Emporia students and residents alike are invited to join together for a night of entertainment and fundraising. United Way will host a benefit concert at 7 p.m. on Nov. 16 at the Granada Theatre, 807 Commercial St.

“I chose the United Way because of the services they provide to our region,” said Rob Gilligan of Emporia Marketplace. “A lot of times with fundraising campaigns, for younger people and college students, it’s not something you can just write a check for … but maybe buying a concert ticket is a way they can give to United Way and still be able to have some fun.”

Gilligan said that he is also trying to develop other ways for people to donate to United Way, which is a funding agency that supports several non-profit organizations in an eight country region.

“Each year they do a big campaign to raise funds to help with operational expense and cost for a bunch of different things,” Gilligan said. “(This concert) will give us an opportunity to raise some awareness about United Way, and it’s a good way for people to come together and enjoy the entertainment.”

Gilligan said that around 200 people attended the concert last year and they seemed to enjoy the entertainment. He said he hopes for 400 attendees this year.

The White Ghost Shivers of Austin, Texas will provide the entertainment. Gilligan said the group is hard to place into one specific genre.

“Hot jazz, early soul, a lot of vaudeville,” Gilligan said of the group. “It’s really hard to call them a band … really, they are a show. They are an entire performance piece. They’re an experience.”

Erin Mullane, senior theater major, said she has seen the group perform several times and that they are a nice change from mainstream music.

“I think it’s bold that they are a band that plays in the 20s and 30s ragtime jazz style,” Mullane said. “I like that they expose the audience to a different kind of sound.”

Adam Helmer, junior theater major said he is looking forward to the experience.

“I hope to get to see an amazing concert and to learn how much money is raised from this event to benefit United Way,” Helmer said.

Emporia will be the White Ghost Shivers’ first stop for the Kansas tour. They will also perform with The Skirts, a folk band from Chase County.

Tickets can be purchased for $15 at the Granada Box office, Sweet Granada, Granada Coffee Company, United Way, the Emporia Gazette and on campus, and 100 percent of the profits will go to United Way.

Khaili Scarbrough

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Emporia residents dressed up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday night at the Granada Theater. The movie showed both at 8 p.m. and midnight. Yiqing Fu/The Bulletin

Hundreds of fans swarmed the Granada Theatre last Friday night to take part in the object-throwing, aisle-dancing cult classic known as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The show played at both 8 p.m. and midnight.

Shelby Lindsey, junior art major and volunteer at the Granada, said that the show appeals to viewers because it is a “cult film,” which means that fans are highly devoted to it.

“It’s interactive,” Lindsey said. “We had prop bags for everyone.”

The first 200 people at each showing received a prop bad, which contained rice; a newspaper; glow sticks; rubber gloves; noisemakers like whistles; a strand of toilet paper; pieces of toast; party hats and playing cards, Lindsey said.

All items were used during certain parts of the show and were most often thrown towards the stage. For example, during the opening scene of the movie, audience members mimicked the actors by throwing rice at the newlywed couple leaving the church on screen.

“We have concerts every month but this is really the only interactive event we have ever had,” Lindsey said, “I love it because it’s just strange – in general it’s just creepy.”

Some audience members came dressed in unusual outfits, which included maids in fishnet stockings. Two such viewers were Brenna Mercer and Daya Williams, Emporian sisters who said they came to enjoy the show and relive pleasant memories from their teenage years.

“The first time (I saw it), my dad took me when I was 18 and it was with the audience participation,” Mercer said. “It’s one of my most fun memories from when I was younger.”

Williams is an Emporia State secondary education graduate. She donned a maid costume.

“I love the audience participation,” Williams said.

Along with using the items in their prop bags, viewers sang along with the music and danced in the aisles to the song “The Time Warp.” Members of the audience also shouted at the screen during key moments in the performance.

“It was nice having the prop bags – I didn’t have to remember what to bring,” said Janet Burenheide, Emporia resident.

