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6The Daily Tar HeelThursday, October 26, 1989 Spotlight Student ballerina dances around obstacles to success By LEIGH PRESSLEY Staff Writer Despite blisters and bruises, twisted ankles and tendonitis, sore muscles and sweaty clothes, Tara Penick's love of ballfet still dominates her life. Penick, a sophomore international studies major from Durham, spends her free,; time teaching ballet to 6- to 14-yeafc-olds, holding rehearsals for a Raleigh dance company, choreograph ing production for a local high school shoty choir, assisting Duke University sumner dance workshops and perform ing musicals herself. 'pancing feels good to me. It's a wato forget everything going on out side; It's you, your body and the music. YoiXcan do things soft, slow and calm." Pfcnick began ballet classes in Raleigh wheji she was 5 years old. Since then, sheJias learned jazz, tap and modern daii;e as well. From her experience in productions, Penick progressed to teaching beginning ballet and choreo graphing programs in Raleigh. Three years ago she began teaching clashes for 6-year-olds in Chapel Hill and Conducting a summer dance work shop for high school students from arotfnd the country. Teaching younger children in Chapel Hillfcnd in Raleigh is by far the hardest, Pen'ick said. 'We leam basic movements, not a lot f technique. We learn the basic stepS through telling a story and putting images in their heads." Penick uses images children can understand to explain various steps. For Example, polka steps become gal lopsC butterfly wings create a smooth walk, and birds with wings are trans formed into a waltz step. Imagination is a necessity, Penick said. A tambourine placed on the floor, for instance, becomes a wide river the children must jump over. This concept helps the dancers to have fun working on big jumps without the dance seem ing like work. "You have to be able to see what it would look like to a 6-year-old. You have to make things simple, so they don't realize they're working on tech nique." Once a week in Raleigh, Penick holds rehearsals for the Concert Dancers of Raleigh, who are 12 to 14 years old. Penick choreographs sections of the Christmas and spring programs, as well as the children's ballet that the com pany performs at area elementary schools. 'The older kids are disciplined, and it's harder to see corrections you need to make. They need to work on specific things of technique, and I should be able to see all the fine points." Four days a week, Penick teaches an 8 a.m. class for show choir students at Chapel Hill Senior High School. Many of the students have never danced before and are reluctant to try the choreographed dances set to popu lar music, she said. "At first, they look at you like they won't do it. But then we clean it up and it looks good. They get excited. The next day, they want to show you what they learned." At the Bright Leaf Music Workshop held at Duke University in the summer, Penick gets the opportunity to work with professionals from Broadway and Disney World, while assisting in their teaching programs. About 300 students start with a note book of music and learn all the words, music and dance steps until a week later when it becomes a full-scale produc tion, Penick said. "It's a lot of fun for me because I get to see what the professionals do and learn from them. The students see kids from other schools, learn new styles and reproduce them at their own schools." In addition to teaching dance, Pen ick has performed with the UNC Dance Company and in other productions in the area. Her latest musical, "Carou sel," was recently performed at the Abracadabra Dinner Theater in Raleigh. "I saw it go from nothing to a full product. It was a whole full circle," she said. "I made 25 best friends. Every body worked together." Penick said she stuck with ballet over the years because it requires a learning process built layer by layer. "You start from the beginning and build on it. If you haven't learned fifth position, you can't reproduce new steps. You have to go through all the steps in order to do it. It's interesting and com plex." Penick, who puts in more than 1 1 hours a week with dance, said teaching often interferes with her school work. She relieves stress by looking ahead. "I have to remember that I put myself in this position. Sometimes I think if I can just make it through the next couple of days, I'll be OK." The physical and mental aspects of l ' .::: '!" . -. ..'"" ' . . .. . ...i hmi.i.i uiim.ii.'.' mji , . . i 11.1 ...... 1 1 j- 1. .. 