Daily Bruin – Page 132

Fresh Off the Grill: After record-breaking, viral season, gymnastics enters NCAA title defense

UCLA is a gymnastics school.

For the last three months, Bruin fans, young gymnasts and celebrities across the nation have been enamored with the Olympic gold medalists and viral sensations that headline UCLA gymnastics.

UCLA historically takes pride in its football and men’s basketball reputations – but this year was different.

Football started its season 0-5 for the first time since 1943 and men’s basketball suffered six losses before conference play even began. The Bruin spirit and passion behind UCLA athletics was fading away.

But that was before the gymnastics season started.

Coming off an NCAA title last season, UCLA gymnastics has drawn its fair share of attention over the last year.

The hype intensified after senior Katelyn Ohashi scored a perfect 10 on her floor routine at the Collegiate Challenge on Jan. 12. The video of Ohashi’s routine garnered thousands of views overnight and has now become the most-watched sports video on social media so far this year with 117 million views.

From being imitated by talk show host Stephen Colbert, to getting a shoutout on Twitter from celebrities like Janet Jackson and Magic Johnson, Ohashi has made a name for herself and UCLA gymnastics.

And it showed.

The Bruins set attendance records this season on their home floor and across the country. Their average attendance in Pauley Pavilion totaled 10,242, surpassing the average men’s basketball game attendance from the 2018-2019 season by nearly 2,000 fans.

UCLA also drew over 5,000 fans at every meet on the road this year, setting new attendance records at Oklahoma, Washington and Stanford.

And those fans didn’t leave disappointed.

Aside from Ohashi, junior Kyla Ross has been on fire this year to say the least. Ross has broken or tied eight NCAA and Pac-12 records this year, including notching at least one perfect 10 in 10 straight meets and achieving two “gym slams.”

It’s been almost unheard of to see Ross not score a 10 at a UCLA gymnastics meet this season. It’s also just as unheard of to imagine any athlete turning down a UCLA gymnastics offer – and that’s because of coach Valorie Kondos Field.

Kondos Field’s tenure in Westwood is ending and fans have been getting in their last chances to see the legend in action.

No athletic program in the nation – not even Duke men’s basketball or Alabama football – can compete with a team that boasts a household name in Ohashi, a record-breaker in Ross and a Coach of the Century in Kondos Field.

That is what makes UCLA gymnastics so special.

It’s hard to watch a meet and not become enamored with the team. The culture of UCLA gymnastics comes through in every routine, skill and facial expression. Now that March Madness is over, becoming an instant fan is as easy as watching the NCAA gymnastics championship this weekend.

I dare you.

Q&A: Cellist Deborah Pae talks upcoming master class at UCLA, career influences

Deborah Pae joined Juilliard’s Pre-College Division at just 7 years old, making her the youngest cellist to be enrolled at the time.

Pae has been playing the cello since she was 4 and at 13, she performed at the Grammy Awards in the presence of musicians like Alicia Keys and Ludacris. After traveling as a cellist, she joined the Formosa Quartet, an internationally recognized string quartet based in the United States. On Wednesday, Pae will lead a cello master class at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, followed by a performance at Schoenberg Hall on Thursday.

Pae spoke with the Daily Bruin’s Noor Ghatala about her musical life trajectory and how she came to be the cellist she is known as today.

Daily Bruin: How did you become involved with the Formosa Quartet?

Deborah Pae: It was almost as if the Formosa Quartet found me. I was living and working in Europe before joining the quartet and I happened to be back in the States in New York and I suppose during that time they were looking for a cellist for quite some time. They asked me if I was willing to come to Chicago for a week to play some concerts with them, under the premise they were looking for a new cellist. And sometimes chemistry has a lot to do with it when you sit down and play music with three other people – the feeling, sometimes, is like magic. That’s what happened in Chicago, so we ended up establishing that I would be the next cellist in the quartet and I was very honored to be invited.

DB: What do you enjoy most about performing?

DP: I feel incredibly fortunate to do what I do, being a musician. Even though I play the cello, it has allowed me to connect with a lot of incredible people all over the world and to travel to countries that I never thought I would ever go to, right, and to learn about cultures I never experienced before. I think it is through music and through art and through culture that you end up kind of building these incredible communities. I don’t know if that’s unique to me, I just think it is incredibly unique to what I do and I am able to do that 365 days a year.

DB: Which of your works are you most proud of?

