Month: April 2013

Circus Ensemble Performs in Weis Center

By Laura Crowley

Circa, a circus ensemble from Australia, performed in front of a full audience in the Weis Center on March 28. For those familiar with circus performances, it is clear that the Circa ensemble displayed a more contemporary style of acrobatic and tumbling sequences.   During their 65-minute performance, seven of the 22 dancers of the group wowed the audience with their light-speed hula hoop twirling, stacks of dancers 15-feet high and intimate slow dances.

The ensemble is led by Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz, whose  “work has been seen in 24 countries, across five continents by over 500,000 people,” according to the group’s website.

“Daredevil acrobatics, aerial dance, physical theatre and surprising contemporary dance combine to make Circa a unique phenomenon,” said Kathryn Maguet, executive director of the Weis Center for the Performing Arts.

Circa wowed the audience with its bold techniques, but unlike other circus performances, it incorporated humor and romance. In the more slow-paced dances, dancers would frequently begin the piece as if the dancers were simply hanging out together off-stage. Similarly, dancers would often pretend to fall and would openly express their exhaustion at times. Such antics helped make the dancers seem more approachable and relatable for the audience members, and while the dancers were certainly professionals, these acts made them seem more human.

Contemporary music and bold lights enhanced the physical beauty of the performance. When the music would turn off during the slower pieces, the cracking of the dancer’s joints could be heard as hundreds stared at their spine-twisting moves. The skill and beauty of the performers has been recognized by the New York Times, who called the group “stunning … exquisite … heart-stopping [and an] astonishing physical mastery.”

“Circa was an amazing experience … something unique and different that I have not seen on the stages of Bucknell before. It’s great to have a variety of art forms and professionals showcasing talents we don’t normally consider,” Kaitlin Marsh ’14 said.

 Somer Dice

Contributing Writer

The student organization Common Ground has begun circulating posters to initiate conversation among students about the divide between Greek and non-Greek affiliates.

The campaign, called “Imagine a Bucknell where … ” is part of a campaign to call attention to groups that “are sometimes taken for granted by the campus community,” said Ana Aguilera Silva ’14 of the Common Ground Staff of 2013.

Student staff members Silva, Xander Vining ’14 and Anthony Gomez ’16 said in an email to The Bucknellian that there is a common feeling among University students that “Greeks are prevalent in our community and dominate the social scene, while Independents are just here to study.”

Common Ground began advertising to draw attention to the program and encourage students to explore cultural and social issues on campus.

“Greeks and Independents aren’t getting along. We’re just trying to show them we’re all the same,” retreat facilitator Stephanie Gonthier ’15 said.

Common Ground is a student-run diversity immersion retreat that takes place during Fall Break and is designed to expand students’ worldviews surrounding issues like gender, race and socioeconomic standing.

The Common Ground staff said that future posters in the campaign will feature tokenism as well as other racial, social and cultural issues at the University.

Jonestown Speaker

Laura Crowley

Prior to the 9/11 attacks, the Jonestown massacre held the record as the deadliest massacre in American history, with 909 fatalities in 1978. Despite this fact, it has received almost no attention in comparison with other tragedies. On April 3, journalist and writer Julia Scheeres discussed her new book “A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown” in her talk “Narrating Jonestown and the Peoples Temple.” This lecture was part of the spring lecture series, Jonestown: Reconsidered, that sheds light onto the tragedy that is brought to the University by the the Griot Institute for Africana Studies.

The Jonestown Massacre resulted after religious leader, Jim Jones, hoaxed hundreds of his church members into moving to Jonestown, Guyana to volunteer their services to locals and to live in an idyllic socialistic society that would be free from the malignant forces of race, class, gender and so forth. The good-doers were soon in trouble, as their charismatic leader, Jim Jones descended into madness and drug addiction, according to Scheeres. The volunteers were prohibited from leaving the intentional community of Jonestown and tortured to the point at which they agreed to suicide.

Scheeres was moved to write her book due to several parallels she saw between her life and the Jonestown story. Scheeres, who grew up in Indiana not far from Jones’ church, was sent to reform school in the Dominican Republic along with her adopted African-American brother. Both Scheeres and her brother experienced what she described as physical and psychological punishment.

Like the survivors of Jonestown, Scheeres struggles with demons from the past. Now an adult, Scheeres has moved to Berkley, Calif. in an effort to seek progressive thinkers like herself. While writing her book, Scheeres sought out several victims and witnessed how each survivor grapples differently with his past. One victim named Stanley is now in a mental hospital because, according to Scheeres, his present life fails to satisfy him as he experience in Jonestown, in which he sought to live in perfect socialistic harmony, as the “heyday” of his life.

In her book, Scheeres retells the story of five of the victims of the massacre, in an effort to present a humanistic view of the massacre. According to Scheeres, this approach “felt good” as she was finally able “to give these people a voice,” people who, she stressed, were not unlike you and me. Too many accounts of the story, she said, focus on Jim Jones and ignore the viewpoint of the hundreds of victims. Unlike other authors of the massacre, Scheeres described Jones as “boring.”