Maria Morris, Flint Hills Technical College student, said that she loved the audience participation and her favorite part was when the volunteers at the Granada threw water at the audience during a rainy scene to simulate being rained on. Audience members put newspapers over the tops of their heads to keep dry from the “rain.”

The next show on Granada’s calendar is “Beetlejuice,” set for 7 p.m. this Friday night. Admission is $5 and the doors open at 6 p.m.

Khaili Scarbrough

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When he sang his aptly titled song “I’m Ready” to nearly 400 audience members last Friday night at the Granada Theatre downtown, local alternative hip-hop singer and Emporia State junior marketing student Chad Carson, also known as CMAJOR, really meant it.

Carson has been performing for six years and producing music for 10 years. His first album, “I’m Ready,” has already sold out, 500 copies in all, since its release last May. The concert was Carson’s statement to Emporia that he is ready to let his music be heard.

“The crowd is amazing and my town is amazing,” Carson said. “They’ve been showing me nothing but love. Regardless of the numbers, we had the community come together to support local music and that’s what it’s all about.”

This was the first hip-hop concert the theater had ever hosted according to Jessica Buchholz, executive director of the Granada.

“We were really excited to try something new,” Buchholz said. “We have never had a hip-hop or alternative rock music concert like Chad’s.

Buchholz said that the Granada is trying to expand the live music scene in Emporia.

“Sometimes it’s a challenge, but there are a lot of great bands in Emporia, there’s a lot of local talents,” Buchholz said. “It’s just getting people out to support that – it’s very important.”

The concert was advertised as “the biggest concert of the year” and got about 500 RSVPs on its Facebook event page.

Carson himself helped produce the performance. He invested about $2,500 into the concert with the money he earned from his first album. He also promoted the concert by distributing 700 fliers and 100 posters since ESU’s block party in August.

“I think (the concert) is a great thing in Emporia,” said Naomi Aranda, junior hospitality and culinary arts major at Flint Hills Technical College. “We’ve been looking forward to this for three weeks. We’ve never heard of anything like this before. It’s magnificent.”

Carson said that his father was a musician, so he was exposed to blues and rock and roll during his childhood. He combines these styles with electronic dance music and heart-felt lyrics, which he said makes his sound unique.

“I’m so different from everybody else,” Carson said. “I’m from Emporia, Kan.–  that’s not really the hip-hop spot. California, New York, Atlanta, those places already have so many people, and the market is so saturated already, and they already have their sound.”

Carson said that the Midwest is diverse, so musicians here do not have to stick to one sound. The Midwest is a melting pot of styles from the east, the west and the south.

“I will develop my own sound,” Carson said. “What I would like to do is to put mainstream music out that actually has a meaning, rather than just talking about cars, women, or jewelry or money. I’d like to put out music that everybody can listen to, but is also telling my life story.”

TIANHAI JIANG

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The Bulletin will celebrate its 110th birthday next Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Granada Theatre, 807 Commercial St.  The evening will begin with a catered dinner followed by guest speakers and a slide show of The Bulletin staff and the paper’s coverage over the years.

A special birthday edition of the newspaper will also be available for guests. The main speaker for the evening is Ralph Gage, special projects manager for The Lawrence-Journal World.

Dinner is $25 per person and will be catered by Flint Hills Flying W, a ranch owned by the Hoy family outside of Emporia. Please RSVP to editor@esubulletin.com. View more details at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=154756061240406.

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The stage at Emporia’s Granada Theatre lit up Saturday night to reveal the large, wooden drums that Taikoza, a group from New York City, would play.

The stage at Emporia’s Granada Theatre lit up Saturday night to reveal the large, wooden drums that Taikoza, a group from New York City, would play. Taikoza is based on traditional Japanese drum music, and director Marco Lienhard said half of the music is traditional and half of it is inspired the traditional music.Taikoza translates roughly to “drum group.”

“Some rhythms are a little more modern or from other cultures, so I sort of choreographed a few pieces and so it’s a combination of both,” Lienhard said.

