BASIS Tucson Senior Research Projects 2011: Marisa's "SRP"/Senior Dinner

What is a Senior Research Project?

At BASIS Tucson, seniors have the chance to propose an independent research project that takes place off campus during the last trimester of the year. The seniors whose proposals are accepted write their own syllabi and then head off into the world, to a site where they conduct their research while interning with a professional in the field. Those of us stuck on campus follow their adventures on this blog. Now that the projects are over, we are all excited to attend their presentations. The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, May 11, 6-8 PM
at the U of A Poetry Center (environmentalism projects)
Sierra Cordova, Nicole Rapatan, Zobella Vinik and Dany Joumaa (see titles of projects, below)

Saturday, May 14, 10-12 AM
at The Loft Cinema (arts projects)
Clarice Bales, Samone Isom, Josh Waterman and Angelynn Khoo (see titles of projects, below)

Monday, May 16, 6-8 PM
at BioSciences West, Rm. 310, U of A ( U of A projects)
Joseph Tang, Jayanth Ganesan, Andrew Graham and Gabriel Carranza (see titles of projects, below)

Tuesday, May 17, 6-8 PM
at U of A McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, Blg. MCLND, rm. 207 (travel abroad projects)
Clover Powell, Greg Spell, Agustin Temporini and Margarita Sadova.

We'd love to see you there!

The BASIS Tucson Class of 2011 Senior Research Project bloggers (with the titles of their projects) are:

Clarice Bales: "Narrative and Film"

Sierra Cordova: "The Intent and Application of Environmental Policy"

Clover Powell: "The Artistic Interpretation of the Biological Sciences"

Greg Spell: "Micro-venturing in Guatemala"

Agustin Temporini: "A Study of the Role of the Press in 1960's/70's Argentina"

Gabriel Carranza: "Analysis and Research on Drugs associated with Torsades de Pointes"

Dany Joumaa: "Innovations in Display Technology: Synthesis of Organic Luminescent Materials Compounds"

Joseph Tang: "The Creation and Project of 3D Holograms"

Jayanth Ganesan: "Research of Game Thoeretic Models in relation to Non-Market Games"

Andrew Graham: "The Malaria-Resistant Mosquito"

Samone Isom: "Art and Artist: in peril of Devaluation?"

Angelynn Khoo: "Mousa, Mouseion, Museum: MOCA Tucson"

Nicole Rapatan: "Sustainable Architecture and Design in Modern Times"

Margarita Sadova: "Pulmonology at St. Joseph's Hospital"

Josh Waterman: "The Fiery Crossroads of Artistic Value and Financial Success in the Independent Film Industry"

Zobella Vinik: "Environmental Psychology with the Drachman Institute"

Enjoy the Blog!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Marisa's "SRP"/Senior Dinner

...Ok so maybe I'm not doing a senior research project.
But I'm very excited about what I am doing!

The ballet company for which I dance for currently, A Time to Dance, is putting on a production of an all new ballet called "The Invitation." Since we're starting from scratch this is a huge project! We only just agreed on a plot line last week and are still piecing together the music for the show. My work as a principal dancer in this show consists of assisting my director with choreography and helping direct the younger girls. However, I've also been helping our costume designer, Kathy, create ideas for costumes, and soon we will have a meeting to discuss set construction. But mostly I will be involved for my talents on the stage and not off.

So a little quick background: I have been classically trained as a ballerina since I was four years old. I started at Arizona Ballet Theater in the preschool ballet class when I was 4 and lived in Scottsdale, continued as an intermediate student at Ballet Arts when I moved back to Tucson when I was 7, and have been dancing as a principal dancer at A Time to Dance since my freshman year at BASIS. I've been in 11 productions of "The Nutcracker," 3 of "Cinderella," 2 of "Sleeping Beauty," 2 of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Swan Lake," "Dracula," "Aladdin and the Cave of Wonders," "The Maharajah's Wedding" (my personal favorite) and countless pairs of po

inte shoes.

<---These are my brand pointe shoes. They're called Bloch Alpha and they HURT. They also die really fast so I have to buy a new pair almost every month. It took me 10 years of training to become strong enough to go en pointe so don't try this at home, kids.

Last Wednesday was the first rehearsal. My director and I have been working closely together as she tries out choreography on me and I give my feedback as a dancer. I predict that it won't be until the end of March that we are completely finished with the ballet and we can just work out it's kinks and focus on costume and set design. But so far so good! We have a few new dancers and right now everyone is getting to know each other a little bit better. It will be interesting to see how our dynamics play out (please don't let there be any prima donnas!)

On a completely different note, the spanish society is trying to plan a senior dinner for the end of the year for seniors and teachers. We need to decide a place to eat! Please let me know so I can talk to Mr. Martinez and Rikki about planning the dinner. Thank you!