March 11th marked the one year anniversary of the 9.0 earthquake in Northern Japan. To demonstrate their remembrance of the devastating event, as well as their continued support of its survivors, the Tufts Japanese Culture Club put together a video that compiles existing video footage of the earthquake aftermath coupled with information on both the effects and JCC’s efforts. You can visit their website to learn about what they’re doing to show their support, as well as watch the video below.

Tufts Chinacare is preparing yet again for their annual fundraiser fashion show, LUX. Each year, LUX raises money to donate to the Chinacare Foundation, an organization that helps orphans in China get the surgeries they need in order to thrive. The group puts on a show using student models and clothes from local and corporate sponsors. This year, they have put together a group of 27 Tufts models and filmed a new trailer video to get students excited about the show. You can view the video below:

Guest performers at the April 12th event in Cohen will include BlackOut, Spirit of Color, TURBO, and the director of Tufts Gospel Choir, David Coleman. Tickets are $8 per person, or $10 for a ticket and five raffle tickets. You can find out more about the show on the Tufts LUX site.

For last fall’s major Torn Ticket II show, the group performed Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Beginning in the present and moving backwards, the play traces the lives of wealthy, jaded composer Franklin Shepard and his two estranged friends through each milestone of their personal and professional lives. Check out the last scene from the first act, a number titled “Now You Know” starring Brad Balandis, A14, as Frank, Dan Pickar, A15, as Charley, and Hope Schaitkin, A14, as Mary.

Torn Ticket II is Tufts’ fully student-run musical theatre organization; they’re the ones who brought you Hamlet The Hip-Hopera! For more on the group check them out on Twitter and Facebook.

During fall semester, Tap Ensemble outdid their previous energetic performances with a sassy and classy piece to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” at their end-of-semester show, “Tap Tap Revolution.” Tap Ensemble is Tufts’ only performance group devoted exclusively to tap dancing — both classical and rhythm. Each semester, the group stages a high-energy show open to the community featuring pieces choreographed, taught, and performed by students.

Choreography by Dana Burton, A12.

On Halloween, the Medford campus awoke to a plethora of pumpkins set in unusual and nearly-unreachable locations. “Pumpkining” is one of Tufts’s most beloved traditions. Observing the tradition for the first time, President Anthony Monaco, tweeted,

Just spotted three pumpkins on the roof @tischlibrary. Must be those #tufts squirrels storing food for the winter.

Check out pictures of this year’s pumpkin mischief thanks to @yuliasayshi and @laurelatoreilly.

Tufts Tamasha, the all-female Bollywood fusion dance team on campus, turned heads at Raunak 2011 this past Saturday. Held at Harvard University, this annual intercollegiate South Asian dance collective asked the team to showcase their new moves yet again, along with teams from other universities like Yale, BU, and NYU. Check out Tamasha’s performance here: 

You can also like Tamasha on Facebook.

The Center for Engineering Education and Outreach‘s Student Teacher Outreach Mentorship Program (STOMP) program has been nominated for the Partnering for Excellence Innovations in Science + Technology + Engineering + Math (STEM) Education competition. STOMP seeks to create an engineering curriculum that reaches across all disciplines, piques K-12 student’s interest in engineering, and improves the student’s problem solving skills while preparing Tufts undergrads in the School of Engineering, as well as k-12 teachers, with the necessary tools to become educational change agents.

Want to help them take the “People’s Choice” title? You have until Oct. 26 to cast your vote. You can also vote via Facebook. Good luck, Jumbos!

Check out a video of the 2009 STOMP fellows in action:

Ever wanted to learn how to dance the spicy Latin salsa? Now you can learn from the best: Tufts’s own La Salsa has begun an instructional video mini-series for all Jumbos to learn the secrets behind their moves. In their first installment, La Salsa co-leaders Suzanne Lis, A13, and Sam Newland, A13, show us the basic step, side step, right turn, Susie Q, and a turn for guys:

You can also learn these moves and more from the members of La Salsa every Tuesday from 9PM to 10PM in Jackson Gym. Already a master salsa dancer? Then be sure to audition for the performance team on Tuesday, October 4th at Jackson Gym from 10PM to 11PM. Buena suerte!

Tufts University School of Medicine is observing September as “Pain Awareness Month.” This initiative is sponsored by PREP, or Pain Research, Education and Policy. Daniel B. Carr, Co-Founder and Director of PREP, aims to not only educate the community about those in pain, but to better practices when assisting those in painful conditions. Carr is an advocate for the newly released report by the Institute of Medicine, commenting that…

Acute, chronic and cancer-related pain are widely prevalent and exact a major economic and human burden in developed nations and even more so in resource-poor countries. Other common themes include lost opportunities for early intervention to control or prevent the transition from acute to chronic pain, the negative outcomes of undertreated pain, the importance of optimal pain control for patient-centered care, disparities in pain assessment and treatment experienced by minorities and other under-represented groups such as women or those at the extremes of age, and the need “to adopt a population-level prevention and management strategy” for pain

More information regarding pain awareness and PREP can be found here.

In this video, members of the Tufts Third Day Gospel Choir practice for their 2011 annual spring show:

This clip of the actual performance features solos by Hyomi Carty (A’12) and Hui Lim (A’11):