Arts & Culture

If you've ever been to a UC Davis football or basketball game, at some point you've most likely heard the following cry over the PA system: "Make some noise for the UC Davis Da-a-ance Team!!"

While these ladies may only be the main attraction during halftime and timeouts during the games, they will take center stage this Friday and Saturday night at the fifth annual UC Davis Dance Team Showcase.

"We're on campus at various events throughout the entire year," said senior co-captain and exercise biology major Shannon Thompson. "But that's us supporting another team. This is our show."

The showcase will be held at Veterans Memorial Theatre at 23 Russell Blvd., starting at 7 p.m. both nights. A silent auction will also take place, with items up for bid ranging in everything from wine bottles to Kaplan prep courses to signed High School Musical memorabilia. But the main feature of the show will be the dance team's performance.

Yes,they are identical twins fromCanada.And yes,they are also lesbians.But audience members got to see another side of musical duo Tegan and Sara when they took the stage Monday night at Freeborn Hall.

Despite the darkly melodic tones of their latest albumThe Con,Monday's show took a positively lighter-hearted approach as sisters Tegan and Sara Quin took breaks to talk to the audience in between songs.Exchanges of sibling banter,hockey debates,talks of "Jacuzzi bum sex" and an unexpected wardrobe change accompanied the set.It was a personal touch from the two in an attempt to connectwith everyone in the audience and evoke a more intimate and casual living room-vibe,regardless of the venue's actual size.

Students with a deep interest in filmmaking as well as those who just like fooling around with their camera for class projects may have found a rewarding avenue for their efforts.

The UC Davis department of theatre and dance Annual Film Festival, in association with the department of technocultural studies, is announcing a call for submissions due this month for the 8th annual screening in June.

For first time, the film festival will give students the opportunity to project their movies on a big screen at Varsity Theatre in downtown Davis, said festival founder, judge and UC Davis theatre and dance professor John Iacovelli.

With a sagging economy, the dollar cannot buy much. But cobble together $100 worth of change from your La-Z-Boy, and you can multiply your 15 minutes of fame by four while supporting freeform community radio.

The annual KDVS 90.3 FM fundraiser kicked off Monday and will last until Sunday at midnight. The weeklong fundraiser is the only time of the year that KDVS actively seeks contributions from their listeners. The 24-hour, volunteer-run radio station derives two-thirds of its annual budget from this weeklong fundraiser, said general manager and junior technocultural studies major Ben Johnson.

It's been a busy week for the concert-goers as Freeborn Hall hosted two shows in two days: First the Canadian identicals Tegan andSara with the Aussies,An Horse; then Death Cab for Cutie and The Cave Singers came.

Attending two back-to-back concerts, similar in taste and most likely drawing an overlapping crowd, might make some double-nighters feel like experts. I went to the front of the line at Death Cab for Cutie and was advised to sign up my friends to take shifts waiting in line. When I askedsophomore communication major Alexandra Garabedian if she was a really dedicated fan since she had been camping out since10:30a.m., she threw me a curveball.

Kicking off Earth Week on Monday at the Memorial Union patio was Trashion Show 2008, presented by the ASUCD Environmental Policy and Planning Commission (EPPC) and the Student Fashion Association (SFA).

Models sashayed down the runway in designs made entirely from recyclable or reused material. Sixteen looks were featured at the show, including a red mini-dress adorned with CDs found at the recycling center and accessorized with a bag made from a cereal box by junior design major Frankees Samad. A ballet-inspired dress made from trash bags by first-year Sarah Silva also took the stage.

Prizes were given out to designs that were judged as the most sustainable. Rachel Aquino, a first-year political science major, won third place with a dress created from newspapers from the Cuarto Dining Commons. Senior textiles and clothing major Maureen Dougherty won second place with her refashioning of a shawl into a strapless dress and for a design made from a vintage dress from the '80s.

Your style has always been seen as acoustic folk rock. How is your newest album, The Con, different, and why did you make that change?

