Celtic Fire: IUSB Students Carry on the Celtic Dance Tradition

Robert L. Francis, Jr.
Staff Writer

Friday, January 26, Celtic Fire put on a crowd-pleasing performance at the packed Fiddler’s Hearth Pub. The staccato drumming of their feet interweaved with the reel being played by Kennedy’s Kitchen and the rhythmic clapping and table-pounding of the audience.

Working in a space just barely wide enough to walk in, they nonetheless moved through the crowd from front to back so all could witness the skill and speed of their feet as they performed the traditional dance made popular again by Riverdance: a unique style of Irish dancing that insists on keeping the upper body rigid. This rigidity has more to do with style than preventing sensuality.

In between dances, I was able to interview Celtic Fire spokeswoman Tara Ladewski, a beautiful young lady with red hair and striking blue eyes. Ladewski is a sophomore at IUSB with a psychology major and is a devout Irish Catholic.

How long have you been dancing?

TL: All of us have been dancing for 14 years. We trained with World Academy and competed at regional dance competitions.

Is this style of dancing hard on your body?

TL: Yes. The long-term effects from the dancing are foot, knee, and ankle problems, but it’s so much fun we keep on doing it.

What happened to dancing on the tables? (In years past at Fiddler’s Hearth, the dancers would dance on the table while “brave” young men held the table stable. Some were braver than others; the less brave earned laughter as they flinched from the flailing feet.)

TL: We decided it’s just not as classy or ladylike or traditional Irish dancing.

What do your fellow students think of your dancing?

TL: They like it. Being performance-oriented, the theater department especially likes Fiddler’s Hearth.

Any problems with the boys?

TL: (laughs) Yes, we have to fend the boys off; they are always hitting on us. Especially Mary (Ladewski). She may be younger (16), but she’s so full of life and looks older. I have to step in as big sister and run them off.

Do you do shows of your own?

TL: We used to do shows of our own like for the Knights of Columbus, civic fund raisers, and grade schools, but now we just dance with the band because it’s easier. The group is a bridge between the band and the audience.

The group consists of IUSB sophomore Tara Ladewski, 20, IUSB junior Christina Sisk, 20, Notre Dame freshman Mary Bridget Halloran, 18, St. Joseph High School senior Kelly Ryal, 17, and home-schooled junior Mary Ladewski, 16.

Tara and Christina also sing at times with the band. Tara has an especially powerful and beautiful-sounding voice as was evidenced when she sang an old family song with her mother, accompanied by brother Nolan, Chris O’Brien, and John Kennedy from the band.

Celtic Fire Stepdancers
perform with Kennedy’s Kitchen:

Friday, February 9
Fiddler’s Hearth
9 p.m. to midnight

Friday, February 23
Fiddler’s Hearth
9 p.m. to midnight

Saturday, March 3
LVD Concert Hall
7 p.m.

Sunday, March 4
Carnegie Center for the Arts
3 to 5 p.m.

Friday, March 9
Fiddler’s Hearth
9 p.m. to midnight

Saint Patrick’s Weekend
Fiddler’s Hearth
9 p.m. to midnight

Friday, March 23
Fiddler’s Hearth
9 p.m. to midnight

Sunday, March 25
Michigan City Library
2 to 4 p.m.

2nd Annual Fit Challenge

Adam Gallippo
Student Life Editor

Do you think you’re one of the fittest people at IUSB? If so, then the 2nd Annual Fit Challenge is a place for you to showcase your talents.

In honor of National Recreational Sports and Fitness Day, the 2nd Annual Fitness Challenge will determine who among the students is the fittest through five events that will test your strength and endurance.

The challenge will take place on February 23 at 1 p.m. in the SAC. There is no entry fee and the registration deadline is February 21. Registration forms can be located at the front desk in the SAC.

For those of you who wish to participate, these are the five events you’ll need to master.

First, participants will have to do bench presses. For males, you’ll be pressing your body weight, and for the ladies, you’ll be pressing half your body weight for as many repetitions as you can.

