Question of the Month: What Does UMS Mean to You?
Charlie Hack, a former UMS intern and now first-year student at Columbia University, wrote this description of UMS last year:
UMS (University Musical Society) brings big art to all kinds of people by presenting dazzling music, theater, and dance performances from all over the planet. We are the joint that selects the artists, puts them on a stage, pays them, shows you a little bit about what you’re seeing/hearing/ experiencing/digging, and puts it all together in a nicely-designed season of shows. UMS is a bridge-builder from idea to performance; an Ann Arbor culture machine of sorts, bringing you Grizzly Bear, the Berlin Philharmonic, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Béla Fleck, Baaba Maal, Wynton Marsalis, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and all of the over 6,000 shows that UMS has done in the past 131 years….You walk into one of these performances and emerge a little smarter, a little more whole, and a little more in touch with what it means to be a human being.
We want to know — How do YOU describe UMS? Give it your best shot in the comments area below!
Categories: Living Archive, People Are Talking!
![People Are Talking [and Video Booth]: Einstein on the Beach at Power Center](http://umslobby.org/wp-content/themes/arthemia-premium-old/scripts/timthumb.php?src=/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/EOB-5-by-T-Charles-Erickson1.jpg&w=80&h=80&zc=1)
I totally get what Charlie means by "You walk into one of these performances and emerge [...] a little more whole." There are a quite a few UMS performances that I've seen that I *still* talk about to this day and have influenced how I watch other performances. (I'm continually thinking, "well, I liked that…but not as much as when I saw "X" in Ann Arbor…) And in that mix of things I've seen, there's a small subset of performances — that I never would have seen without UMS — that I would now drop everything for, buy a plane ticket, and go see again, no matter WHERE they were being performed. (I'm thinking Complicite's Elephant Vanishes, From the Earth to the Moon, Noism…) Now if that isn't "coming out of a performance "a little bit more whole," I don't know what is!
"You walk into one of these performances and emerge a little smarter, a little more whole, and a little more in touch with what it means to be a human being." This sums it up so well.
It's incredible to think that in all my college years I've lived just a $5 student ticket and a 10-minute walk away from some of the best music I'll ever hear in my life. Thank you, UMS!