An Emporia State student from Japan, sophomore theater major Yui Watanabe, said the performance was very Japanese in style and costume.

“I liked it because I think sometimes American people put Chinese style, Korean style, some of their styles, but this was Japanese style,” Watanabe said

The event was the first of the Emporia Arts Council’s 35^th Performing Arts Season. Before the performance, Melissa Windsor, executive director of the EAC, announced that the gallery and retail store portions of arts council’s new building will open on Dec. 4.

Lienhard was originally from Switzerland, but when he was 17 he decided to do a foreign exchange program in Japan that was only meant to last a year. That was when he found Ondekoza, or “demon drum group,” an endeavor that was only meant to last three months. He ended up playing with them for 18 years.

“Once I was there, the gates opened and it was like, ‘oh this is fascinating,’ and I tried, I was only supposed to spend one year there, but after a month I was like I have to find a way to stay here longer and I came across a commune… I was planning to stay three months, but that extended a little longer,” Lienhard said.

Lienhard said that Taikoza, like Ondekoza, is a commune, meaning that the members all live together. He said there are currently 10 to 12 members, but they all have other projects and half of them are freelance. The group that performed included six members of Taikoza, Chikako Saito, Marguerite Bunyan, Malika Duckworth, Kristy Oshiro and Junko Kobayashi.

“When we have a concert I try to find who is available. They all practice my songs so they know and we work and then when we get together we work on the program that we decide to do,” Lienhard said.

The drum is important in Japanese culture because it is played in festivals and Lienhard said it announces things to come.

“They will play it outside so it’s something to be heard and that’s why they’re made out of one tree trunk, so that gives it that sort of boost and you can really hear that,” Lienhard said.

Watanabe said most Japanese play the drums for the summer festival. She said some of the drum techniques Taikoza used are very difficult and most people cannot do them for more than a few minutes.

“Many women play like this, but it’s very, very hard, we can do it for maybe three minutes, five minutes… how can she do that? Maybe you think it’s easy, but it’s not,” Watanabe said.

Senior theater design major Levi Howe said he has gone to the arts council’s performing arts series events before, but hasn’t seen anything like Taikoza.

“There’s a lot of culture and a lot of history here, so it’s a lot to take in but it shows you the culture from a different place, foreign to Emporia,” Howe said.

Lauren Walbridge

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Berch

The Granada Theatre is encouraging students to “Rock into College” with bands Between the Lines and Berch on Saturday, August 21 at 8 p.m. Granada director Jessica Buchholz said the show is a back to school celebration, but anyone in the community is welcome. The show is all ages and the cover charge is $5.

“Last year we had a movie the night of the Block Party and we thought we’d try a little something different this year,” Buchholz said, “Live music always seems to be a pretty big hit with students and the general population.”

Between the Lines is from Emporia and percussionist Victor Rodriguez said playing at the Granada was a dream for him since it was renovated. The show will be the band’s fourth performance at the theater.

“We really enjoy playing there, it’s a good venue. We’re very glad Emporia’s got that,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said the band has been playing together for five years and covers a variety of music from classic rock and party songs to country and rhythm and blues. The drummer said he’s excited to showcase some of their original music on Saturday.

“We have a big repertoire of original songs considered alternative rock, but we are contemporary rock I guess,” Rodriguez said.
Berch’s lead singer Colin Elmore said his band is from Springfield, Missouri and has been playing together about a year and a half.

“It was kind of like a joking around thing at first, but we started taking it seriously,” Elmore said.

Elmore described his band’s music as “all over the place” with a sound that ties it all together. He said some of it has a country music structure, but some of it is more overdriven rock.
“I guess the best way to describe it is Coldplay with a saxophone,” Elmore said.

Elmore said Berch is touring for a few days, starting in Bentonville, Arkansas, going to Kansas City and ending in Emporia. The band is set to release their first c.d. September 17.

“I’ve heard really cool things about the area and that live music is kind of an active thing in Emporia,” Elmore said.