Second, all participants have one minute to complete as many push ups as he or she can.

Third, all participants must complete as many pull ups as possible.

Then the participants will attempt as many repetitions as they can on the leg press. Males must lift twice their weight while females will lift their body weight.

Finally, all participants will take part in a half mile run. The person with the best time wins this event.

Points will be awarded based on the participant’s time in the run. Also, points will be totaled for all other events at “face value,” meaning that if a participant does 12 repetitions on the bench press, they will get 12 points. The person with the most points at the end of all the events will be crowned the Fit Challenge Champion.

The events will not necessarily take place in the order that has been mentioned in the above article. For more information, please contact Amy Henkelman at 520-4594 or at anhenkelm@iusb.edu.

Lady Titans Lose to ONU

The Lady Titans (6-19; 2-6) lost to Olivet Nazarene for the second time this season.  The final score was 99-62.The Lady Titans had three players score in double figures, including Jennifer VanderZanden who had a double-double scoring 20 points and grabbing 16 rebounds. Sarah Craig and Stacy Spurgeon added 13 points and 10 respectively.  Spurgeon added four assists and four rebounds. Craig added five rebounds.

The Lady Titans had 27 turnovers and shot 41% from the field.

The loss gives the Lady Titans their sixth in conference play and they are currently in fifth place.

Up next: Lady Titans at Illinois Tech Saturday, February 10 at 1 p.m.

Meet Your Professors: Michael Lasater

 

Steve Lotter
Staff Writer

How much do you know about video art? Professor Michaeal Lasater knows a lot.
 
He’s a teacher by trade, a musician at heart, and an artist through extension. He began his career in film and video following a brief stint as a professional trombone player. Lasater was Julliard-trained and played music until he was 30.
 
“Those things that are of great interest to you in your teens just aren’t interesting after you turn 30,” says Lasater.

He had been given the position of manager of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra when he started dabbling in video, creating promotional pieces for the orchestra to be shown on broadcast television. 

Since then, he’s produced numerous documentaries on notable literary figures including James Still and Jesse Stuart and has made a name for himself nationally in the circuit of video art. His pieces have been shown at venues in Washington D.C. all the way to Rome, Italy and have received accolades from the American Film and Video Festival and the San Francisco International Film and Video Festival.

In 1994, he took an open position at IUSB to serve as a Professor of Communication Arts. He moved to South Bend to focus on his chosen career path as a video artist, or as Lasater calls himself, a “composer in new media.”

“I use the computer as a tool of composition in the same way that a music composer would sit down and use staff paper to compose a piece using different instruments,” says Lasater.

Instead of using trombones and trumpets, he uses his own composed video footage, found video footage, and MIDI compositions he creates himself.

“Artistically, somebody would identify my stuff as collage,” he says.

Lasater aspires to be less inspired then what you may think.

“I work at getting ideas. I got to galleries and museums. I watch and I read. I’m always looking for something that will get me an idea of something concrete that I can use and manipulate to get something done,” he says.

The majority of his work mixes his own personally created sound scores with digital manipulations which are tied to “issues of personal psychology – perception, memory, the construction of meaning, and personal narrative,” much of which Lasater would like for his audience to find out for themselves after viewing one of his pieces.

Every year, Lasater teaches his classes based on his own life experiences as an artist. He even teaches a video arts course in addition to other courses such as Digital Video Production and Advanced Production Workshop. Once in a while, he’ll show his own work to students, a great example of how far hard work and creativity can take you.

“All of us who teach in the School of the Arts are qualified because we actually do this stuff,” says Lasater. “We’re bringing you the insight we have gained by being researchers and creators ourselves.”

A sample of Lasater’s video art can be found on his website, michaellasater.com.

American Media Afraid of the Mooninites

Steve Lotter
Staff Writer

Someone had to say it. The Mooninites have landed and the American media cannot handle their superior intelligence.

