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Show Friday, March. 5, 2010 Page 5 A&EDilf•I'SiO Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com Celtic celebration invades Ellen Eccles Theatre By COURTNIE PACKER fetures editor It's a celebration of the Irish culture. It's unique and carries a certain spirit. It is Irish dancing. Bridger Folk Music Society presents the sixth annual Celtic Night, March 5 and 6 in the Ellen Eccles Theatre. Celtic Night features local talent by Inishfre Irish Dance Company and Celtic band Cuhulainn. Julie Zufelt, founded and currently directs Inishfre Dance Company, said Irish dancing is something she loves and wants others to enjoy. "I get excited dancing," she said. "The music makes me want to kick up my heels and dance. We all do it because of the love of dancing. We work hard, and we want to show off our stuff." Zufelt has arranged and choreographed many of the dances, staying true to the traditional dances and styles of Ireland. The dances include both hard-shoe and soft-shoe dances that are choreographed to traditional Celtic music. Emily Werner has been dancing with the Inishfre Irish Dance Company for five years. She began with the company when she was 11 years old and said the difference between the hard- and soft-shoe performances are the sounds and movements. Hard-shoe dances make hard taps while soft-shoe is more ballet-like and is often described as a flowing movement. "This is different from every- INISHFRE DANCE COMPANY will perform at the sixth annual Celtic Night, held March 5 and 6 at the the Ellen Eccles Theatre. CARL WILSON photo thing else," she said. "It is great fun to watch, and you get into it. Werner is described by many of the dancers in the company as the "little star," along with Kate Jensen, who also began dancing at age 11. Jensen has been a member of the dance company for six years and is currently the Dance Sterling Scholar at Mountain Crest High School for her Irish dancing. She also choreographed the duet performed by her and Werner. "I liked to challenge myself with my dancing," Jensen said. "We don't compete so I would just learn a dance and it became too routine for me." Celtic Night has something to offer for everyone. Becky Erickson, is dancing her fourth year with the Inishfre Dance Company and said deaf and blind individuals will also enjoy the performance. "This gives the deaf something to see with the dancing and the blind something fun to hear through the music," she said. "This can touch all different groups." Erickson said she enjoys Irish dancing because people from different backgrounds can enjoy it. She describes her husband as a redneck and herself as a ballerina and said they both find enjoyment in the dance. "Whatever your background is you can enjoy this stuff," she said. "This is a great tradition that has been put together." Erickson will be performing a duet during the show with special guest Luke Anderson. Anderson has been dancing ballet with Erickson for many years and was asked to perform the couples dance with her during the performance. Anderson said the difficult task of learning Irish dancing was learning the Irish tech- nique. "I've always admired the Irish," he said. "I get to experience the Irish and be with these great people." Erickson said there is a sisterhood among the dancers. She said their friendship and the common feeling for love of Irish dancing comes out strongly on stage. Diane Herman, 57, said the love of Irish dancing is what drives her and keeps her going. Herman said when she learned of Inishfre Dance Company she quickly called Zufelt and joined. "I love the dancing and the music," she said. "I love the Irish music." Harvey Neuber, a member of the band Cuhulainn, has worked with Zufelt in planning Celtic Night for five years. Neuber said the band will be performing Celtic songs along with a few modern compositions. "This is a new thing for me and I really enjoy it," Neuber said. "I went to Ireland and played music over there, and it is a lot of fun." The band consists of a combination of musicians and musical instruments. Cuhulainn has chosen many classic Celtic pieces along with some familiar tunes. "This is something you can't just do any other weekend," Neuber said. "It is appealing to all audiences and can't really be seen any other time of the year." Zufelt said this isn't just your regular dance performance. "It's not stuffy and it is fun," she said. "It's loud, rowdy and fun." Anderson said this year's Celtic Night is one performance he encourages all students to attend. "Go and experience the dancing. You will either like it or you won't. Go and see it because you never know until you do!" he said. Celtic Night begins at 7:30 p.m. and tickets range from $10-19. Students with a student ID will be admitted at half price one hour prior to the performance. — courtnie.packer@aggiemad. usu.edu Shakespeare's love's" takes the stage Idaho indie at USU By NOELLE JOHANSEN staff writer Ponytailed men in ruffled collars and knee-high boots mill about an elaborate study that reeks of academic sophistication and leather-bound books. In Utah State Theatre's production of "Love's Labour's Lost," Shakespeare is very much alive. Thirty minutes before the opening scene, after microphones are checked and costumes are pinned, the curtain opens to the preshow. On-stage actors