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(11/16/07 5:00am)
All-male a cappella groups the Clef Hangers and The Achordants have both enjoyed well-attended concerts in the past, but other than their ability to draw large crowds, the two groups are more different than they are alike.
(10/25/07 4:00am)
The 200-year-old legend of the Bell Witch will come to life on stage today at the Swain Hall Studio 6 Theater.
"The Bell Witch," an original play adapted and directed by UNC master's student, Ariel Gratch, will run through Tuesday.
According to the legend, the ghosts of John Bell Sr.'s tarnished past followed him to Adams, Tenn., where a spirit is said to have haunted the Bell family from 1817 to 1821.
Several conflicting theories attempt to explain why the legendary Bell Witch continued to haunt the family, ranging from John Bell's alleged adulterous behavior to a land dispute with his neighbor.
Gratch chose to focus on the theory that claims the spirit's haunting of John Bell Sr. is on behalf of his daughter, Betsy, who is depicted as an "innocent and helpless" victim of her father's abuse.
The five student actors in the production alternate between portraying members of the Bell family and communicating actual narratives of abuse directly to the audience.
This juxtaposition provides a vehicle for the ways in which people don't talk about abuse, Gratch said.
"Oftentimes, the victim wields much of the power," he said.
When writing the script for "The Bell Witch," Gratch integrated interviews that he conducted this summer with victims in relationships of intimate abuse directly into the play.
"One of the women spoke about how her father would drag her around the house by her hair," Gratch said.
"She said that she wanted to cry because it hurt so much, but chose to laugh instead. The harder he pulled, the more she laughed. She said, 'I wasn't going to let him have power over me.'"
The play melds real life with the legend as the actors use these actual narratives to try to get the Bell family to talk about the act of abuse.
"Everyone has a past," said Amanda Clark, who plays John Bell Sr. "By telling these stories, we may be able to help people escape a past that is troubling them."
"The Bell Witch" is sponsored by the communication studies department in conjunction with Wordshed Productions, a nonprofit theater group whose mission is to produce original films and to adapt works of literature for the stage.
Gratch said the legend's adaptation was, in some ways, made easier by its longevity.
"I think the older it is, and the more versions there are, the more leeway you get with a piece," he said. "So many people tell the story in so many ways that there really is no definitive right or wrong way to tell it."
But the legend's age also brought along difficulties.
"The older the story gets, the more ingrained it becomes in popular discourse," Gratch said.
"What's difficult is trying to pull it out of that discourse to show it from a different angle, and that's where art becomes challenging and interesting."
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(10/24/07 4:00am)
The 200-year-old legend of the Bell Witch will come to life on stage today at the Swain Hall Studio 6 Theater.
"The Bell Witch," an original play adapted and directed by UNC master's student, Ariel Gratch, will run through Tuesday.
According to the legend, the ghosts of John Bell Sr.'s tarnished past followed him to Adams, Tenn., where a spirit is said to have haunted the Bell family from 1817 to 1821.
Several conflicting theories attempt to explain why the legendary Bell Witch continued to haunt the family, ranging from John Bell's alleged adulterous behavior to a land dispute with his neighbor.
Gratch chose to focus on the theory that claims the spirit's haunting of John Bell Sr. is on behalf of his daughter, Betsy, who is depicted as an "innocent and helpless" victim of her father's abuse.
The five student actors in the production alternate between portraying members of the Bell family and communicating actual narratives of abuse directly to the audience.
This juxtaposition provides a vehicle for the ways in which people don't talk about abuse, Gratch said.
"Oftentimes, the victim wields much of the power," he said.
When writing the script for "The Bell Witch," Gratch integrated interviews that he conducted this summer with victims in relationships of intimate abuse directly into the play.
"One of the women spoke about how her father would drag her around the house by her hair," Gratch said.
"She said that she wanted to cry because it hurt so much, but chose to laugh instead. The harder he pulled, the more she laughed. She said, 'I wasn't going to let him have power over me.'"
The play melds real life with the legend as the actors use these actual narratives to try to get the Bell family to talk about the act of abuse.
"Everyone has a past," said Amanda Clark, who plays John Bell Sr. "By telling these stories, we may be able to help people escape a past that is troubling them."