Unlike Between the Lines, Berch has never played in Emporia, and Elmore said they’re excited to meet new people here. He said the band cares about people and they love to make friends wherever they play.

“It’s kind of like we want to come and serve people by playing music, which sounds kind of overboard maybe, but really it’s a joy to get to go to places even if people really don’t come,” Elmore said. “We just want to meet whoever does come,”

Rodriguez said he listened to Berch on Myspace and is looking forward to opening for them.

“They sound very good,” Rodriguez said. “I know they travel quite a bit. They’re a very polished band,”

Buchholz said the Granada tries to get at least one local band to play once a month, as well as other bands from outside of the Emporia area.

“We did a lot of different shows last year for like local bands and I think it’s really important to support local music here in town,” Buccholz said.

Lauren Walbridge

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With a $5 cover charge and drink specials of $2 wells and $3 bottles, America’s roots were brought to the Granada Theatre in the form of bluegrass music when the Basement Pickers Association and The Skirts performed on Friday.

“It was fantastic. I’d never seen either one play before, it was a good time,” said Scott Goering, senior computer science major. “I had a blast and everybody had lots of energy.”

The Basement Pickers opened with their nine piece ensemble including an upright bass, ukulele, mandolin, three acoustic guitars, fiddle, banjo and a variety of other instruments including harmonicas and a washboard. The band wore Hawaiian shirts that coincided with their cover of John Prine’s “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian.” The band covered traditional and contemporary “fiddletunes,” as well as other bluegrass hits.

The Skirts is a three piece, all female group out of Cottonwood Falls made up of bassist Sarah Bays, dulcimer and percussion instrumentalist Melissa Tastove and guitarist Elexa Dawson. All three women contributed vocally, harmonizing and taking on solos. They performed original songs and covered songs like “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson, “No Rain” by Blind Melon and “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King.

Bays said that The Skirts had played in Emporia before at Natasha’s and Beer:30, but they want to do more since they’re only 20 minutes away.

“We kind of had a lull there for a little bit where we were just kind of hanging out, working up some new stuff and now that the weather’s getting warm and people are out doing stuff again, we’re looking to play some more shows,” Bays said.

Dawson said she was impressed by the atmosphere of the theater and that someone in the audience said it felt like they weren’t in Emporia.

“In here you forget that you’re still in Emporia,” Dawson said. “I think Emporia’s doing a great job supporting the arts council and supporting the Granada Theatre.”
Bays, Dawson and Tastove have been playing together since May 2009, when Elexa and the Hitchikers, a band that Dawson and Tastove had worked with, broke up.

“We all just started playing together over at (Dawson’s) house, jamming and hanging out and eating food and got a chance to play at a family BBQ and that went really well and then just kind of went from there,” Tastove said.

Bays, who went to K-State as a voice major, said she began playing bass not even a year ago and Tastove said she’s played her instruments for about 2 years. Dawson has played guitar off and on since she was 12 years old.

“I got nails put on for junior prom, so I didn’t play the guitar again for like four years or something until I was 20 and I went to Winfield and picked up the guitar that I’d learned on and then started playing again,” Dawson said.

Tastove said the people that inspire their music are people they cover like Neil Young, Jonie Mitchell and The Beatles.

“Well, Elexa writes most of the songs. A lot of the other songs we do are just cover songs of, you know, just bands that we like or just songs that we really like,” Bays said.

Tastove said the best part about playing together is that they all love each other and have a lot of fun. Dawson said there are a lot of “That’s what she said” jokes. As far as playing music in general goes, Dawson described it as an out of body experience.

“I think that it is able to convey messages that words alone cannot,” Dawson said.

Bays said that as far as long term goals go, the band is just looking to make a c.d. and get their music out there

“We’re not in it to get big and make lots of money,” Bays said. “We’ve all got our day jobs and we all love our lives and what we do and we want that to stay the same, so we’re not looking to go on tour or anything like that, just produce a CD and be able to share our music with people.”

