Columbia band Tykes with Guns,
Willis arrived on stage, as
promised, around midnight. The
set started with “Osama bin
Laden,” a song characteristic of
Willis’ style.
During each chorus, he
screamed the terrorist’s name in
what might be considered a kind
of angry tone. As the concert con
tinued, Willis played several of his
standards — most importantly, “I
Whupped Batman’s Ass,” which
chronicles an assault by the caped
crusader that ends in a battle be
tween Willis and the dark knight
himself.
The mantra Willis uses at the
end of every song, “Rock over
London, Rock on Chicago,” was
altered last night to “Rock on
Columbia, South Carolina,”
which sent the audience into a
frenzy.
Midway through his extensive
tour, Columbia genuflected in
front of Wesley Willis, a 6-foot-5,
360-pound schizophrenic artist.
As the evening drew to a close,
Willis’ set ambled through a
strange collection of tributes, in
cluding “Steve Willis,” a song
about his drug-addicted brother,
and “Michael Jackson.”
But he made the audience wait
for the favorite, “Cut the Mullet,”
and when the song finally began,
everything seemed, for a moment,
♦ WILLIS, SEE PAGE 6
PHOTO BY SILVIE MARTINEZ/THE GAMECOCK
The New Brookland Tavern was the place to rock when Wesley
Willis performed there Saturday night.
BOOK REVIEW
Novel pairs message with vivid characters
“SOUTHLAND”
Nina Revoyr
★★★★★ out of
BY BRIAN RAY
THE GAMECOCK
“Southland” is the kind of
thick and intriguing novel you
start reading on a rainy after
noon and stay up all night to fin
ish. This story of race, love and
struggling graduate students
proved itself resilient and fasci
nating even at sunrise when my
brain was running on fumes and
Folgers.
Despite “Southland’s” epic
length, I could only put it down
when I had to pour myself more
coffee.
Nina Revoyr’s epic sprawls
across 60 years and 400 pages of
complicated prose — shifting
from the Japanese internment
camps of World War II to the
Watts riots of 1965 to Southern
California just after the earth
quake of 1994.
The story concerns Jackie
Ishida and her quest for justice.
She stumbles upon an almost-for
gotten murder case that unfolded
in her late grandfather’s grocery
store. Ishida works with one of
the victim’s relatives and at
tempts to contact her grandfa
ther’s friends, who have been
scattered Across the globe since
the ‘60s.
The compelling story involves
three generations and a melting
pot of races. Entire chapters are
spent delving into the sociopolit
ical atmosphere of the Clenshaw
district, one of the first in
America to be integrated. Here,
we see an emphasis on not only
white-black relations, but also
white-black and Japanese
American relations.
The best chapter covers the mil
itary career of Frank Sakai,
Ishida’s grandfather.
After the government has tak
en his home and murdered one of
his relatives, he joins the army to
kill Germans and prove his patri
♦ ‘SOUTHLAND’, SEE PAGE 6
CD REVIEW
Hot Action Cop is
beyond horrible
“HOT ACTION COP”
Hot Action Cop
★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆
BY QUINN STEINBRECHER
THE GAMECOCK
It seems that Atlantic
Records has been doing some
market research on college stu
dents. And, after delving into
the college psyche for a while, it
seems as if it
thinks it’s pro
duced a prod:
uct that ap
peals to the
majority of its
target market.
This product
it has un
leashed upon
us is the new
self-titled Hot Action Cop al
bum.
Hot Action Cop plays Red
Hot Chili Peppers-style alterna
tive funk in an inept, soulless
and imbecilic way. How this
band got a record deal with
Atlantic is more than just a
mystery; it is a complete abom
ination.
These four individuals have
the ability to single-handedly
kill any confidence or hope left
in the major-label music indus
try.
This is by far the worst album
of the year. All potential con
tenders for the title need not ap
ply; no other band can sink to
the depths these four men have
reached. Hot Action Cop is one
of the few bands that can actual
ly kill brain cells without using
high volume levels.
Idiocy abounds on the album
with lyrics such as “Black on
white, white on black/ Used to
love a black chick, she love me
back” from “Goin’ Down On It.”
It gets even worse with lines
such as “You’s so hot, wanna do
it a lot/ Man this girl’s gotta go,
she’s a head fulla crazy,” on
“Don’t Want Her to Stay,”
which is rapped over what be
gins as a Jackson 5 rip-off and
moves to a Spacehog-like cho
rus.
Sound intriguing? It’s not.
The lyrics on the album wander
from barely decipherable vul
garity to unintelligible noises
as on “Doom Boom” when lead
singer Rob Werthner tells the
listener “Everybody talkin’, but
they ain’t makin’ no sense/ they
say... The last
part of this is
missing be
cause there is
no possible
way to under
stand what, if
anything, is be
ing said. And
there is no hu
man being who
should ever have to listen to
this album long enough to make
that call.
Atlantic Records must be held
responsible for something like
this. Instead of putting out mu
sic that is innovative and has a
message, it has opted to sell the
public the mind-numbing
sounds of Hot Action Cop.
Thanks, guys.
If there is anything else that
needs to be said in order for the
public to not buy this album,
pretend that it has already been
said.
No one should own this al
bum.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com
Hot Action Cop’s album
is full of amateurish
music and imbecilic
lyrics. This band can
single-handedly destroy
any hope for the major
label record industry.