"The Bell Witch" is sponsored by the communication studies department in conjunction with Wordshed Productions, a nonprofit theater group whose mission is to produce original films and to adapt works of literature for the stage.
Gratch said the legend's adaptation was, in some ways, made easier by its longevity.
"I think the older it is, and the more versions there are, the more leeway you get with a piece," he said. "So many people tell the story in so many ways that there really is no definitive right or wrong way to tell it."
But the legend's age also brought along difficulties.
"The older the story gets, the more ingrained it becomes in popular discourse," Gratch said.
"What's difficult is trying to pull it out of that discourse to show it from a different angle, and that's where art becomes challenging and interesting."
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(10/11/07 4:00am)
The Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival has come a long way since its inception in 2003 near Silk Hope.
Attendance at the annual fall Shakori Hills festival, which starts today and will continue through Sunday, is expected to trump that of any previous year.
The festival held in April was the largest in the event's history, drawing more than 4,500 people.
But no matter how much the Shakori Hills festival expands, the festival's coordinators said they are determined to ensure that the event remains true to its mission of propagating grassroots music and remaining closely integrated with the Chatham County community.
"The festival will always be a place where members of the community can come together to enjoy the music and each other," said Chris Tate, festival representative.
Inspired by the success of the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance held in Trumansburg, N.Y. to benefit the fight against AIDS, founders Robert Mitchener and Jordan Puryear decided to branch out.
They traveled to North Carolina in 2002 to scout out potential locations for a sister festival.
Mitchener and Puryear found the venue they had been looking for when they came across the 75-acre Shakori Hills farmstead.
"In the beginning, the goal was just to find people with the skills and knowledge necessary to get the festival up and running," said Lissa Farrell, festival coordinator.
Noise complaints also were an issue during the festival's first few years.
"At first, people were opposed to the noise, but as word of the festival spread throughout the community, its popularity increased and more and more people came out in support of it," said Pierre Lauffer, festival volunteer and member of the Grassroots Board, which oversees both the Shakori Hills Festival and the Finger Lakes Festival.
Shakori Hills Inc. was founded in 2006 as a nonprofit organization designed to purchase, preserve and protect the Shakori Hills farmstead as a forum for community building through arts, music and cultural education.
The organization is currently leasing the farmstead and hopes to raise enough money to purchase the land by February 2010.
And with the festival's steady growth since 2003, Shakori Hills Inc. advances closer to its goal each year.
"(The April festival) was the breakthrough point when the community and the festival really came together," Farrell said.
But the festival's rapid expansion during the past year also has led to concerns that the festival will outgrow its community-based roots.
Instead, the organization is looking to expand both its Hoppin' John Old-Time & Bluegrass Fiddlers' Convention, held in September, and its Moonlight, Music & Dance series, which is held every Friday night from May through September.
"We want to keep attendance at no more than 6,500 to 7,500 people for the weekend so that we can continue to hold the event on the farmstead," Lauffer said.
"That way, there are always people out there doing something."
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(08/31/07 4:00am)
Kate Middleton, Amy L. Heidt, Megan Ketch, Guy F. Olivieri and Seth Shelden have come a long way since their days as undergraduates in the University's theater program.
The critically acclaimed New York-based theater company that they have created, Ground UP Productions, has completed nine productions in the two years that it has existed.
However, the UNC alumni have not always been satisfied with their post-graduation artistic endeavors.
"We missed the kind of shows that we did in school where we had complete creative control, and we realized that they didn't exist in New York," said Olivieri, Ground UP Productions' company producer.
A similar sentiment led Middleton, the group's artistic director, to create a company in which members could work for themselves instead of waiting for other people to hire them.
"Relying on other people to fulfill you artistically can become very frustrating," Middleton said.
And after trying to return to their alma mater for the past two years, company members said they are excited to be able to give back to the University.
The group will collaborate with the Department of Dramatic Art to offer master classes and bring their production of the play "Jack & Jill: A Romance" to campus.
The show will run at 8:15 p.m. Friday through Saturday with a matinee at 2 p.m. Saturday. It will be held in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre in the Center for Dramatic Art.
