Opeyo Dancers
Looking ahead to ’80
An appetizer — The Opeyo Dancers whetted the community’s cultural
appetite with an informal Upendo performance. Spring plans for the
Opeyos includes an April 17 recital and a performance at Duke Univer
sity. Photo by Allen Johnson.
ALLEN JOHNSON
Arts Editor
Although the Opeyo Dancers were forc
ed by a number of factors to cancel their
Nov. 29 fall recital, the Black Student
Movement’s dance troupe still treated fans
to a sampling of old and new performances
in an informal Upendo lounge “Wrap-
Up/Review.”
“We just want to let you know that we’re
working,” said Director Pam Perkins to
an overflow audience comprised mostly of
students.
The Opeyos are also already forging am
bitious plans for the spring semester after
being beset by a melange of fall semester
problems. One of the major problems was
a lack of adequate funding by student
government for costumes, says Perkins.
“What people don’t realize,” Perkins
says, “is that even though we purchased
costumes last year we can’t use a lot of
Programming your own cassettes
ALLEN JOHNSON
ArtsEditor
You and your lady friend have finished an evening on the town
and are comfortably seated on your living room couch. As you
impress her with your charm and good looks, a soft Earth Wind
and Fire love ballad plays on your $500 tape deck which you
matter-of-factly reveal to your company is only one part of a
$1,500 system. Suddenly, the music changes. Bootsy’s Rubber
Band begins to sing and play “Psychoticbumpschool.” Your
friend almost suffers a cardiac arrest.
Abrupt changes in mood are only one downfall suffered when
a novice haphazardly programs recorded tapes. Quality stereo
recording is an art that few take the time and effort to master.
Of course if you'd like to prevent Bootsy’s Rubber Band from
terrorizing your company, learning the correct way to record
and program your tapes is worth the bother.
First, use cassettes which will record well and last long. No
matter how much a catalog says you can save by buying a dozen
for $4 or television commercials about singers breaking glasses
by using a company’s cassettes (you don’t want to go around
breaking glasses anyway, do you?) you get what you pay for.
Maxell and TDK are two highly recommended brands which
offer excellent reproduction and will seldom malfunction. Both
cost from $3 to $5 and are unanimously recommended by stereo
dealers in the Chap«l Hill area. “We recommend TDK and Max
ell because they have a good frequency response,” says Ruffin
Brady of Radio Shack. “This means more music and less noise
for the listener.”
lengths of tapes generally range from 30 to 60 to 90 to 120
minutes of recording time for both sides. Thirty-minute casset
tes are generally too short and 120-minute tapes more prone to
jam and break or make Peabo Bryson sound like Alvin and the
Chipmunks. Thus, many stereo connoiseurs prefer the 60 or 90-
minute lengths.
If you ignore these words of wisdom and buy bargain base
ment tapes, you may get bargain basement results.
Before you record, decide what kind of music you want to
record and write out a list of the songs in the order you want on
the tape Also include the time of each song. And use common
sense. Taped music tends to create a mood. Thus, if you’ve
strung along a series of soft love songs, you can jolt the listener
with a heavy metal, hard-rocker.
If you wish to make the transition from soft to loud music, do it
gradually. Go from a ballad to a moderately paced tune to a get-
up-and-pretend-you’re-on-Soul-Train number. Then the litener
IS prepared.
Many people prefer to record their tapes with certain themes
or situations in mind, much as recording artists do with their
albums Naunce Woods, a Greensboro painter who not only
records but makes canvas paintings and plexiglass scultpure of
his favorite artists Jimi Hendrix and Richie Havens, tailors
tapes for situations Woods uses what he likes to term his three-
consonant system”
“I use ‘TLT’ (‘The Love Tape’) for tender moments,” Woods
says. “For hanging out with the boys or partying I rely on ‘TJT’
(‘The Jam Tape’).
At this point, you’re probably ready to proclaim yourself a
recording expert and y3u’re also probably ready to go out and
record your own version of the “The Love Tape” and to invite
some company over. However, before you become too immers-
(Continued on page 9)
“Please do not
ling. Or at least
do it alone. Your
friends probably
won’t appreciate
your voice as
much as vou do.”
Art by Nan
Parati.
those costumes this year. We get new peo
ple each year.”
And all people, Perkins adds, do not
wear the same size clothing.
Another problem, Perkins says, was the
large percentage of new dancers who join
ed the group this year. “Since 50 percent of
the group was new,” Perkins says, “we
had to go through an orientation stage.”
Complicating the change in personnel,
says Perkins, was a change in leadership.
Perkins, earlier in the semester, replaced
co-directors Diane Waters and Glenna
Groomes at the helm.
Finally, the dancers suffered a number
of logistical setbacks, including problems
in finding practice facilities. Mixups in
Upendo Lounge reservations and the loss
of the Upendo key left the Opeyos out in the
cold more than once.
“We had planned to go ahead with the
Fall Recital up until the week before,”
Perkins says. “But we had trouble practic
ing in Upendo.”
Perkins says that now she has
straightened out the Upendo problems
with BSM Chairperson William Bynum
and Upendo Supervisor Kurt Garrett, so
further reservations problems should not
occur.
Future reservations apparently will be
needed for a busy spring schedule, which
includes open workshops, a performance
at Duke’s Black Student Weekend on Jan.
31 and a spring recital on April 17. Both the
audience and dancers themselves seemed
pleased with the preview of dances that
are being fine-tuned for future per
formances.
Those dances include Minnie Riperton’s
“Return To Forever,” and Donna Sum
mer’s “Bad Girls,” choreographed by
Perkins; Ralph McDonald’s “The Path,”
choreographed by Bonita Sherrod and
June Taylor; Walter Hawkin’s “Jesus is
the Way,” choreographed by Teresa
Milliken; and Lou Rawls’ “Let Me Be
Good To You,” choreographed by Herbert
Farrish and Richie McElrath.
“The enthusiasm of the new members
has helped,” says former director Glenna
Groomes. “Once the internal conflict is
resolved, we will be more productive and
everybody will be enthused and be
representative of what Opeyo should be. In
the clutch, Opeyo will come through.”
A ‘Portrait
in Ebony’
Before she died last year, Win
nie Carter reached the age of 103.
She chopped wood, as always,
and she praised the Lord in
church, as always. This photo by
James Parker is one of several
displayed in the African/Afro-
American Studies’ Curriculum’s
exhibit, “Portraits in Ebony:
Faces of the Black Community.”
The exhibit, which began in
November and ran through Dec.
7, was featured in the Carolina
Union and was part of the Afri-
Afro-Am cultural series, “Ayana
’79-«0.”