1 1 1.1. .in 1 - m- - "c fi-ii'iiiTwnrini 1"' J dance must come together if a dancer wants to be a professional, Penick said. "You have to have the right kind of body. You have to give up family and marriage. You have to be willing to leave everything behind." Penick's goals for the future include continuing with the UNC Dance Com- Sophomore Tara Penick pany and choreographing as many new programs as possible. "I'd like to do something with it eventually. It may be musical theater, danceacting or teaching choreogra phy." Although she spends most of her DTHDavid Surowiecki time rehearsing rather than perform ing, Penick said she still finds dance rewarding. "You get a sense of accomplishment when you go through a hard class. You feel like you pushed yourself a little bit farther, learned something new and gained something for yourself." liab Theatre to stage surprisingly modern tragedy 'Woyzeck' By ERIC ROSEN Staff Writer Murder, manipulation and the forced despent into insanity these are major thefjies in the Lab Theatre's upcoming psychological tragedy, Georg Buchner's "Woyzeck." Carl Mueller, a leading scholar of Buchner's life, said of him, "His life wa$ short, his life was tragic. He always saiJI it would be. He died at the age of 23 years and four months..." What one might not notice by read ing; the play, according to director Quince Marcum, a senior dramatic arts major from Winston-Salem, is that Buchnerdied in 1837. 'The play was so far ahead of itself then, although now the ideas are taken McKinley somewhat for granted," he said. Updating the deterministic play for modern audiences is Marcum's goal. "I'm taking an old play with its own agenda and I'm superimposing my own agenda," he said. The play, in its original text, deals with the nature of sociological reality in the context of class distinctions. Specifically, it follows the story of Woyzeck, a poor soldier who is at the mercy of his superiors. His class, rank and poverty force him to subject him self to paid psychological experimen tation, which eventually drives him mad. "Buchner's point is that virtue is afforded to the rich. Poor people don't have the time to be virtuous," Marcum said. His own agenda expands on the form of the play, delving into the memory process. "The whole play is an exposi tion leading to a single event; the bulk is background. I am juxtapositioning the action of the present with what goes on in people's minds remembering. "Buchner died before the play was complete. The order is open to interpre tation. It hops around the way memory hops around. People's thoughts change. It isn't linear." But reinterpreting a classic is neither a smooth nor easy process, Marcum said. Scott Bowman, a senior drama and from page 1 political science major from Atlanta, agreed. "The play is interesting be cause Quince is trying to direct it in a different style than the ordinary. The characters in the play are symbols ... they don't have names. Quince is aim ing to depersonalize the character," said Bowman, who plays the drum major in the production. The play is about victimizing by classes, according to Maria Morton, a senior drama major from Charlotte who plays Marie in the show. Woyzeck is "struggling to survive in the midst of oppressive society. In a sense, Marie is too. She is victimized Minors by men and poverty, the need for basic necessities ... but she's also a victim izer of Woyzeck," Morton said. Marcum agreed that society can force an individual to commit sin and do evil. "People are not merely good or evil, but are driven by society," he said. "It's not black and white." from page 1 activities, the court had undermined his "necessity defense," which argued that the nature of CIA operations abroad had made the protest necessary. McKinley will also argue that the sentence is excessively severe, he said. "My appeal is based on the fact that denying me the right to teach is taking away 70 percent of my income." Be cause he is only working on his disser tation and not taking any classes, he added, "to me, that is tantamount to expulsion from the University." McKinley said he would have to get a full-time job to support himself if he were prevented from teaching. McKinley said if his University appeals were exhausted, his civil law suit would focus on the issue of due process. He said the U.S. Constitution prohibited taking what is considered property in this case his job and income without judicial due proc ess. "I would argue that I have not been given due process. I think it's been a jury-rigged thing forced through the system." McKinley said he was especially concerned about the effect that chang ing instructors or canceling his course in mid-semester would have on the 50 students he teaches. "I've been charged with disruption of legitimate University activities, and I wonder which is more disruptive my actions or breaking up a class in the middle of the semester." THE Bridal Event Fashion (Show presented by BRIDAL & CUSTOM COUTURE ' GiNQISS FORMAL WEAR together with the Triangle's leading Bridal businesses ALL YOUR WEDDING NEEDS UNDER ONE ROOF! Sunday, November 5 Honeymoon Qiveawayl at the North Raleigh Hilton Door Prizes! from 12 noon to 5 frni Complimentary hors d deuvres .J Me - 7 r.ww. Chapel Hill Raleigh 968-3883 781-5888 Simply Chic, Qalleria, Chapel Hill Richard Richardson, chairman of the political science department, said he would await the outcome of McKinley 's appeal before deciding how to continue the class without him. "We're not going to cross that bridge