DP: Well, it was kind of two parts: The Recording Academy at the Grammy Awards had invited me to perform at the Lifetime Achievement Award for a legendary cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich. He was a huge influence on me – the fact that I got to be there at one of the top moments of his career. He was receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award and I could be one of the performers at such a young age. And then two days later, I actually played at the Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden. That was really, really cool. I just remember hearing Alicia Keys, Nora Jones and John Mayer perform and sitting two rows away from Ludacris. As a 13-year-old, you are just starstruck. It was a really great excuse to miss school that day.

DB: Did you have any early inspirations or people you looked up to?

DP: A lot of people. It’s hard, there have been a lot of people. You don’t do it alone, you can’t get to a certain point of your career just by yourself. Some of my biggest inspirations right now, the individuals who are having a huge impact on me and my work, are the empowering women in my life that are showing up, taking risks and being incredible leaders in their respective fields – the arts, business, sciences, et cetera. That’s basically one of the reasons why I teach today – giving back because you know when someone recognizes a great amount of potential in you, even before you see it yourself, that’s a very powerful thing. Now the quartet and I are in a position to do that for the next wave of young musicians and young artists.

DB: What do you hope to teach the students who attend this event? How do you plan to teach those ideas to them?

DP: The students and faculty at UCLA are already so wonderful. So it may be that we are going to be exchanging ideas. It’s not like I am going to reinvent the wheel. I think what I love about mentoring, it’s really about exchanging ideas. For me it’s not about maybe telling them something new, it’s just putting it into a perspective that might help improve the performance or their ability to play more technically at ease or realize that (there) might be something musically happening that they haven’t realized before. I’m very excited to work with the students this week.

Cult classic ‘Heathers’ to celebrate 30th anniversary with LA screening

Making a quality satirical movie has always been difficult, said “Heathers” director Michael Lehmann.

But 30 years after its release, “Heathers” still stands as an iconic critique of other teenage films – Lehmann said it is wonderful yet phenomenally strange that anybody is still paying attention to it.

“Heathers,” originally released in the U.S. in 1989, stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slate as they disrupt the social fabric of their Ohio high school by strategically assassinating popular teenagers. A 30th-anniversary screening of the cult classic will take place at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on Thursday, co-presented by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Vidiots Foundation, a film preservation nonprofit. Lehmann, along with “Heathers” screenwriter Daniel Waters and supporting actress Lisanne Falk, will attend the event.

The film was divisive upon release, with many Hollywood critics praising its brash and humorous portrayal of the high school experience, while others thought it was in poor taste, Lehmann said. He often runs into young people today who say they love the film and still sees articles characterizing the film as cartoonish, outrageous and overly violent. But Lehmann said a person who criticizes a still-popular satirical film probably does not understand it.

“They don’t even understand the context in which the movie was made,” Lehmann said. “(They) don’t understand satire anyway, regardless of the lack of context.”

“Heathers” is an example of secret handshake cinema, meaning it has a niche audience regardless of generational divides, Waters said. He said he wrote the movie for it to be appreciated by an audience that understood it, not to be loved universally. The trick, Waters said, is to lull the audience in with a host of cliches so they think they know what kind of movie they are watching and then completely disorient them with a scene of violent death, which divides the audience. He said a scene in which one character crashes into a coffee table after drinking drain cleaner ends in complete silence, setting the tone for the rest of the work and letting the audience know exactly what kind of film it is.

“It’s not working if everyone likes it,” Waters said. “If everyone’s laughing, it must not be very funny.”

Falk said she appreciates the range of topics the film attempts to address, including fat shaming, eating disorders and teenage suicide. After recently watching the film with her teenage daughter, Falk said her daughter resonated most with the social hierarchy of high school as it is portrayed in the film. Falk said she thinks the film distills what it means to be a teenager: not knowing who you are and trying to figure it out in a hostile environment.

Fans feel a shared validation of their adolescent experience when they watch the film, she said. The tone of “Heathers” encapsulates the teenage experience better than the drama of a typical ’80s teenage film, Falk said.

“You have to take a step back and bring some levity to it, to be able to laugh that you don’t cry,” Falk said. “I think that’s what holds up.”

Citing the well-known John Hughes classic, UCLA Film and Television Archive programmer Paul Malcolm said “Heathers” holds up better than “The Breakfast Club” because it is more representative of an actual high school experience. While “The Breakfast Club” presents itself as a comedy with a realistic dramatization of high school anxieties and identities, the harmonious resolution in which every character leaves the film respecting one another was more of a fantasy than the violent climax of “Heathers,” he said. While Hughes’ movies present articulate fantasies of high school events, Malcolm said Lehmann’s depict a social hierarchy audiences can better identify with and situations that reflect the way people experience high school and adolescence, including their own social status.

