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LITTLE 500
Women rally for rule change By Caroline Anders anders6@iu.edu | @clineands
A movement has been churning among the women of Little 500 for some time now. They started out on tricycles, racing in the “Mini 500.” In 1988, 37 years after the inaugural men’s Little 500, the women graduated to two wheels. Though they finally had a race of their own, things still weren’t equal. Their 25-mile, 100-lap race is just half the length of the men’s competition. One group of women is looking to change that. It won’t be easy. The doubters say doubling the lap count will force some of the lower-tier teams out of the race, making the already small women’s riding community even smaller. The women pushing for the change say progress can’t happen without a calculated leap of faith. * * * A petition to increase the women’s lap count to 200 began circulating through the cycling community Friday, but the conversation about equality began long before last weekend. Melanzana Cycling alumna Brooke Hannon said most women who ride the Little 500 have thought about the lap disparity at some point. “People talk about it every year,” she said. “You finish the race, you get off the bike and SEE LITTLE 500, PAGE 8
Moon spectacle Sunday night By Joey Bowling jobowl@iu.edu | @jwbowling08
The super blood wolf moon is coming. A supermoon occurs when the moon is at its closest to the Earth, making it appear larger than usual. A blood moon describes the reddish color the moon takes on during a lunar eclipse. A wolf moon describes the first full moon of the calendar year. Next week, those three lunar phenomena will combine into a super blood wolf moon, which will be visable late Sunday night until early Monday morning, IU astronomy professor Caty Pilachowski said. “Each of those pieces – the super, the full, and the blood and the wolf are all tied together,” Pilachowski said. Folk and religious beliefs surround the astronomical phenomena. Blood moon As the sun’s light curves around the sides of the Earth, the moon turns red. This is where a blood moon gets its name, Pilachowski said. Kristina Downs, managing editor for the Journal of Folklore Research at IU, said contemporary neopagans associate the blood moon with power and danger. SEE MOON, PAGE 8
Cast and crew IU senior both performs in operas and works behind the scenes on stage crew By Chris Forrester chforres@iu.edu |@_ChrisForrester
Perched on a lavishly decorated stage, dressed and made up as a young boy, is Ashlyn Brown. She loves the feel of her costume. She even loves the discomfort of binder she has to wear to don the guise of a young man and the smell of her makeup. She relishes the attention of the audience, captivated by the story she’s so lucky to be a part of, a production of "Hansel and Gretel." “It’s actually magic, looking out into the audience and seeing them looking back at you, wanting to know what happens next,” she said. Brown, 21, is an IU senior who studies and performs opera through the Jacobs School of Music. And when she’s not performing in roles or stage choruses, she’s working on behind-the-scenes set construction and demolition as part of the stage crew. Hannah Davis, an assistant supervisor on the stage crew, said it’s uncommon for a performer to work on the stage crew, especially on top of performance preparation and classes. But Brown allows her stress to fuel her work rather than hinder her, Davis said. “Building sets is physically demanding, but Ashlyn never backs down from challenging tasks,” she said. “The fact that she has worked on our crew for her entire undergraduate career speaks to her work ethic and her interest in the many
realms of theater.” Brown’s introduction to music came from her parents, a pair of jingle writers. They’ve written catchy tunes for everything from frozen yogurt stores to heating and air conditioning businesses, she said. “My whole life I’ve been singing with them, doing these short little 30-second clips, so I never thought I would be singing for four hours at once,” she said. Brown grew up in Palm Springs, California. In her high school band, she played the oboe and was exposed to Mozart and Bizet. But the band performed entire overtures without vocal accompaniment. Brown, curious as to what the overtures sounded like with vocals, started listening to them. There began her fascination with opera and voice performance. At one point, Brown said, she considered going into musical theater but ultimately chose opera because she preferred its power and because her voice was better suited to it. “There’s something so special about opera because no matter what you do it’s going to touch someone,” she said. “For me, it’s one of the most influential arts because music changes how we feel, and acting changes how we feel, too, and since everything in opera is super heightened, it’s like the purest form of each emotion.” Brown started studying opera later than most. Many start as early as freshman year of high school, while
Brown didn’t really start until midway through junior year. Her adviser helped her choose colleges to apply to, and ultimately she ended up at IU. “I found some of the most amazing people I’ve met in my whole life here,” she said. Brown has performed in four opera choruses for IU Opera Theater productions and had starring roles in two shows, including Hansel in “Hansel and Gretel.” She has also worked the stage crew for 10 productions, such as “Oklahoma” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Working the stage crew, though taxing and occasionally dangerous, is advantageous because it familiarizes Brown with the sets she helps construct. It’s also rewarding because the achievements are more concrete, Brown said. “Not only have I put my blood, sweat and tears into this, but you can see what I’ve actually done,” she said. Sometimes, the blood, sweat and tears can be more literal than wanted. Once, during a safety demonstration, she preached the importance of watching where you’re going. Moments later, she stepped wrong and fell on a bolt that drove itself a quarter of an inch into her leg. On another fateful day, Brown said she and other stage crew members had to move a heavy piece of equipment when it toppled in her direction, nearly crushing her. “If I hadn’t tucked and rolled, I would actually be pudding now,” she
COURTESY PHOTO
Senior Ashlyn Brown (left) played Hansel in IU Opera Theater’s production of “Hansel and Gretel” in 2018. Brown is an opera student at IU, and when she isn’t performing on stage, she works as part of the stage crew.