We always saw ourselves as songwriters, so there wasn't much emphasis on developing the band with instrumentation. With So Jealous and The Con, we had the chance to think a lot more about the instrumentation and worked a lot on it. We went so far as to put our own drums down and mapped out what we wanted our songs to sound like.… When we first started making music, we were 18, where you go into a studio and rattle something out.

LIVE MUSIC

Lee Coulter, Jakob Martin, Aaron Bowen

Today, 7:30 p.m.

ASUCD Coffee House

Who's got the booty? She's got the booty and you've got the booty voodoo! Headlining tonight is the Australian witch doctor Lee Coulter, who anyone hungry for a little John Mayer with some added spice will eat up immediately.

Half-handed Cloud, LAKE, G2

Friday, 7 p.m.

Scrambled Egg House

If you thought this show was last week, well, I was just kidding. The Berkeley resident John Ringhofer is the original bassist of Danielson but now writes jovial acoustic folk which may be enjoyed by a wide range of listeners. He will be joined by the local UC Davis alumnus G2

To be honest, I am a little overwhelmed with the amount of "artsy stuff" scheduled to take place over the next week. Picnic Day is a lot to swallow, which is expected - but to those of you scratching your heads as you look at MUSE today, have no fear. The "expert" in all that is artsy or of entertainment value shall bestow upon you an exclusive list of where you should be seen and what you should be doing this weekend.

Search Party. Attention all student music makers: your deadline is tomorrow! Before you go on a Safeway run to stock up on red party cups for an epic beer pong tournament this weekend, get your entry in for Search Party, the campus "talent search" brought to you by MUSE, the ASUCD Entertainment Council and KDVS 90.3 FM.

t's a familiar wardrobe cycle: Spring comes, time to buy new clothes. Summer comes, time to go shopping yet again - the routine continues year after year.

Urging people to rethink their consumer habits is "Trashed Fashion: Breaking the Cycle,"a short film screening Friday at 7 p.m. at the Agrarian Effort Co-op near the Segundo residence halls, which will be followed by a clothing swap.

"Trashed Fashion" highlights several ideas to incorporate sustainability into one's shopping habits by suggesting alternate ideas to purchasing new clothes. Amanda Ornellas, a senior women and gender studies major, made the film with three other students.

ditor's note: MUSE offers a monthly feature to highlight artists in and out of Davis that impact our community. This month's "Five Questions" is with Adam Selzer, the lead singer of the Portland-based folk band Norfolk & Western. Selzer also runs Type Foundry Recording Studio in Portland, where he has worked with M. Ward, Little Wings and The Decemberists. Norfolk & Western will be performing Saturday at the Old Firehouse on campus, along with their Portland friends Weinland and Sacramento's Silver Darling. For more information on the band, visit norfolkandwestern.org.

1. What's Norfolk & Western up to currently?

We are recording a new record - we recorded some of it in Spain last year and the rest at my studio Type Foundry. We're leaving today for a short west coast tour - other than that we're waiting for the sun to come out so we can barbeque tofu.

2. If you could live in any time period in history, which would it be?

Any time where people did not have access to use cell phones in public.

hree individual works of choreographers food science graduate student Ann Marie Dragich and senior dramatic art majors Toni Alejandria and Vivian Thorne come together to form this year's Main Stage Dance/Theatre Festival, held in the Main Theatre this weekend.

Combining both dance and theatrical elements, Main Stage utilizes the visual and auditory to render an immensely diverse and contemplative production. Each piece radically differs from one to the next, embodying each student choreographer's unique strengths and creative abilities.

Theater and dance associate professor David Grenke, the festival's artistic director, has been involved with the festival for five years and oversaw the production of the event.

The Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts announces its 2008 to 2009 season, offering patrons the chance to see an impressive line-up of prominent performing artists, lecturers and musicians, as well as emerging talents and newcomers in other numerous fields.

The new season, which is the center's seventh, runs from October through June and will feature 66 events and 87 performances. Some of the large acts of the upcoming season include Linda Ronstadt in concert, a performance of Hamlet by Shakespeare & Company and a lecture from activist Gloria Steinem.