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The second installment of Lincoln Symposium speakers will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Granada Theatre downtown. Each symposium is sponsored by the department of social sciences and is free and open to the public.

“I think Lincoln is, without a doubt, our greatest president,” said Brian Miller, assistant professor of social sciences and project developer. “I think that to celebrate a momentous moment like his 200^th birthday allows us to not only pause and talk about Lincoln as a historical figure, but also what lessons we can learn from Abraham Lincoln that apply today.”

Kristopher Maulden, graduate student from the University of Missouri in Columbia, and Jennifer Weber, assistant professor of history at the University of Kansas will present lectures on the life and history of Abraham Lincoln.

This lecture, entitled “Those Venomous Copperheads,” will introduce Lincoln as a member of the Whig political party and his entrance into the Republican Party and the office of the presidency.

Miller said that he wanted to bring a unique celebration of Lincoln to Emporia State.

“Brian (Miller) was talking about how the university wasn’t planning anything for the Lincoln anniversaries coming up and I said ‘well, let’s plan something,’” said Ellen Hansen, associate professor and chair of social sciences. “He took it and ran with it and I have been really excited and impressed with all the work he’d done to make it successful.”

Weber will speak about the Copperheads, a group of anti Civil War proponents, who campaigned and spoke against Lincoln throughout his presidency. How Lincoln dealt with the anti-war movement will also be addressed.

“Our symposium deals with those issues such as anti-war sentiment, how did Lincoln deal with that and we can compare it to how our current president or previous administration dealt with those things,” Millers said.

Maulden will present Lincoln during his early political life and throughout his presidency.

“We’re going to get a nice balance of what Lincoln did before presidency and what he did as president,” Miller said.

Each lecture will feature one professor and one graduate student. The professors will be available after each lecture to visit with students and their books will also be available for purchase so that students may receive autographs.

The lectures are being held at the Granada Theater so that the whole community can be encouraged to attend.

“The lectures are designed for the general audience,” Miller said. “These folks are going to talk about Lincoln in terms that anybody can understand and allow them to appreciate who Lincoln was and the sacrifices that he made as a leader that ultimately changed our nation.”

One lecture was held last October honoring the 150^th anniversary of the debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas leading up to the race for an Illinois senate.

“Even though he lost that race, it made him a national figure,” Miller said. “We decided to kick off the events commemorating that with Professor Morel’s address on the Lincoln Douglas debates and then move on to the 200^th birthday celebration this semester.”

The symposium will hold lectures every Wednesday in February but other events will also be held throughout the month.

“You’ll get a little mixture at each event,” Miller said. “My goal is to extend Lincoln into different directions so that we cans see what different people are working on for the future, what the Lincoln books will look like five or ten years from now.”

The Emporia Public Library and the Lyon County Historical Society are also teaming up with the department of social sciences to bring several events to the symposium.

“One of the things that I think is going to make it a real success is that he’s really drawn in the community, a lot of different areas of the community,” Hansen said. “He’s doing a coloring contest in the schools. We have teachers coming to campus.”

A teacher’s dinner will be held at 5 p.m. Feb. 18 at the Granada Theater. The event is focused on students preparing to become secondary education teachers.

“We are inviting teachers in from across the state to come and share lesson plans on how to teach about Lincoln,” Miller said.

At 7 p.m. Feb. 10, the historical society will host a night at the museum, which will feature John Neff, professor from the University of Mississippi who will be leading a discussion about Lincoln.

“We will be having one of the speakers come here and do more of an informal Q & A with people about Lincoln,” said Kim Holcomb, education director for the Lyon County Historical Society. “He’s is actually one of the Lincoln symposium speakers so he will be at the Granada Theatre as well.”

The lectures for the rest of the month will include “The President Has Been Shot” Feb. 11, “Free at Last, Free at Last!” Feb. 18 and “The First Lady’s Domain” Feb. 25.

Ashley Peaches/The Bulletin

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