Written by Jane Martin and directed by Ketch, "Jack & Jill: A Romance" is an examination of relationships, from first meeting, to marriage, to divorce, to getting back together.
In addition to the speaking roles of Jack and Jill, two "shadow" characters will help tell the story by acting as symbolic representations of memory.
The four actors will alternate roles in each show so that every performance will be a unique experience.
"For anyone who's studying acting, it's really interesting to see how different actors react to the same situation," Oliveri said.
"For us as actors, it helps us to stay out of an acting rut because we're doing a different thing every night."
Middleton said she believes that the play is ideal for college-age students.
"It deals with so many issues about jobs and living situations and money and relationships and love and families, the main aspects of life that really hit you head-on at that age," she said.
"One of our main goals was to bring a show to UNC, to do what we do up in New York and show the UNC community what we've done with our lives."
Ground UP plans to offer four to five master classes, including an improvisational acting class taught by improvisational comedian Heidt, an 'acting as a business' class, a production class and a panel discussion about their production.
And already, Middleton said she hopes to make the group's return to UNC an annual event.
"We would love to have a relationship with Chapel Hill where we come here and we kick off the opening weekend of school with a full-scale production."
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(08/21/07 4:00am)
Wondering what the top 10 worst things are for a freshman to try to joke about? Or how about what will get you free coffee for life at Carrboro's Open Eye Cafe?
For answers to these and other pertinent questions, look no further than "UNC On the Record."
Located at www.uncotr.com, UNC On the Record employs student editors to contribute posts about anything related to UNC for $500 per semester. The site tackles topics including "Campus Characters," "Sports," "Hooking Up" and "Dorm Life" in a provocative and humorous tone that students can relate to.
By experimenting with a more irreverent and immediate approach to media than traditional student journalism does, On the Record seeks to become an outlet for students, by students, that the campus community can turn to for candid news and entertainment.
"Blogs are distinguished by their timeliness and accessibility," said managing editor Doug Imbruce.
"Anyone can chime in via our comments, and readers can expect to see new content every time they visit the Web site throughout the day, with immediate coverage of breaking news."
Imbruce's involvement in the Ivy Film Festival as an undergraduate at Columbia University inspired him to create On the Record.
"The level of filmmaking talent on campuses was absolutely astounding," he said. "OTR attempts to provide a platform for all of the talented student writers across the country who don't have an outlet via traditional campus publications."
The blog gives senior Clayton Margeson, a student editor, a "fun way to vent about things going on around campus."
"We take a hands-off approach with our writers and ask them to formulate topics and viewpoints without influence from us," Imbruce said.
Although the site is a work in progress at UNC, it already has a place at several universities, including George Washington and Vanderbilt universities. Plans to target a total of 250 campuses over the next 12 months are under way.
The site will soon debut daily video shows on which celebrity guest columnists will cover news stories from around campus and around the world about broad categories of interest to the college student.
Students who demonstrate a competent, entertaining and informative writing style are invited to apply for the position of student editor by submitting a resume and two sample posts to jobs@theu.com.
"We try to approach the news from a quirky angle," said sophomore student editor Liz Riegel.
"It helps me pay more attention to local news, and it is a fun activity to keep me writing."
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(07/19/07 4:00am)
The sounds of songs played on pianos drifted through Hill Hall during the annual on-campus piano sale held on Saturday and Sunday.
The pianos, including new and used baby grand pianos, grand pianos, professional uprights, digital pianos and more, were sold after being loaned to UNC for use by the Department of Music during the school year.
One of the visitors who showcased his skills on one of the more than 80 Steinway & Sons pianos for sale was Brad Hill, a Raleigh resident and long-time pianist.
While most visitors tried out the instruments for five or 10 minutes, Hill spent more than a half-hour playing.
"I just came to look and see what they have to offer," Hill said.
He added that the selection was "outstanding."
Hill said he was considering buying a piano at the sale, but he hadn't made up his mind, yet.
Although Hill is not affiliated with UNC in any way, those with University connections comprised the majority of the sale's attendees.
Faculty, alumni, staff and students also had the opportunity to view and purchase the pianos in advance of the public sale by making private appointments from Thursday through Saturday.