“Nobody thinks of themselves as a Heather,” Malcolm said. “Everybody thinks of themselves as put down in some way, shape or form because adolescence is such a confusing, crazy time in everybody’s life, and this film captures that in a crazy way.”

After “Heathers,” teen movies could not reuse the same sweet tone they had previously used because the film had already satirized it so well, Waters said. He continues to hear that the film could not be made in today’s violence-averse environment, but he said it was nearly impossible to make even in the ’80s because violence has always been queasy topic.

“What’s the point of getting out of bed if you don’t think they’re going to be talking about the movie 30 years from now?” Waters said. “Say what you will, (but) in this moment in time we had an effect. There’s no better feeling.”

Westwood must face the music, simplify permit process to revitalize Village

When I moved to Los Angeles from a tiny town in Northern California, I was eager to explore the music scene that supposedly surrounded my new home.

I should have set my expectations lower. As it turns out, live music in Westwood often translates to a $20 round trip to Culver City.

Our section of the entertainment capital of the world isn’t quite as entertaining as one might hope. The Los Angeles Municipal Code stipulates certain fees for cafe entertainment permits, which cover live music in venues such as restaurants or bars. The initial fee required for businesses to purchase this permit is $500, with a $275 annual renewal fee.

If this was the only cost expected of Westwood businesses, many would surely jump at the opportunity.

It isn’t though.

The Westwood Village Specific Plan is an extension of the LAMC designed by the Los Angeles City Council with ordinances specific to Westwood. The rigid nature of the plan makes it so conditional-use permits must be granted by a local decision maker for everything from live entertainment to dancing to alcohol. And that’s just the beginning.

Last year, that local authority was granted to the North Westwood Neighborhood Council, a body that includes student and business representatives and is receptive to the idea of a livelier Westwood. But businesses still have to jump through an obscene number of hoops to even get that council’s approval.

The city council must make the process of obtaining cafe entertainment permits more accessible to local businesses in order to revitalize Westwood and allow students and residents alike to promote creativity and share their art.

An increase in performing arts spaces – from restaurants to theaters – would foster a relationship between artists and businesses and would bring in more people to the Village, as well as increase student-artists’ involvement in the community.

And there are Bruins, both in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and outside of it, who are musically inclined but don’t have a venue to perform.

Andrew Wei, a first-year psychology student, said it has been difficult to find musical communities within UCLA, as most of the audition-only bands on campus select students from the school of music.

“For me, music is just a hobby that I am really passionate about, but it’s frustrating for me, as a person that has played music my entire life, to not being able to find that outlet,” Wei said. “I don’t really know how to find a strong musical community, but I know it exists out there.”

Businesses can serve this need. The problem is the process is so convoluted that performance spaces remain mere considerations to them.

Peter Clinco, the owner of Skylight Gardens, a restaurant in Westwood, and a council member on the NWWNC and the Westwood Village Improvement Association, said the process can be intense because of neighborhood skepticism regarding unsavory establishments.

“It’s very invasive in terms of what they want out of you,” Clinco said. “There were two interviews, background checks, a lot of things – the police department assumes the worst.”

Clinco, who obtained the permit two years ago, said his experience as a lawyer greatly helped him cut through the red tape. Not all small businesses have this luxury, though.

After businesses pay the initial fees for the cafe entertainment permits, they likely have to hire a lawyer if they hope to present a strong proposal to the NWWNC – possibly costing them thousands in legal fees. And if that council disapproves, those dollars will quickly become a loss – a hypothetical that might dissuade new small businesses, which already operate on losses for the first few years, from even attempting the costly process.

That discouraging prospect has made Westwood an entertainment wasteland. What once featured multistory nightclubs, dancing and artists, now has an El Pollo Loco and an unnecessary number of poke bars and boba tea shops.

The real issue lies in the application – if businesses could apply more easily, the choice would lie in the NWWNC’s discretion, as opposed to its ability to sustain a process which ensures it never has to make those decisions.

Increasing live performance spaces in Westwood by making the permit process more accessible would not only benefit the economy and atmosphere of the Village, but also expand the network of musically inclined Bruins – especially those who aren’t involved in music on an academic level.

Some argue that an influx of increased nightlife and live music would lead to a raucous, undesirable environment in Westwood. But students already know how and where they want to throw their parties – just look at Roebling Avenue for confirmation. Instead, performing arts spaces would provide another way to connect, one that doesn’t just involve blasting the Top 40 from subwoofers.

