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Vols hoops drop final regular-season game to Kentucky

Entertainment in Brief

Monday, March 7, 2011

PAGE 8 T H E

Issue 38

E D I T O R I A L L Y

Mostly sunny with a 20% chance of rain HIGH LOW 59 41

Vol. 116

I N D E P E N D E N T

S T U D E N T

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906 http://utdailybeacon.com N E W S P A P E R

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U N I V E R S I T Y

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Girl Talk to headline Volapalooza 2011 Matt Costa, The Kingston Springs fill out set list for spring concert in World’s Fair Park Kristian Smith Student Life Editor The long-awaited Volapalooza lineup has finally been announced. This year, Girl Talk will headline the show, with special guest Matt Costa and opener The Kingston Springs. This year’s Volapalooza will be held on April 29 at World’s Fair Park, and a mix of UT organizations will be sponsoring the event. “The Campus Entertainment Board, Cultural Attractions Committee and SGA are sponsoring this year’s event,” Colin Spaulding, graduate assistant in the office of student activities, said. Nicole Stratman, Volapalooza director for the Campus Entertainment Board, said the CEB wanted to pick three artists that would appeal to very diverse audiences. “Girl Talk offers unique appeal, as he is arguably the most popular mashup artist at the moment and offers a unique and fresh twist on music that everyone knows,” Stratman said. “Just as they did last year with Flogging Molly, Cultural Attractions Committee was able to help us out again by sponsoring Matt Costa for this year’s supporting act.” Stratman said the CEB wanted to have a lesser-known, local act for the opener, leading them to pursue The Kingston Springs for the spot. “(They) are gaining quite a bit of momentum in surrounding Tennessee areas,” she said. Stratman said students can look forward to a great show with these performers. “When it comes down to the performers, if you’ve

never seen Girl Talk, you won’t want to miss his show,” she said. “Be prepared for crowd-picked dancers, toilet paper cannons and song combinations featuring artists from Jay-Z to Black Sabbath. “Matt Costa will offer a more chill, summery kind of atmosphere, and The Kingston Springs will be an excel-

genres and performers the students wanted to see and had the biggest response than ever before,” she said. “Using the top genre choices, we narrowed down the top performers that are realistically in our price range and fit the highenergy atmosphere that we desire for this end-of-the-year blowout concert.” This year’s concert, like in previous years, will have a senior hour before the show, where there will be free giveaways, food and more. Stratman said most of the vendors at senior hour will be open to the rest of the concert-goers as well. Stratman said she hopes to see a turnout as big or bigger than last year. “Last year’s concert solidified the level that Campus Entertainment Board has desired for Volapalooza to reach,” she said. “This year we are hoping to draw just as big of a crowd, if not bigger.” She said some changes have been made to the event to focus on a “more UTinvolved” concert. “Many changes have been made to the overall feel of the concert, having changed the location to World’s Fair Park and working closely with other student organizations including Cultural Attractions Committee, Student Government Association and TeamVOLS, among others,” she said. “This year we will be teaming up with more sponsors ... Students will have more opportunities to take pride • Photo courtesy of Girl Talk in what their school has to offer in a much different atmosphere, from food to perlent opener to get the crowd warmed up for an energetic formers.” night of music and general mayhem in concert form.” The Volapalooza schedule hasn’t been announced yet, Stratman said there was a lot of student input in the but students can get updates by “liking ” both the choices. Volapalooza and Campus Entertainment Board’s Facebook “At the beginning of last semester, we heavily publi- pages. Volapalooza.com will also be coming soon. cized our Volapalooza student survey for input on which

Dominant Lady Vols retain SEC title Zac Ellis Editor-In-Chief NASHVILLE — Tennessee entered the weekend’s SEC Women’s Tournament as reigning conference tournament champions. They returned to Knoxville Sunday with another SEC title in hand. The Lady Vols (31-2) disposed of Florida, Georgia and tournament runner-up Kentucky to win the 2011 SEC Women’s Tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. With the win, Tennessee earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Women’s Tournament. UT’s Shekinna Stricklen, Angie Bjorklund and Glory Johnson were named to the All-Tournament Team, with Stricklen taking Most Valuable Player honors.

“Overall I thought we had great focus,” Summitt said. “We had a lot of people step up. I thought our intensity overall, both offensively and defensively, was where it needed to be.” Meighan Simmons shook out of her one-game funk to lead UT with 18 points, while Johnson flirted with another double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds. Jasmine Hassell lead Georgia with 20 points. Despite UT’s 35-22 halftime lead, neither team shot well in the first half. Georgia hit on just a 23-percent clip, and even though the Lady Vols knocked down 41 percent of their shots, UT missed a handful of open layups. Summitt’s halftime talk gave the Lady Vols a spark in the second half to the tune of 56 percent shooting. With the clock running down and the UT Pep Band chanting “chicken fingers,” Brianna Bass nailed a 3pointer with 28 seconds remaining to surpass 80 points, the mark usually reserved for free Hardee’s chicken fingers at UT home games. Simmons said an SEC championship is just what this team needed. “I think we’re a national championship team,” Simmons said. “(But) everybody’s mindset has to be on the same page.”