Ignignot: Let us leave this primitive rock because there’s nothing but cavemen here.
Er: Say goodbye, cavemen. Go beat rocks together, you sissies! Freakin’ nerds!

Can someone explain to me, seriously, why a cartoon about a milkshake, a meatball, and a box of fries has caused so much commotion? I’m speaking of the soon-to-be released Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The controversy, of course, refers to the promotional campaign which was taken to the streets of several major cities, including Boston, in an attempt to garner momentum for the film’s release on March 23. 

Several neon green revamped Lite Brites featuring the two Mooninite characters, who rival the Hunger Force, were installed onto several street corners in Boston . Three weeks later, after the devices had long been in their place, every news channel on television had a story about suspected terrorist activity in the Boston area. Highways, bridges, and river traffic were shut down, all because of the media’s reaction to a promotional campaign for a cartoon; a cartoon about talking food.

Who’s to blame? You could blame the two men who were charged with installing the devices, even though they were hired to do the job by Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of Cartoon Network, the film’s distributor. The “guilty culprits” were so amused with their charges that they toyed with a slew of reporters at a press conference by answering their questions with comments about hairstyles of the 70s.

You could blame the company itself, Ted Turner, and everyone involved with the business. As stupid as their attempt at promoting their movie was, it was still never meant to cause mass hysteria and nationwide panic. They’ve already apologized publicly and even during their popular Adult Swim programming on Cartoon Network, but was it warranted? Shouldn’t Fox News and every other cable and network news channel apologize for crying wolf?

The people in charge with what gets play in the news are more comfortable with blowing things out of proportion than letting anything pass as normal. Any excuse to flip nothing into something has been done and will continue to be done as long as a story can be spun. 

Meanwhile, the biggest winner from all of this is mess is the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. I mean, did you even know there was an Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie coming out this year before all of this happened? Did you even know what a Mooninite was? 

Preface Punk Mix

Andy Hostetter and Scott Shroeder

With the weather being cold and gloomy, it only seems fitting for the Preface to give you a list of angry punk songs to fuel the miserable mood of the cold and depressed northern Indiana college student. Here is our punk mix to help jump start the glum mood you are having.

Rancid “Rejected”
“Rejected,” from Rancid’s first self-titled album that came out in 1993, is a great song that shows off Matt Freeman’s great bass playing. The bass lines are very fast, and really carry the song. This is also before Lars Fredrickson was in the band, so Matt does vocals with Tim Armstrong. This song is a big change from the clean and polished Rancid sound of today. (SS)

AFI “Modern Epic”
AFI is a former punk back who gets a lot of airplay on MTV and radio these days with their poppy, pseudo-goth hardcore look. In the mid-90s, however, they were a totally different band. No make-up or flashy stage shows, just good straight to the point punk rock. I recommend Modern Epic off the 1997 album Very Proud of Ya. (SS)

The Modernettes “Red Nails”The Modernettes aren’t New York punk, L.A. punk, or British punk; they’re Vancouver punk. This group is one of the most underrated innovators of punk. “Red Nails” is their finest piece of work. It falls somewhere between the Ramones and Velvet Underground, with an original sound that is Canada’s finest. (AH)

Green Day “Going to Pasalacqua”
“Going to Pasalacqua” is a great Green Day song that they don’t really play live anymore because it came out before “Dookie.” The song came out in the late 80s on a 7″, and was re-released on the 1991 album, 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours. Green Day recently pulled this album and Kerplunk off of Lookout! Records, but Reprise re-released it last month. (SS)

The Soviettes “The Land of Clear Blue Radio”
This group features three females and one male but isn’t in any way wimpy like other female punk groups. “The Land of Clear Blue Radio” is the group’s plot for destruction of modern-day radio and their inevitable take over. Fans of Avril Lavigne and the Donnas stay away; this group will rock your face off! (AH)