said. Somehow, she said, performance mistakes are still worse than behindthe-scenes mistakes, even the physically harmful or life-endangering ones. Thinking about the possibility of onstage screw ups makes her skin crawl, she said. She could miss a scene, fall into the pit, forget or miss a line or a variety of other blunders so severe the show couldn’t continue. “I would rather die than humiliate myself,” she said. Though some fear is caused by avoiding embarrassment, it also stems from a duty she feels to the other performers and to the community she belongs to. Sometimes, the music school still feels like a dream. She doesn’t know where she would be without it, and she can’t get enough. Sometimes, after a show ends, she stays well into the next morning deconstructing sets. “I never thought that I would make it here,” she said. “I just came from this small pond way out in the middle of the desert and dove right into this huge school, and somehow things are working out.”
Women find sisterhood on sorority Bid Night By Christine Stephenson
Each PNM is assigned a Rho Gamma at the beginning of recruitment. These women are members of sororities who temporarily disaffiliate from their chapters so they can offer unbiased guidance to the women in their groups. Freshman Sophie Michael, who hoped to get a bid from Delta Zeta, said she watched Netflix to distract herself while she wasn’t in class during the day. “I would have had a mental breakdown otherwise,” she said. “I’m pretty nervous.” The 21 chapters — barring Chi Omega, who was put on cease and desist Friday and stopped recruitment Saturday — all had banners hanging around the courts. Michael looked over at Delta Zeta’s banner, which read “No Sleep Till Bid Day” and featured a painting of a red and black boombox.
cistephe@iu.edu | @cistephenson23
The IU Panhellenic Association celebrated Bid Night on Tuesday at the IU Tennis Center. The recruitment process ran in four rounds over two weeks. First, the Potential New Members, or PNMs, visited the 22 chapters Jan. 3-4. After the PNMs and sororities ranked each other, the PNMs were invited back to up to 16 chapters again Jan. 4-5. Then, after PNMs visited up to nine chapters Jan. 11-12 and up to two chapters Jan. 13, they waited until Tuesday to find out if they received a bid. Some did not get one, and some dropped out of the recruitment process entirely. Those who got one went to the tennis center, where they received an invitation to one of their two preferred chapters. Alexis Karwoski, assistant director of fraternity and sorority life, said 1,157 women would receive bids. 7:30 p.m. The first group of PNMs wandered into the tennis center. Before entering onto the courts, everyone was instructed to grab a canvas bag off of a table to put their shoes in, as
ALEX DERYN | IDS
Women run to their chapter’s banners Jan. 15 in the IU Tennis Center. All women received their bids together and ran in celebration.
everyone had to be in socks for the night. One woman talked about her class, K303: Technology and Business Analysis, to pass the time.
“What is even going on?” another asked. Groups of five to 10 PNMs stood with their Rho Gammas and took selfies.
8:00 p.m. “Lip Gloss” by Lil Mama blared over the speakers as groups of women continued to trickle into the tennis center. One Rho Gamma was dressed in a Winnie the Pooh onesie, but most SEE BID NIGHT, PAGE 8