UCLA artists want to provide music, small businesses want to host it and residents and students alike want to hear it. LACC members just need to allow it.

Westwood is a college town and LA is an entertainment capital. It’s time we started acting like they are.

Op-ed: Intergenerational trauma affects mental health of Southeast Asian-Americans

I am a second-generation Vietnamese immigrant, a child of refugees from the Vietnam War who lives in the heart of Little Saigon, California. My hometown has one of the highest concentrations of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam, and I am, according to statistical analysis, more likely than the average white American to suffer from depression, all things considered equal.

The thousands of other Vietnamese-, Cambodian-, Hmong-, and Laotian-Americans attending UCLA also share similar mental health risk rates.

I discovered in my freshman year that these aren’t the only communities facing this inherited experience. I attended the United Khmer Students Culture Night, where I learned not just that Cambodian-Americans went through unspeakable trauma – millions of Cambodians were massacred by their government – but also, even more strikingly, that this trauma was estimated to persist, in the form of risk for mental illness for seven generations.

This is despite the fact that none of us have experienced the refugee struggles our parents have.

The reason comes from what some call “intergenerational trauma.”

Intergenerational trauma refers to the phenomenon in which stress or trauma experienced in someone’s lifetime is correlated with stress-related health issues in their descendants, sometimes for multiple generations. This transmission is both genetic and social, stemming from stress’ effects on inherited genetic expression patterns and learned behavioral effects from the trauma parents inflict on their children or expose them to indirectly.

We can see this in the Southeast Asian-American community. It still faces unique conditions related to genetic and behavioral intergenerational transmissions of stress from its war-torn pasts, which is directly linked to higher risks for mental illness and other psychophysiological health conditions in further generations.

In fact, a study on intergenerational stress on refugees found that second-generation Vietnamese-Americans were extremely sensitive to their parents’ trauma and often felt a burden to compensate for their parents’ losses. The study even linked the fact that the fathers’ risks of post-traumatic stress disorder accurately predicted the state of the children’s mental health 23 years later.

It’s easy to grasp this from a societal lens. Often, we, as Southeast Asian-Americans, feel a cultural pressure to succeed: Our parents, as refugees, gave up their lives and dreams so we could have a better future, and we feel that burden of fulfilling the goals they were never able to. Inadvertently, many Asian-American students think of their anxieties as a pittance compared to the trials our parents or grandparents underwent. That guilt often festers into depression and other mental disorders that we refuse to obtain psychological help for.

Genetics also supports this explanation of many Asian-American Bruins’ psychological struggles. A 2015 study found how parental stress can be transmitted through neuroendocrine and epigenetic changes – processes involving the transmission of hormones and gene expression, respectively. In the case of the Southeast Asian community, refugees who undergo PTSD experience constant hyperactive stress responses that produce abnormally high cortisol levels, something is symptomatic of long-term stress. These abnormal hormone levels can be passed onto offspring during fetal development, who have a greater risk of a hyperactive stress response that contributes to anxiety or depression.

The genetic transmission effects in Southeast Asians become even more apparent when we observe these strong, positive correlations in anxiety and depression. For example, in many Cambodian-American children whose parents suffer from PTSD from the Khmer Rouge genocide.

It is essential to understand the behavioral and biological bases of intergenerational stress in order to combat the unique health issues facing the Southeast Asian-American community. Resources like UCLA’s Counseling and Psychological Services center can easily ignore background and culture when dealing with mental health issues, but this understanding is essential to providing the adequate care these minority groups need.

There are many student-led programs at UCLA to bring awareness to this. The Asian Greek Council is hosting its second annual Asian American Mental Health Awareness Week, designed to open up mental health dialogue for Asian-Americans. During Bruin Day weekend, the 11th annual Southeast Asian Admit Weekend took place, in which new Bruins were able to explore their identities, histories and cultures and share stories about usually unapproachable topics like mental health. The psychology and Asian American studies departments also offer a course that explores the specific issues different Asian-American groups face and how such issues play into mental health and psychology.

These programs and classes are student-led and student-advocated innovations. The more these programs gain momentum within the community, the more administrators will recognize the need to fund and recognize them.

Understanding the nuances of the Southeast Asian-American communities is the first step to dismantling this phenomenon of intergenerational trauma. And in our ever-diversifying university and society, it’s a key to understanding those around us.

Nguyen is a third-year human biology and society and Asian languages and linguistics student. He is involved with the Asian-American community at UCLA in programs like Southeast American Admit Weekend.