The 60 private appointments that took place generated far more proceeds than the public sale, said Vic Garfield, president of the Hopper Piano Company, the Raleigh business from whom the UNC music department loans pianos.
"About 50 percent of visitors make purchases during private appointments, but we can expect a figure closer to 10 percent during the public sale," he said.
He added that many of the sale's attendees are more interested in looking than buying.
"Most people come in looking to get an idea of prices and what the pianos look like," said Garfield.
When all was said and done, close to 50 pianos were sold.
They ranged in price from $2,495 to over $68,000.
Sales were roughly the same as they were last year.
"This is about average," Garfield said.
The piano sale is made possible through a special program between the UNC Department of Music and the Hopper Piano Company.
The Hopper Piano Company loans pianos to the music department for use during the school year.
Afterwards, the pianos are sold each summer with all proceeds going to the company.
All pianos that are unsold are returned either to the Hopper Piano Company store in Raleigh or back to Steinway & Sons' headquarters in New York.
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(06/28/07 4:00am)
Minority groups have poorer health on average than whites do. Multiple studies have illustrated the widespread impact that the historical, institutional, and interpersonal discrimination that minority groups face on a daily basis have on the health of these populations.
This was one of the messages of Monday's 13th annual Summer Public Health Research Institute and Videoconference at UNC, "Does Racism Make Us Sick?"
"Stereotypes of American Indians and Alaskan Natives have rendered them invisible in the communities in which they live. People do not recognize members of these groups unless have been eroticized as they frequently are, as the mascots of sports teams and as costumes within musical groups such as the Village People," says Dr. Karina Walters, professor at of social work at the University of Washington.
"American Indians and Alaskan Natives are told that these 'cartoonized' images are intended to honor them."
The daily discrimination that American Indians and Alaskan Natives experience leads to increased risks of HIV exposure, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and anxiety, according to Dr. Walters.
Asian Americans have had similar experiences.
"When figure skater Michelle Kwan lost the gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics, an MSNBC headline read 'American Beats Out Kwan' although Kwan was born and raised in the United States," said Dr. Gilbert C. Gee a professor at University of Michigan's School of Public Health.
"This illustrates the stereotype of Asians as perpetual foreigners,"
Discrimination against Asian Americans has resulted in increased incidences of mental disorders such as major depressive disorder, dysthymia, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and social phobia as well as physical health conditions.
Segregation, however, is the type of discrimination that has had the greatest negative impact on African Americans, according to Dr. David R. Williams, a professor of African and African American Studies and Sociology at Harvard University.
"They are the most segregated minority group yet they show the highest preference for integration," Dr. Williams said.
This segregation has reduced African Americans' accessibility to services such as medical care, resulting in poorer health within this population, he said.
The United States spends more money on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet it is at the bottom of the list of industrialized countries in terms of healthcare quality.
"We cannot have a good healthcare system if some groups are neglected. This demonstrates a failure of our healthcare system," said Dr. Vic Schoenbach, principle investigator of the Minority Health Project.
Drs. Trude Bennett, Dorothy Browne, and Lloyd Edwards created the Minority Health Project in 1994 to eliminate health disparities between different racial groups by increasing awareness of the health gap between these groups.
The Videoconference, broadcast by both satellite and Internet from the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, originated as a one-week course on minority health funded by the Minority Statistics Grants program of the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, which evolved into the Annual Summer Public Health Research Institute, before becoming the Videoconference, on Minority Health
"The classroom could only fit about 60 people and we wanted to allow more people to have the opportunity to participate in the sessions so we began to broadcast the afternoon sessions over the Internet and by satellite," Dr. Schoenbach said.
There are now 80 satellites in 31 states broadcasting the Videoconference.
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(06/14/07 4:00am)
The research that UNC professor of biology Jason Lieb is conducting holds great promise for the future of genomics, and the $7.3 million, four-year grant that he recently received from the National Institutes of Health will help to further this research.
After responding to the Request for Proposals issued by the NIH, receiving the grant came as no great surprise to Lieb.
"I was happy to find out that I had gotten it, but we did put together a good proposal," Lieb said. "They wanted to find a group of people to work in a certain area, the genomics of model organisms, and our proposal fit along the lines of what they were looking for."
