SPEAK
1
SISTER ACT
SOME TALENTS DON'T RUN IN THE FAMILY
// ALEXANDRA ESPOSITO
Thousands of people stand outside the Majestic Theatre in New York City. Vendors are selling red roses and show programs. I'm in line with my grandma, two great aunts and younger sister Francesca, who says she cannot believe that of all the Broadway shows we've seen, we've never been to the longest-running show on Broadway, Phantom of the Opera.
We enter the breathtaking Art Deco theater and find our perfect seats in the center section, nine rows from the stage. The orchestra plays the overture and the first scene begins. An auctioneer is selling his wares from the Paris Opera House. The show consumes us.
Six months later, hundreds of people stand outside the performing arts center at Blue Valley North High School on a Thursday night. My parents and brother walk in ahead of my boyfriend, who I'm hiding behind to avoid faces of teachers I didn't like when I was a student here three years earlier. My sister is backstage doing her hair, makeup and vocal warm-ups. The orchestra plays the overture to Phantom of the Opera, and the memory attached to it makes me cry.
When my 14-year-old sister called to tell me that her high school was doing Phantom, I immediately knew what part she'd get. She had been taking dance lessons with Kansas City Ballet for eight years and had recently switched from dancing in simple, canvas ballet shoes to mastering pointe. Francesca wasn't nervous for Phantom's dance audition. She was excited. When the choreographer asked for girls who had ballet experience she stood up right away, and did an impromptu set of padebures, pique turns and pirouettes.
Contributed Photo
Every year I attended North, I auditioned for that year's musical. Voice lessons and choir classes allowed me to nail the singing audition, but they never prepared me to face the dance auditions. Students had to quickly learn an impossibly difficult dance combination and then perform it perfectly in front of the directors. I have never been graceful. I stumbled over my feet; one year, I even fell. I am not a dancer, but this is something I have accepted.
For my freshman, sophomore and junior year musicals, I was cast as a chorus member. My
senior year, in Thoroughly Modern Millie, I was cast as a girl named Cora. I had one line and a solo, and I thought I was a celebrity. Millie was a dance-heavy show, and the same woman who choreographed it at North also did the choreography for North's Phantom. The Millie dances were tricky, but after months of rehearsal, I was able to mimic the dancers in front of me. Still, the choreographer suggested to us weaker dancers to just move our arms if nothing else. I told my friends that our moves were "step, step, breath in, step, step, breathe out," a joke we still make today.
I didn't have a single doubt that my sister would be in the Phantom's ballet chorus, just like when I knew she'd win her fifth grade science fair for inventing legwarmers that heated up to keep dancers legs toasty. To be a specialty dancer in a North show was an honor given to a few of the show's best dancers. The five or six girls in the ballet chorus got to do exclusive dances throughout the show. Francesca thought that because she was a freshman she wouldn't get the part. When she called to tell me she made the ballet chorus, we were both beyond excited. I immediately demanded that my mom buy me a ticket to see the show each night.
Francesca's next dance is in the "Il Muto" opera scene. After a stagehand is mysteriously hanged from the flies, the opera managers tell the ballet dancers to perform to distract the audience. My sister has to act frazzled, but also has to perform on pointe. I hold my breath
Opening night, Francesca is nervous because her last few dress rehearsals were canceled because of snow days. My sister's first dance is in a scene where the actors are practicing the opera Hannibal. At the crack of a whip, the slaves start dancing to an Arabian tune. Francesca is dancing on the same side of the stage as our seats, so we have a perfect view of her slave costume. Her glissades and attitude turns have precision and flow that I could never achieve. My family and I cheer at the wonderful job she does. It's the most impressive dance we've ever seen her do, even better than when she was the Nutcracker in Kansas City Ballet's The Nutcracker.
as she does a perfect jump through a flower-covered hula-hoop. For her final dance, she waltzes to "Masquerade" in the masked ball scene. I cry when she bows at the end of the show, still remembering the incredible time we had on Broadway.
Seeing Francesca in Phantom made me realize how much she'd grown up. She is the most mature high school freshman I have ever met, which is a godsend, because I don't think I could handle my best friend turning into an angsty teenager. She manages school, cello and ballet lessons and still has time to visit her sister for weekends at KU.
Each night I saw Phantom it got better, until Saturday night, when it was flawless. This night, our seats were three rows from the stage, so we could see Francesca perfectly and she could see us. During a scene where the cast comes into the audience, my sister stood right by my seat, so I waved at her. She couldn't help but break character and give me a little wave and laugh. This reminds me of how much fun I had in shows when I was her age. As much as I loved being on stage, the times I spent backstage playing pranks with my friends, obsessing over boys and goofing around were
Gracing the stage: Alexandra Esposito (left) poses with sister Francesca after attending Blue Valley North's production of Phantom of the Opera.