Tennessee 92, Florida 75 Tennessee’s quarterfinal matchup with Florida in the SEC Women’s Tournament on Friday did not reflect a sense of déjà vu in UT coach Pat Summitt. This was a difTennessee 90, Kentucky 65 ferent Florida team from the Tennessee capped off the one the Lady Vols had faced 2011 SEC Women’s during the regular season. Tournament in style — record“It’s obviously the best that breaking style, actually. they’ve played us, in my opinThe Lady Vols used an SEC ion,” Summitt said of the Tournament and UT schoolGators. record 16 3-pointers to outgun Still, top-seeded Tennessee Kentucky 90-65 for Tennessee’s used a strong second-half 15th SEC Tournament champirally to thwart the upset onship on Sunday. efforts of No. 8 seed Florida, “Obviously, very, very defeating the Lady Gators 92pleased with the focus that we 75 in Friday’s quarterfinal had coming into the game, and SEC Women’s Tournament just our intensity overall,” game in Nashville. Zac Ellis • The Daily Beacon Summitt said. “Maybe a little Johnson paced UT with a career-high 25 points while Coach Pat Summitt cuts down the net after the Lady slow start, but I thought we grabbing 11 rebounds against Vols’ 90-65 SEC Championship win over Kentucky on picked things up.” Bjorklund came off the bench Florida. Stricklen scored 20 Sunday. Angie Bjorklund led the team with 23 points, to lead UT with 23 points, for Tennessee. including seven 3-pointers, as the Lady Vols hit an SEC including 7-of-8 on 3-pointers, Lanita Bartley led Florida Tournament-record 16 threes on the way to their 15th while Stricklen chipped in 19 with 14 points. and Simmons added 16. Tennessee, which had conference tournament title. Victoria Dunlap and dominated Florida in both regular season matchups, put on a shaky performance in the first Bernisha Pinkett each led Kentucky with 15 points. The conference finals matchup featured physical play on both half on Friday, leading the Lady Gators by two, 38-36, at intermission. UT shot 42 percent in the first half, compared to Florida’s ends of the court, with 44 fouls called in the contest. “I think we came out with a lot of energy,” Stricklen said. “We 49 percent. “I thought we started really strong,” Johnson said. “(But) saw that the game was going to be really physical, and we made adjustments.” whenever they made runs, it kind of hit us hard.” A back-and-forth game appeared to break open on a Bjorklund The Lady Vols woke up in the second half, scoring tallying 54 3-pointer with 8:25 left in the first half to give UT a 27-20 lead. points — including 15 from Johnson — on 54-percent shooting. “Overall, when you get a win and you’re in the situation we’re But a short rally capped by a Pinkett trey with 4:19 left in the first in, it’s survive and advance and move on,” Summitt said, “and period pushed Kentucky within one at 30-29. The Lady Vols ended up with a nine-point 39-30 lead thanks (that’s) what we’re going to do.” largely to 8-of-9 shooting on 3-pointers in the first period. Tennessee stayed hot well into the second half, hitting 8-of-12 Tennessee 82, Georgia 58 The Lady Vols’ next challenge was Georgia, which awaited UT treys after intermission to lead by as many as 28 points. UT shot in Saturday’s semifinals of the SEC Women’s Tournament, and 56 percent for the contest. Summitt said her players earned every moment of Sunday’s Tennessee wasted no time in throwing the Lady Bulldogs to the championship. wayside. “I’m proud for this team,” Summitt said. “They’ve worked so Tennessee used an early 16-2 lead to overwhelm Georgia 82hard to be where they are, and they deserve what they got today.” 58, clinching a spot in the tournament championship game.

Vegas production booked for Knoxville Grace Van Dyke Staff Writer A big Vegas show is coming to Knoxville from March 23 to 27, in the form of Cirque Du Soleil’s Alegria. Cirque Du Soleil has several different shows, each unique. “(Alegria) is mainly an artistic expression of the conflict between an older generation and a younger generation,” Erin Burns Freeman of SRW and Associates said. Audiences can enjoy many acts, including trapeze, manipulation, Russian bars, contortion and high bars. “I think it’s a great opportunity for Knoxville to have something like this,” Tim Reese, manager of Thompson-Boling Arena, said. “The uncommonality of what people are going to see is going to be very interesting. It’s like Cirque on steroids when they bring it into an arena. I think the visualness is going to be spectacular.” “It’s very high-end artistic, but at the same time it’s going to appeal to a demographic that loves the circus of the performances that are involved within the show,” Freeman, who is handling media relations for Alegria in Knoxville, said. Freeman said something can be found for everyone at this show. “If you bring your children, they are going to be in awe of the acrobatic acts,” she said. “If you bring your grandmother, she would love the music, as Cirque travels with a fourpiece orchestra. If you brought your older sister, she would be impressed by the makeup that is involved, or the costuming.” Alegria is a massive production involving 18 tractortrailers, 100 staff members from 22 countries, 55 performers from 18 countries, 11 languages, 500 costume items and 100,000 pounds of equip-

ment. The show takes 20 hours to set up and an average of four to tear down. Performers were trained to do their own makeup before going on the road with Alegria, and the process can take as much as an hour. Alegria just celebrated its 600th performance. By the end of the nationwide tour, it will have traveled to 75 cities. “Cirque is trying to make an effort to get into markets that wouldn’t normally see a caliber show like this,” Freeman said. “Ticket sales in Knoxville have not been hard, because people have been jumping at the opportunity to see Cirque Du Soleil in Knoxville without having to travel all the way to Vegas,” she said. The audience is expected to come from much of the surrounding area, as well as Knoxville itself. “This is a regional effort,” Freeman said. A show like Alegria doesn’t often visit smaller cities like Knoxville, as compared to Las Vegas. Knoxville’s college student population of about 27,000 is also an added element. “They are offering a wonderful discount to students,” Reese said. “It’s substantial. They’ve geared up something specifically for the students. The discount is not typical.” “I think that it will be a much different type of show than folks are used to seeing in an arena,” Reese said about bringing the show to Thompson-Boling. “The show is set up to accommodate 3,000 to 4,000 people right now.” Thompson-Boling Arena’s capacity is normally about 20,400. Only about 20 percent of the arena is being used for seating, as the stage and performance area will be massive. “They have ballooned it to fill an arena,” Reese said. “I think it’s really going to be spectacular.”


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