Bad Religion “I Want to Conquer”
One of Bad Religion’s best albums, along with Against the Grain and Suffer, is No Control. It features the song “I Want to Conquer the World.” This album is a lot faster than Against the Grain and Suffer, clocking in at just under 30 minutes. It has more of a hardcore sound, which pays somewhat of a homage to earlier Bad Religion
material. A lot of songs from this album are still staples in Bad Religion’s live shows today. (SS)

Pixies “Tame”
The godfathers of noise-pop, Pixies took punk to a different level and influenced every grunge band of the 90s, including Nirvana. “Tame” has a screaming chorus that hurts the ears and cleanses the soul. It is the best track on their 1989 masterpiece Doolittle. The group can still be seen performing it today. (AH)

The Descendents “Bikeage”
In 1982, the Descendents released one of their most popular albums, Milo Goes to College. SPIN Magazine actually has it on their list of Top Hardcore albums and it features the song “Bikeage.” Though this song isn’t as popular commercially as other songs on the album, such as “Suburban Home,” it for some reason has always been a personal favorite of mine, and always will be. (SS)

The Mockers “The Emperor Strikes Out”
The Mockers are a garage band dedicated to playing music. The group features former “Brady Bunch” actor and Ninja Turtle voice, Robbie Rist. “The Emperor Strikes Out,” in true punk fashion, mocks our current presidential administration and handlings of foreign affairs. (AH)

Ramones “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”
It wouldn’t be a punk mix without the Ramones. This group never got enough credit for creating an entire sub-world of punk miscreants and oddballs. “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” a track off of their first album, is a blueprint for what the 70s punk scene would become. Dressed leather jackets and blue jeans, the Ramones made music that was simple and straight forward, and “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” is a perfect example of that. The song isn’t technically about drugs, but you get the idea. (AH)

Requiem: A Haunting Showcase of Vietnam War Photos

Brandy Miller
Staff WriterSnite Museum at the University of Notre Dame is currently showing the moving photo exhibit Requiem; showcasing the photographers who died in Vietnam and Indochina during the 10 year span of the Vietnam War. 135 photographers were killed and several remain missing.

Approximately 250 photos are shown in the exhibit with another 100 that were unable to be hung because of a lack of wall space. Eastman Kodak sponsors the showcase with Tim Page and Horst Faas assembling and preparing the framed and matted photos along with each placard describing the shot, year, and photographer.

When you enter the exhibit, facing the main entry is a wall with photos of each of the photographers who were killed doing their job. There are men and women and they are all from countries all around the globe. Next to the photo is a map that lists the names of all those killed. The exhibit then leads to the French involvement in the war and escalating to United States involvement with the last photos shown in the final days of the war.

It is a “haunting” look at the war that cost our country thousands of young men’s lives. A Mishawaka veteran, Scott Fields, who spent two years, two months, and twelve days in active duty, recently went to see the exhibit. He said he “was shocked at the professionalism of the journalists and was amazed at the expressions they caught on the soldier’s faces.”

“I know that exact expression; it’s not fear, not scared – it can’t be put into words… the look they caught in a 19 year-old kid’s eyes,” he added.  

The photos are mostly black and white with a few color shots scattered among them. They capture the last moments of soldiers lives, prisoners lives, and the destruction of the countryside of Vietnam due to the war efforts on both sides.

One particular photo is of a young Marine in Khe Sank that was taken by photographer Robert Ellison, who was killed in 1968. The photo is a color shot of the soldier wearing a helmet with a growth of beard on his young face. The look in his eyes makes him appear 20 years older than his obviously young age. According to Fields, “it’s something you had to experience to understand.”

There are many pictures of Vietnamese citizens that have an equally haunted look to their faces – men, women, and children alike.  

The exhibit continues throughout the month of February and closes on March 4.