until we come to it, and I hope we never have to cross it," Richardson said. "I understand that he had appealed, and I hope he will be able to continue teach mg. Cannon said he didn't want to com ment on the case because of concerns over confidentiality. "That's something we can't talk about because the case is still an active one." He said he had not encountered a previous situation at the University where a graduate student was prohib ited from teaching as the result of an honor court verdict. John Florin, chairman of the geogra phy department, said its faculty favored an academic minor. "We anticipate that it will not have any major affect on us. "People have been taking courses because they wanted to, and it's un likely that it will result in any signifi cant change, either up or down, in our overall registration. - . One of Weinberg's concerns is the availability of classes. "What happens if we block out majors from the courses they need to take because of people trying to fulfill their minors? "In my opinion, I wouldn't be sur prised myself if we tried it out for a year and see what happens." Weinberg said a very large propor tion of people he has talked to were "generally sympathetic to the idea of a minor, but they're worried." Many departments are worried be cause of the lack of resources and the present size of the department classes. Richard Richardson, chairman of the political science department, said the department would not offer a minor. "We haven't got an assessment on how it would increase our enrollments, and we have no insurance that we would get any additional resources if our student enrollment increases. "We're just absolutely packed to the ceiling right now," Richardson said of the size of political classes. "We're going to wait and see until we can do some more work on it." Harry Gooder, faculty chairman, said: "Faculty are exceedingly favor able. The problem is that of resources. Some departments particularly think they will need more resources and individuals if more students are going to be taking a greater number of struc tured career programs." Joseph Flora, chairman of the Eng lish department, said the department was "not opposed to the idea of the academic minor." But Flora said the department wondered if it "conflicts in the theory with the undergraduate cur riculum toward more specialization rather than general education. "If there were minors, we would get students who are more interested in our courses as opposed to those just taking it for an aesthetic perspective. We would have more students who were more committed to the subject matter rather than getting this requirement done." Lawrence Gilbert, chairman of the biology department, and David Ecker man, assistant chairman of academic studies for the psychology department, said departments would soon recom mend to the undergraduate affairs committee that each department de velop a minor. "Chances are that the department of biology will have one," Gilbert said. "A lot of people are minoring in biol ogy now. It's just riot official. Pre-meds basically take a minor in biology." Eckerman said, "The faculty in psy chology is in favor of student interest and education. "Having a minor may well reduce the number of double majors, and we really don't know how many people would take additional courses than the courses they now take. The courses they now take may make a minor." Some UNC students were also in favor of the academic minor. "I feel that the minor would give students a chance to broaden their horizons," said Amanda McAdams, a junior from Mebane. "It takes a lot of work to do a double major," said sophomore Laura Visser from Hamden, Conn. "It would be better to concentrate on one major rather than two because there is so much more work." The Party's Over If you're thinking of traveling to Greenville for Halloween this year, think again. You won't find any downtown celebration. You won't find the bars or restaurants open. And you won't find any students, either. This year, Greenville police plan to watch the downtown area closely. No crowds will be allowed to gather. No one will be permitted to drink alcoholic beverages on city sidewalks, streets or in parking lots. East Carolina University students and administrators, as well as city busi ness and government leaders, agree that Halloween poses too many potential dangers for any celebration to continue. Have a safe and happy Halloween. But this year, have it at home. Paid for by the City of Greenville, North Carolina h ; .. i r NO ACCOUNTING CALORIES. 504 OFF ANY MENU ITEM. (Except Kiddie Cup) ft Plcuc pitKiu this coupon before ordering. One order per coupon per 44 ' customer per vuii. Luuomer muu pay any sales tax due. Not food in combination frith any other offers. Offer food only at partKipatin 6Xnt'm- TheCountrySBesDlvurt. TCBV i Eastgate Shopping Center Chapel Hill, NC 27514 .1 . 1 t ' v. ' fc'v;:r ... v-l.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Oct. 26, 1989, edition 1
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