Gallery: P!nk concert

P!nk performed at the Staples Center on Monday on the world tour for her seventh studio album, “Beautiful Trauma.”

Concert review: Strong vocals and aerial acts help elevate P!nk’s “Beautiful Trauma” tour

Decadent runs and fully charged instrumentals flew through the air Monday night – and so did P!nk.

The career pop artist performed at the Staples Center as a stop on her “Beautiful Trauma” tour. The tour follows the release of her 2017 album of the same name. While P!nk has been a household name since the ’90s, aerial stunts accompanied by unshakeable vocals gave reason as to why she can still pack arenas nationwide.

Before P!nk graced the stage, pop artist Julia Michaels attempted to ignite the night. Fitted in a polka-dot sundress and tennis shoes, Michaels performed a mix of original songs and tracks she wrote for other artists, such as her top single “Issues” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.” Even though she proclaimed enthusiasm of performing at the Staples Center, her immature vocals indicated she wasn’t yet ready for a stage of this magnitude.

Often drowned out by the band, Michaels’ falsetto-heavy numbers failed to reach the depths of the stadium. When Michaels’ voice did find an optimal balance with the instrumentation, her inability to hit higher notes became apparent instead. But the singer’s underwhelming set was quickly erased by the spinning discs of KidCutUp, a DJ who enlivened the arena with singalong throwbacks, such as Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do It” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

As a reminder of her pageantry and playfulness, P!nk entered on a suspended chandelier in a sparkling, black bodysuit while hot pink bellhops, luggage carts, and a hotel lobby background dressed the stage. She delivered unwavering vocals throughout her opening number, “Get the Party Started,” all the while flipping and twirling in mid-air.

An intricate dance number and lampposts on wheels joined the stage during her performance of “Beautiful Trauma,” one of the few newer songs peppered throughout her set. Following her title track, P!nk strutted downstage in a vampirical black and pink coat to the first of many energy-ridden throwbacks of the night, “Just Like A Pill.” Through headbanging and cardio-inducing choreography, P!nk revealed there was no limit to the amount of intensity she could radiate from the stage.

As a precursor to a song called “Revenge,” P!nk played a short comedic cartoon that depicted fights between lovers. She then took to the sky once again, joined by dancers fighting with life-sized bobbleheads. Although the Real Slim Shady didn’t sing his verse in person, a humongous inflatable look-alike mimed along. This larger-than-life figure would normally distract, but P!nk’s relentless draw for the limelight always pulled back the audience’s eyes.

P!nk also masterfully executed a rendition of “Secrets” during an intricate and nerve-wracking aerial silk routine performed with a background dancer. Poised at a height that could prove fatal, her progression of risky stunts diffused a mixed sense of nail-biting anticipation that is often reserved for circus acts. Despite hanging upside down and spinning in circles, her vocal performance remained concrete, demonstrating her experience and control.

Soon after, the stage came back to life in the form of a dark forest through an eerie, wooded background, a single large-scale tree and a multitude of props. Leaves fell from the ceiling and dancers with elaborate, deep-hued costumes and animal masks prowled around the stage. Entering with a willful jaunt, P!nk belted “Try” while dressed as a dark garden fairy. The imaginative, lush scenery served as the pinnacle of visual artistry for the night, with P!nk effortlessly resting as the dark, yet gleaming apex.

Trading fairies for flames, P!nk lit the stage with pillars of fire during her performance of “Just Like Fire.” She then played a short biographical film depicting her career of activism for marginalized communities. Subsequently, a lightning-filled animation accompanied P!nk’s “What About Us,” flooding the room with emotion as she and her dancers depicted scenes of strife and turmoil through a contemporary dance number.

Although P!nk’s enthusiasm never subsided, the second act of the concert featured a series of intimate, stripped-down performances. Ballads such as “Barbies” and “F**kin’ Perfect” pulled away from the theatricality of previous numbers, though honestly left something to be missed. P!nk introduced “Raise Your Glass” with a heartfelt account of her daughter Willow’s difficulty with self-confidence in her physical beauty. After discussing her own experiences with being seen as too masculine and unattractive, P!nk invited her daughter to dance alongside her to an instrumental interlude during the song.

By this point, her set mirrored the adrenaline-filled highs and satisfying lows of a rapid roller coaster. The final high of the night would come in her performance of “So What” as she somersaulted through the air yet again. As she soared throughout the entirety of the stadium, from section to section, P!nk exclaimed that she is still a rock star.

Wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, P!nk closed with “Glitter In the Air.” She left the stage with a final lyric to summarize the evening, “Will it ever get better than tonight?/ Tonight.”