silently busy themselves in small, yet consuming tasks. The effect is to create a specific ambiance for the audience filtering into the Morgan Theatre, a sort of prologue drawing the focus of the guests even before the play has begun. The story of a Spanish king and his three comrades swearing an oath to three strict years of study, fast and certainly no women is one of Shakespeare's first comedies. Set in late 18th-century Spain trademarked by lush Georgian era fashions, the women are adorned in picturesque gowns and the men in double-breasted jackets with tails. The wardrobe was designed by professor Nancy Hills. Jonathan Baker, freshman in literary studies and the lead of Ferdinand, the King of Navarre, fancies the stark contrasts of the costumes. "I think the period it's set in has such a fun element to it," Baker said. "We get to be fancy in the case of the aristocracy and very grungy in the case of the peasantry." Fancy can be hindering, however, informed Joanna Noall, freshman in theater education. In the role of the Princess of France, she battled with hoop skirts and masses of shiny material. "The costumes are really complicated. They've been changed TWO STUDENTS EMBRACE in USU's production of "Love's Labour's Lost," one of William Shakespeare's first comedies. BENJAMIN WOOD photo a lot," Noall said. weeks later than the rest, yet Costume alterations were not the fact escapes undetected, as the only complications. Some Jones performs seamlessly with actors and a musical directhe rest of the cast, as though tor had to be replaced, along he was Costard from the beginwith time setbacks due to one ning. third of the cast participating "It's just amazing how the in American College Theatre actors have come together," Festival in St. George. Despite Jones said. such setbacks, the cast and crew The intricate set, which Noall of "Love's Labour's Lost" manrefers to as "grandiose," was aged to successfully construct designed by graduate students an innovative and modern pro— a male student created the duction. structured world of the male "It's been really amazing how, characters, and a female student despite all of these setbacks, shaped the females' natural and people have still been able to liberating environment. As the bring together a show that's so period was one of advancing lively and engaging," Baker said. technology and enlightenment, Clinton Jones, freshman in props like air balloons and English and portraying Costard, telescopes are incorporated to a clown of sorts, was one of enhance the dreamy and scholthe actors to replace a dropped arly feel, respectively. part. He joined the production "Lots of scientific experimen- tation and some very strange and unnatural scientific equipment has found its way into the first act," said Lynda Linford, director of the production and associate professor in the department of theatre arts. From a weightless and billowy pink tent to extravagant masquerade headwear, the details are nothing short of ornate. Though love is written in the script, it blossomed behind the scenes as well in the form of a cast romance between the actors behind Dumaine and Maria, who are not paired in the story. "Dumaine is such a little romancer," Baker said. There are seven freshmen in the cast: Baker and Noall included and both in lead roles. The script contains more women than most works of Shakespeare. Linford cites the many female roles as one of her reasons for selecting "Love's Labour's Lost" for Utah State Theatre. Among her other reasons were the story's topical nature among college students regarding study and love, and the genre of a previous recent production. "I thought we had to do a comedy. We had just done 'King Lear!" Linford said. And comedic it is, with Shakespeare's intellectual farces executed cleanly and effectively. "Performing Shakespeare at a collegiate level has been a much more unique experience in lower-level productions," Baker said. "It has been far more demanding, but it is also able to yield a much more satisfying professional performance!' "Love's Labour's Lost" runs March 4-6 and 11-13 in the Morgan Theatre of the Chase Fine Arts Center. Tickets are $13 in advance or free with student ID. — noellejohansen@aggiemail. usu.edu By JESSE BUDD staff writer One of Idaho's finest bands will be in town this Saturday. Spondee, an Indie band that started in Pocatello, Idaho, is going to be the Independent Music Club's featured band this weekend. "The Shuttles" and "Poor Ophelia" will open the concert. Amy Nguyen, sophomore in anthropology and vice president of the Independent Music Club, said, "I consider them (to be) bigger than a local scene band here in Logan." Spondee has played in Logan at Why Sound a couple times in the past. "We loved playing in Logan. We love the crowd in Logan," said Clint Vickery, junior in Spanish at Boise State University and band writer, lead vocalist and guitarist. "We're way excited to get back down there and have a dance party with you again. Hopefully, we haven't been forgotten since it's been a year." The band independently released its first full-length album "Pop Your Socks Off" in March 2009. The title of the album alludes to the band's new focus of making every song fun and danceable. I See BAND, page 6 IDAHO BAND SPONDEE will play a concert Saturday in the Lundstrum center. photo courtesy of the band |