Cocktails serve up a cappella performances

When you've got 14 fun-loving, soulful singers who believe that "every hour is happy hour," instruments are optional. Cocktails, as they call themselves, make up USC's female a cappella group. Combining their love for music and vocal performance with some clever choreography and throwing a vocal percussionist (or "beat boxer") into the mix to add some extra rhythm, these girls aim to have fun and entertain.

Two years ago at a USC organization fair, third year political science student Laura Fisher noticed that a female a cappella group was missing from the lineup. She got to work and after an interest meeting, Cocktails was established shortly thereafter. "A cappella is a genre of music for people who love music and performing. It's different and unique because we as people make all the sounds," explained Fisher.

If you don't know much about a cappella music, the Cocktails are eager to spread the word. "We're a group of girls who love a cappella music. We want to spread that out to the USC campus and let them know about a cappella, because right now, you don't hear about it a lot around this campus," said Cindy Lupkey, a third year public relations student and president of the group.

The group's first performance was for Unity Week. The Cocktails are now coming off a similar performance for Unity Week, an event which they have participated in every year as tradition. Second year nursing student Jordan Stoner was thrilled with the group's involvement in the event. "It was a lot of fun, just us and getting to show off our sounds," she said. Those sounds, picked out by Stoner as the group's musical director, range in style from Sheryl Crow and TLC to Cindy Lauper's 80s hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

This first year of competition for the Cocktails has been an exciting and successful one. In November the girls went to the International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) at Clemson and came out with third place, beating out the likes of Duke and NC State. Third year early childhood education student Tiffany Eddings recalls it as one of her favorite memories during her three years with the group. Cocktails now look ahead to April when they'll travel to the College of William & Mary to compete in the ICCA semi-finals.

In preparation for the competition and their spring concert, the girls practice five to six hours a week, going over each song by part and as a group repeatedly until they consider it presentable. "You put that in with studying, classes, and everything else and it's a lot of work. We're focused on practice and being good when we go out. It's fun to go to practice because I get to hang with friends and do something I love. It's not at all an obligation," Lupkey said.

The girls urge USC students to take interest and check out what they have to offer. Their spring concert will be held April 16th at 8 p.m in the Williams-Brice Nursing Auditorium.
 

Unity Week incorporates students' diverse talents

To many students, USC's innumerable theme weeks are hard to tell apart. The Unity Week Committee is working hard to ensure students come out and celebrate their differences and commonalities.

Carolina Unity Week is full of events sponsored by University Housing and geared toward students coming together and having fun. The Unity Week Committee is comprised of students who work with other campus organizations.

"It's just an event to get students involved on campus," said Chanel Jenkins, a third-year accounting student who served on the Unity Week Committee last year.

Unity week kicks off today with the opening ceremony at Davis Field from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will include free T-shirts and pizza, and students can bounce on an inflated air obstacle course. Cocky will be in attendance from noon to 1 p.m.

The Unity Week Committee also works with other on-campus organizations like Carolina Productions, Greek Life and the International Student Organization to promote events emphasizing togetherness.

Jenkins said the focus of Unity Week is not just on one group, but rather to provide students with the opportunity to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures.

"USC is so diverse with people from different backgrounds," Jenkins said.

Jenkins said student participation offers an opportunity to learn about other cultures.

"You get to meet people that you might not normally hang out with," Jenkins said.

The Unity Week Committee is comprised of 15 students who help campus organizations plan coordinating events that bring students together - like Carolina Productions' showing of "The Color Purple."

Graduate Assistant for Special Programs in Housing and Advisor for the Unity Week Committee, Elizabeth White-Hurst said a major focus for this year has been promoting unity through appreciation of different musical taste.

A range of musical acts is set to take the stage at the Strom Thurmond Wellness & Fitness Center Tuesday beginning at 6:30 p.m. The Cocktails, USC's a cappella group, and rock band .08 are scheduled to perform. White-Hurst also confirmed that the gospel group A Touch of Faith is also set to perform.

Third-year chemical engineering student and Unity Week Committee member Richard Chapman said showcasing music from different genres helps to emphasize something that all students have an interest in.

"Carolina does have one voice, despite our differences, backgrounds and ethnicities," Chapman said.

"We cover the broad range of musical diversity that we have here on campus," said Andronicus Davis, a fourth-year political science student who also serves on the Unity Week Committee. "We didn't want it to seem like it was just geared toward one specific kind of audience."

University Housing is also sponsoring a talent show to be held Thursday at the Russell House Theater at 5 p.m. Davis said the talent show has been a major focus of the committee. The performances will include a stand-up comedian, acting, a poetry reading and singing. Davis also confirmed that WIS meteorologist Ken Aucoin is slated to be one of the talent judges.

Chapman said the talent show ties into the theme of unity, because regardless of students' place, "It doesn't mean one person's talent is less or greater than another. Each one of us has something that we can do that someone else can't do or can't do as well. In that respect, talents tie us together as something we can all contribute."

Unity week will conclude with Dance Marathon, to be held Friday and Saturday.

"It's a good cause because the money is going to the Children's Hospital," Davis said. "It's open to everyone on campus, which in and of itself is an invitation to unite for a common cause."
 

A cappella ensemble to compete in N.C.

(this comment you are reading is not part of the article. Just for clarification, we did not say that we were better than Clemson by any means. On the contrary, we said it's obvious they are going to place higher than us so we'd rather focus our attention on groups that we may have a chance to compete against. Also, if you would like to know more about Clemson's groups and their bio, just read the rest of the article. It's more about them, than it is about us...)
 

Cocktails, USC's female a cappella group, will head to Raleigh, N.C., for the SoJam A Cappella festival's collegiate competition Friday.

Evelyn Wong, a second-year art studio student, sings bass for the group. She said that among many things, competition is stressful.

"We go through weeks getting the vocal parts right, doing choreography, and just working on the songs. When we get on stage, we put our all into it," Wong said.

Second-year pharmacy student and alto Tammy Kim said the group practices three times a week. The group goes into the event with a boost of confidence picked up from their third place finish last week in the divisional competition of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, held at Clemson University. Cocktails will advance to the regional semi-finals to be held at the College of William & Mary in April.

"We were incredibly surprised that we placed third at ICCA, let alone be allowed to compete," Wong said. She explained that in order to compete, groups must send in audition tapes of their performance.

Cocktails will compete with Tigeroar and Take Note, two a cappella groups from Clemson that did not compete last week. Both Clemson groups have existed since the mid-1990s and have put out at least three CDs each. Tigeroar went on a fall tour through California this year while Take Note has performed at several locations in New York City, with a planned visit to London in December.

Despite Cocktails' relative infancy, the women say they are confident in a strong finish at SoJam. Other members said the real competition would lie in a cappella groups other than Clemson.

"We're not too nervous about competing with Tigeroar, because it's doubtless that they'll place higher," Kim said. "A group called Sweet Signatures is going to be more of a challenge because they are at the same caliber as us."

Sweet Signatures is a female a cappella group from Elon University in North Carolina.

Aside from competitions, Cocktails is working on enriching their contemporary-style repertoire for performances on their home turf.

"We do a Madonna medley, we sing some songs by Eve 6, but we're now trying to incorporate a more choral sound to our style," Wong said.

The group plans to release a CD in the Spring of 2006.

Cocktails was formed in the fall of 2002 by now-treasurer Laura Fisher after she saw USC already had an all-male a cappella group, Higher Harmony. Cocktails has performed several concerts since and has been asked to sing at several functions on campus. This is the first year the student-run group has competed in a cappella competitions.