Lieb, in collaboration with eight different groups across the U.S. and internationally, is studying the relationship between how DNA is packaged, how protein binds to DNA and how the bonding of protein affects gene expression, whether a gene is "on or off."
This research has extremely broad applications, from human health and disease to plant development, said Lieb.
Before joining the UNC faculty in 2002, Lieb studied at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, where he combined his interests in genomics and model organisms by studying genomic technology in yeast.
"This grant has definitely brought me back to that," Lieb said, referring to his research, involving the study of both fruit fly and roundworm genomics.
Lieb also works in the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences.
The center aims to increase the number of faculty working on genomics on campus and create synergy in their research.
Lieb plans to use a portion of the money received from the grant to pay for the salaries of those involved in the research.
But the majority of the money will be spent on developing the technology to understand the associations between proteins and genomes, as well as where specific proteins are found in the genomes of the fruit fly and the roundworm.
"Because all multicellular organisms share certain genes, the genomes of fruit flies and roundworms are similar to human genomes in the way that genes are regulated and organized."
Lieb said that he and his colleagues plan to apply their findings to human genomics once technology is sufficiently developed, probably in the next five to 10 years, to allow the study of the entire human genome.
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(05/31/07 4:00am)
The Carolina North meeting, which took place Tuesday afternoon in the UNC School of Government, attracted residents from the University, the Chapel Hill community and beyond.
(05/24/07 4:00am)
To those passing by the Morehead Planetarium last Saturday, the Destiny bus may have appeared to be an ordinary vehicle idling in anticipation of its passengers.
But inside, Destiny was bustling with activity.
Clad in safety goggles, aprons and Carolina-blue rubber gloves, a group of eighth-grade female students and their mentors spent the afternoon performing a science experiment using the latest science and technology equipment installed on the Destiny.
The experiment, titled "Genes in a Bottle," gave students the chance to learn about genetics by extracting DNA from their own cheek cells.
The students were silent as they listened intently to the instructions given by Lenis Chen, Destiny's community education specialist.
The Destiny program, Morehead Planetarium's traveling science learning initiative, features two custom-built, 40-foot, 33,000-pound buses called Destiny and Discovery. The high-tech labs on these two buses give students who would not otherwise be exposed to modern scientific technology the chance to see what a career in science can offer them, according to Chen.
This is why mentor Alecia Bell from the Women and Mathematics Mentoring Program elected to take her students on a field trip aboard Destiny.
The Women and Math program, which has been in existence since 1993 in Durham County and 1995 in Wake County, aims to retain the interest of girls who already excel in science and math by pairing them with female mentors with science- or math-related careers.
"It's important for girls to do whatever they like, and this is the age when they decide what they like. Science can be intimidating, and it is good for them to see women in science and math," says Bell, a service processor test lead at IBM who has been involved with the program for two years.
"(TV) shows like CSI help to dispel the stereotype that science is a nerdy field. The girls see science in these shows and want to do what the scientists are doing."
Both the Women and Math and the Destiny programs strive to keep girls interested in science and math by showing them that these subjects can be fun.
Mentors in the Women and Math program take their students on several field trips per year. Bell has also taken her students to Marjorie Lee Browne Day, where students spent the day doing science and math activities and participate in a virtual-reality activity.
"Hands-on experiments like 'Genes in a Bottle' instill confidence in girls that they can do fun science," says Chen. Each girl stepped off the Destiny bus with a necklace containing her own cheek cell DNA.
The collaboration between the Destiny program and the Women and Math program appears to be a success.
"(Genes in a Bottle) was really cool because it is something that I have never done," said Lyndsay Barnes, an eighth-grader at Carrington Middle School.
"Genes in a Bottle" is Crystal Terry's favorite experiment thus far.
"I liked it because I could see DNA outside of my body," said Terry, also an eighth-grade student at Carrington.
Because of Terry's involvement in the Women and Math program, she now wants to attend the N.C. School of Science and Math to prepare herself for a career related to math, "like cooking."
Barnes is also interested in pursuing a science- or math-related career.
"It's my best subject."
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.du.