I never had a part as impressive as ballet chorus at North, but it doesn't bother me. I will support my sister in anything she ever does. And I like the idea she's proving that someone with the last name Esposito can breathe and dance at the same time. Jp
what really made me want to be there. I hope my sister gets the same thing from her theater experiences.
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ON PAGE 3A
03
10
11
The Student Senate finance committee proposed cutting all funding From the required campus fees to four community health services - the Douglas County AIDS Project,
BY ALEX GARRISON agarrison@kansan.com
Matthew Blankers, a graduate student in social work from Clearnont,
By Thursday, dozens of students had expressed their disapproval of the measure.
Calif., and a former senator, printed and distributed 250 fliers promoting students to contact senators. The budget would remove all funding from the Willow Center starting next year and all funding for the
Headquarters, GaDuGi SafeCenter and Willow Domestic Violence Center — on Tuesday.
SEE FUNDING ON PAGE 3A
Proposed reallocation of student fees
- They say they don't want these services to lose funding but believe they should not be funded through the Student Senate activity fund
Wants to cut all funding for the Douglas County AIDS Project, Headquarters, GaDuGi SafeCenter and Willow Domestic Violence Center from the student activity fee by fiscal year 2012; funding for these services is currently $2.11 of $11.41 (18 percent of total).
ARGUMENTS IN BRIEF:
- Plan to set up a taskforce to find ways to fund these services outside the activity fee
    *Sources: David Cohen, treasurer; Aaron Dolinger, chief of staff*
Student Senate finance committee:
The Douglas County AIDS Project, Headquarters, GaDuGi SafeCenter and Willow Domestic Violence
The self-destruction of the balloon will release the parachute, as it returns to earth. GeoHawk team member Ryan Callihan, a graduate student from Lenexa, said the team would track the vehicle's entire flight, but could not predict the landing exactly.
Center:
- Funding cuts are coming from federal and state levels — even if student contributions are relatively small, every little bit helps, especially in preparation for Gov. Brownback's proposed budget, which cuts state funding to community mental health centers completely
- Wants funding to remain at $2.11 per student, per semester
"We have no idea where it's going to land," he said. "It could land 300 miles downwind or in
Sources: Sarah Terwelp, executive director of the Willow Center; Olivia Burchett, outreach coordinator of DCAP
The balloon will expand in response to the decreasing air pressure as it rises, and the team expects it to pop at about 100,000 feet.
The entire apparatus will be about 23 feet long, with the balloon measuring four feet wide and six feet tall, pulling a tail strung with a parachute, radar reflectors and two boxes of electronic equipment. The equipment, which includes GPS trackers, will measure internal and external temperatures, air pressure and the orientation of the contraption. A camera will dangle from the end, pointed downward,
Weather permitting, the balloon will lift off from one of several possible launch sites on public land around the city. As the balloon rises, the camera will take hundreds of pictures of Lawrence and Douglas County. The students will use the balloon's flight data for several research projects on remote sensing, mapping, image processing and the effects of high-altitude on photography. Because the mission depends on obtaining good photographs,
Take a look at the sky on April 8 and you just might see a balloon flying over Lawrence. They call it Project GeoHawk, an assignment in Geography 726, Remote Sensing II.
"The cameras worked great," said Kelly Miller, a senior from Waterloo, Ill. "If we can get that quality from the flight it will be amazing."
A team of 18 geography students is preparing to build and launch a weather balloon 20 miles into the sky.
some team members boarded an airplane on Thursday for a test flight, removing one of the aircraft's windows to experiment with a variety of camera settings and lenses.
BY IAN CUMMINGS icummings@kansan.com
SEE GEOHAWKS ON PAGE 3A
Miller said that the vehicle, along with its data, could be destroyed if it lands in Clinton Lake or on Interstate 70. She said Olympus, the camera manufacturer that lent the students two Flagship E-5 cameras, also accepts that possibility and had been promised copyright of any images taken with their equipment.
Kansas City."
Group hopes to end use of fake IDs in Lawrence
ALCOHOL | 3A
The New Traditions Coalition works to promote awareness of alcoholism through new initiatives to stop underage drinking.
TECHNOLOGY | 3A
The future of cars is here
INDEX
Classifieds ... 11A
Crossword ... 4A
Cryptoquips ... 4A
Opinion ... 5A
Sports ... 12A
Sudoku ... 4A
A guest speaker discusses the prospects of new electric cars.
WEATHER
TODAY
68 36
Partly Cloudy
SATURDAY
9
5832
Mostly Sunny
SUNDAY 57 32
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
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