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Check out the best tunes to celebrate the Sox victory! Page 11
1 November 2013
Restaurant Week offers sample of Seacoast fare Event offers various items at fixed prices By OLIVIA MARPLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
As daylight becomes scarcer and the evening air grows ever frostier, it’s harder to get out of the pleasant warmth of your room at night after a long day of classes. However, the creators of Portsmouth Restaurant Week are hoping that, even as the pleasant days of October drift into the bitter month of November, people will brave the cold to come taste some of the comforting flavors of fall offered throughout the Seacoast restaurant community, such as a warm cup of pumpkin bisque soup at the British Beer Company or spice filled empanadas at Brazo Restaurant. These two restaurants are joined by close to 50 others in the Seacoast community that are participating in Portsmouth Restaurant Week, a bi-annual food fest where restaurants offer fixed-price, three-course meals for lunch and dinner with new food items not normally featured on their menus. The week will begin Thursday, Nov. 7 and end Saturday, Nov. 16. The restaurants involved cover a large area of the Seacoast, from Durham to downtown Portsmouth to Kittery, Maine, and the price at each restaurant for lunch will be $16.95 and for dinner will be $29.95. Kathleen Soldati, who is in charge of public relations for the event, underscored that this is a good deal for customers, especially considering the variety and quality of food being served at the various establishments. “There are so many great chefs in Portsmouth who are doing so many exciting things,” Soldati said. “Wheth-
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OLIVIA MARPLE/CONTRIBUTING
Portsmouth’s British Beer Company is one of over 40 restuarants in the Seacoast area that will be participating in the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce’s Restaurant Week. During Restaurant Week, which runs from Nov. 7 to 16, restaurants will offer certain items at fixed prices.
Sisters in Step stomp into first competition By OLIVIA MARPLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Sisters in Step, UNH’s own step and hip-hop dance team, will be participating for the first time in the 10th annual “Break the Stage” dance competition at Tufts University on Saturday, Nov. 9. The group will be “stepping” against teams that have participated in “Break the Stage” every year since its inception. Despite their lack of experience in stepping, the girls who make up Sisters in Step are excited for this new challenge and have been working hard to perfect their dance routine, which is alien and outer space themed and was created by the choreographers of the team, Kayla Pigeon and Tess Letarte. “The song that I [picked to choreograph] was ‘Space Jam,’” Letarte said. “So we’ve got a lot of fun, futuristic stepping and dancing.” Pigeon added that they are also featuring the song “Phone Home” by Lil’ Wayne in order to make their
routine “a little more hip-hoppy.” After the team warmed up at their practice on Thursday, Oct. 24, they started their routine with one member shouting, “Greetings Boston! We come in peace.” They then began their routine, which was made up of various step combinations of clapping and stamping on the ground, as well as yelling out cheers such as “UNH” and making noises to punctuate their moves. They used their whole bodies as instruments, hitting their chests and legs to mix up their movements. The echoes of their clapping and stomping reverberated throughout the wood-paneled studio area, even drowning out the bass thrumming through the ceiling from the Kendrick Lamar concert, which was occurring the same night at the Whittemore Center. Some parts of the routine were set to music, like the section where they danced to “Space Jam,” while during other parts there was silence in the background, increasing the
A spin on a classic
impact of the sounds they made with their bodies. One of the dancers in the group, Nicole Paddock, said she is excited about the upcoming dance-off at Tufts University and, although she has never competed in a step competition before, she imagined the intensity of dancing would be similar to that of the dance competitions in the movie “Stomp the Yard.” “I’m really excited to see the other people there,” Paddock said. “I can’t wait to network with other teams.” Two of those other teams will be Blackout and ENVY, Tufts University’s step teams. According to the Facebook page, the event is described as “the premier step competition of the New England region,” something that weighs heavily in the mind of Letarte. “I’m a little nervous just because it is our first competition,” she said. “Normally we just do shows once a semester and now we’re going to be in front of the whole step
UNH Celebrity Series presents “The Graduate” performed by Los Angeles Theater Works on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Paul Creative Arts Center’s Johnson Theater. The play is based on a 1963 novel written by Charles Webb, which has since been made into a popular film of the same name. The story is about Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate who has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of a family friend. Though “The Graduate” is a well-known and beloved story, Los Angeles Theater Works will bring a distinctive production style to this classic. Los Angeles Theater Works will perform the show in radio theater style. This means the actors will speak into microphones as though they are performing an old-time radio play complete with sound effects. The actors will be in costume, but beyond that there will be minimal setting. “Part of the goal is to bring an appreciation to a forgotten art,” Matt Arkin, who will be playing Mr. Robinson, said. “This isn’t a type of show anyone nowadays would have seen. The actors will be speaking into microphones facing the audience as though they are recording a play for a radio program.” Arkin also spoke about the challenges of this unusual style of produc-
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UNH Celebrity Series brings “The Graduate” to campus By TOM SPENCER CONTRIBUTING WRITER