Additionally, Scheeres holds that too many accounts of the massacre view the event as a “mass-suicide” when it was really a “mass-murder.” The victims of the massacre didn’t simply “drink the kool-aid” as most people would argue. Rather, they were subjected to physical and psychological torture until they were so worn down that they consented to suicide. The victims of this massacre, Scheeres said, were not victims of themselves or of convoluted utopian thinking, but were strictly victims of Jones.

While members of the cult suspected Jones may not have been of such reputable character prior to the massacre, the members of the church in Indiana would “dismiss the quirky things he said because he would do so many good things for community.”

“A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown” presents us with a tale of suffering, manipulation, race and tragedy. The lecture series will continue on April 10 with “A Response from Students in the Jonestown Class” in the Terrace room at 7 p.m. and on April 17 with a lecture titled “Jonestown: Yesterday and Today” at 7 p.m. in Hunt Formal.  Stephan Jones, who is one of the children of Jim Jones, will host the latter event.

Choreographer’s Showcase Performance

By Laura Crowley

This weekend, students will perform dances that range from modern, jazz, tap, ballet, hip-hop and Irish dance in the annual Choreographer’s Showcase. This dance performance is directed by Samantha Gosnell ’13 and Catharine Cipolla ’14 and features dances choreographed by students and professors alike.

While professors do contribute to the performances, the event largely reflects students’ personal work.

“The Dance Department allows [dancers] to operate autonomously,” Elyas Deen ’13 said. “They allow us to explore concepts important to us. Yet efforts from other members of the community are still present, as alumni guest artists and dance faculty have contributed to the choreography.”

Choreographers were selected by members of the dance department: Associate Professors of Dance Kelly Knox and Er-Dong Hu, and Assistant Professor of Theatre & Dance Dustyn Martincich.

According to Cipolla, the dancers were selected in an audition that consisted of “a warm up, combinations across the floor and then a final short combination made up of a few phrases of dance.” In the end, students were asked to improvise in order to show off their personal styles. After watching the dancers, students of the Dance Composition class, the student choreographers and faculty members selected dancers. Dancers from the Bucknell Dance Company are not allowed to participate in the dances, yet they do comprise some of the choreographers.

“The dancers in the Dance Composition class have never choreographed at Bucknell before,” Cipolla said.

The novelties in the performance will bring “new ideas, themes and creativity to each of their dances” Deen said. The work that will be presented is a “kinesthetic representation of how we understand our world and relationships with others, from the joyous to the somber,” Deen said.

This representation is extended to costumes that were selected to best match the themes of each dance piece. According to Cipolla, the costumes vary by piece since each dance tells a different story.

“Each semester presents a unique experience because there are different dancers, different choreographers and different motives,” Cipolla said. 

The performance will be held in the Tustin Theatre tonight at 8 p.m. and tomorrow at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 and may be purchased at the Box Office or at the door in cash.

W. Morris Fierman

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives recently passed a measure to privatize the state’s liquor stores and sell wine and spirits permits to private vendors.

The measure, pushed for by Governor Tom Corbett, passed the house without a single Democrat voting in favor. The bill will now move to the State Senate and is likely to be heavily deliberated.

Pennsylvania is home to some of the most stringent controls on the sale of wine and spirits in the nation. The state is one of 18 to maintain a monopoly over the sale of such beverages.

“We do need to modernize our alcohol sales system and there is much we can do to accomplish that without putting 5,000 state workers out of work, putting hundreds of family-owned beer distributorships out of business, increasing alcohol-related deaths and crime and selling a state asset that generates hundreds of millions of dollars for our general fund,” Democratic State Representative Phyllis Mundy said.

Controlling the sale of wine and spirits has provided a steady source of revenue for the cash-strapped state, though Corbett has said that he believes the sale of permits to vendors as well as future taxation would balance out in the end.

Most supporters of privatization claim that controlling wine and spirits sales is not a vital state function and that the current system is outdated.

State Senator Gene Yaw, a Republican whose constituency includes the University, said in an interview with The Bucknellian that the main concern for constituents was convenience. People wishing to purchase alcohol must go to a state-run store, while in most states they can do anywhere alcohol is sold.

Mundy also agreed that her constituency was telling her that convenience was a priority. The measure passed by the House allows for beer distributors to have priority in buying the 1,200 licenses that will become available. Grocery stores, which were given the ability to sell beer in 2010, will be able to stock wine but not spirits or malt beverages.

Washington state passed a measure last year to privatize its liquor stores and consumers have noticed a significant spike in prices due to taxation by the state. Reuters reported that prices were about 10 to 30 percent higher statewide after the privatization plan was carried out.

When asked about the effect privatization would have on prices, Yaw said “I don’t know. I’ve heard both sides of the argument.”

As for the possibility of the bill passing the State Senate in its current form,  “No,” said Yaw.