SGA @ Work

Brandy Miller
Staff Writer

The SGA approved several appointments to committees in their biweekly meeting on Friday. Former president Mike Renfrow was appointed as chair of the Election Committee by President Marcus Vigil and approved (4-2-2) by the Senate. The position was vacated by Joanna Reusser who will remain on the committee. Renfrow has been a part of three student governments here on campus and is very familiar with the constitution and student government. Senator Mphatso Jumbe was appointed and approved (7-0-1) to join the Student Affairs Committee.

Chief Justice Charles Norton was appointed and approved by unanimous approval to join the Publication Board Committee.

Teresa Granados was unanimously approved to become the Club Council Liaison while Marcus Vigil, Mphatso Jumbe, Ngaatendwe Mantiziba, Joanna Reusser, and Ben Peak were all unanimously approved by the Senate to join the Budget Committee.

Theresa Santos, Marcus Vigil, and Mitch Royer were unanimously approved to join the Bulletin Board Committee.

The IU South Bend Marketing and Advertising Clubs petitioned the SGA for $2,000 to attend a career fair in Chicago to learn different areas of the field. The monies were requested to be used to reimburse the students’ fees for registration along with transportation fees and hotel accommodations. The Senate approved the amount of $609.48 by unanimous vote for the club to attend. This is the cost of part of the hotel rooms and some travel fees.

Felix Marquez of the International Student Organization requested $1500 for the annual ISO Food Fest which takes place March 31. Monies were requested to pay for decorations, t-shirts, and publicity. The Senate approved $1000 by unanimous vote with the option of for the Senate to come back at a later date for another appeal.

Funding in the amount of $381 to come out of monies set aside to assist the Arts Department was unanimously approved for the V-Club for the presentation of Vagina Monologs.

The Senate unanimously approved the increase of the office budget for the SGA of $500 per month which increases the budget from last year’s $4500 to $5000 this year.

The Search and Screen committee reported that they are having difficulties finding qualified applicants for the vacant seats on the SGA Senate. They requested an extension of three weeks to continue their search. It was unanimously approved.

The next SGA meeting will be held on Friday, February 23 at 4 p.m. in room 225 of the SAC.

Student Services Spring 2007 Book Club

Robert L. Francis, Jr.
Staff Writer

The Director of Multicultural Enhancement Robert E. Bedford, M.A., M.S.ED, NCC, hosts the Student Services Spring 2007 Book Club.

This semester’s choice is “Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny” by Hill Harper. Harper is currently starring in CSI: NY and has appeared in numerous prime-time television shows and feature films.

He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brown University and was Valedictorian of his department and cum laude from Harvard Law School with a J.D.

The book addresses tough issues like finding your passion and living your dreams – no excuses, straight talk about relationships, dating, and safe sex and thinking, acting, and being unreasonably happy.

In an interview with The Preface, Director Bedford answered the following questions.

What is the purpose or goal of the book club?

RB: Our goal is to intellectually and socially engage students around real and relevant issues.

What do you consider real and relevant issues?

RB: Being raised by a single parent, the debt rule; to have a better understanding of money and finances, girl complications and sex matters, and smoking and drinking.

What kind of books are you reading or recommending?

RB: We read one book a semester. We meet every other week so you can get through the whole book and also to help the student balance their academic schedule in which they already have a good amount of required reading.

Are you getting a lot of participation?

RB: We’ve had one session with 14 people. We expect to round off to about 20 people.

Do the students like the program?

RB: The students enjoy the program immensely. The program was started by Ebone McLean, a student. It’s good when we listen to what the students want and work to program around their requests.

Is this program aimed primarily at one certain group?

RB: No. We have a very mixed group, including the Dean of the School of Nursing.

Can students still enroll this semester?

RB: Yes. They can sign up at any time.

How do students sign up for next year?

RB: Just come to the office. They will do an e-mail announcement as well as on the bulletin board and in The Preface. When students see the ads, they just show up for the scheduled meeting.

Meetings started on February 1 in Student Services AI 104 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will continue on the following Thursdays: February 15, March 8, March 22, April 5, and April 19. Students may check out books in AI 113. For more information, call 520-5524.

The selection for next semester is “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan.