"I've seen a lot of people in our age group who think ballet is stupid and boring," says Laura Kowalewski, AS'96. "Who say, 'Why would you sit through two hours of that?' I feel bad that younger people don't appreciate it."

So the Rochester, New York, native—who began studying classical ballet at age three—has joined in an unusual pas de deux with Andrew Carpenter, AS'95, who grew up in Colonia, New Jersey, with a voracious and eclectic appetite for music, especially hardcore rock.

The pair, who met on the steps of the Snell Library after class, have cofounded a dance troupe called Ballet Deviare, with Kowalewski as artistic director and Carpenter as executive director. The name, Carpenter explains, comes from the Latin word meaning "to deviate." And the music tends toward his alternative, metalhead tastes.

"We wanted to open the doors to people who have never been involved in ballet," says Kowalewski. So cost was key. "Our ten-dollar ticket price is aimed at college students who are just making it, and whose book bill may push them over the edge."

With a four-person company, Deviare debuted at the West End Theatre in New York City last year, to an animated audience, who saw and heard a performance that didn't resemble Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, or The Nutcracker. "The shock value of the music wears off in the first minute, and the choreography carries the rest," said one review.

Ballet Deviare, says Kowalewski, is about "breaking through, but preserves ballet as an art form. It will appeal to balletomanes and aficionados as well."

Both Carpenter and Kowalewski have kept day jobs in higher education while Deviare expands. In the wings are nonprofit status, a website (at www.balletdeviare.org), and a larger troupe that gives dancers some freedom to experiment. Though there are tutus, "this is not waifs on stage," says Kowalewski.

"It is," she says, "ballet for the twenty-first century."

— Katy Kramer, MA’00

Designing Dilbert's New Digs

When Scott Adams considered matrimony for the star of his comic strip Dilbert, the cartoonist felt a new house might help to cinch the deal for his luckless hero. A home remarkable enough to inspire a woman to look past Dilbert's obvious shortcomings. In other words, wife bait.

Now Dilbert's Ultimate House (also known as DUH) has been constructed at www.dilbert.com. The new "eco-friendly, energy-efficient, functional" digs were designed by 3-D animation and multimedia company Heartwood Studios, cofounded by Neil Wadhawan, BA'04.

Heartwood, which has offices in Boston and San Francisco, finished the online house in October. Since then, numerous well-wishers have dropped by for a virtual tour. Fans of Dilbert even had a hand in the house's plan. "In drawing up the blueprints," says Wadhawan, the firm's director of services, "the 3-D team, the web team, and the creative director looked at three thousand e-mailed suggestions."

Which explains why, besides being technologically edgy, Dilbert's home boasts a vacuum robot, a hoseable kids' bathroom with a drain in the floor, an underground basketball court, two dishwashers (one to hold clean dishes, the other to wash dirty dishes), and a closet with multiple sets of the same outfit.

In addition to building cartoon characters' homes, Heartwood — whose website is at www.hwd3d.com — creates other high-end 3-D animations: product models, renderings of buildings, and re-creations used in court to help construct scenes for a jury. It also shows companies how to use 3-D animations for training, marketing, and R&D purposes.

Wadhawan, whose family came to Canada from India in the 1950s, offers co-op opportunities at the Heartwood Studio in Boston to current Northeastern students. "There's a lot of entrepreneurial spirit in my family, and a lot of people contributed to my success," he says. "Providing co-op is a way to help groom young entrepreneurs. And to be able to pay it back to NU and the community."

— Katy Kramer, MA’00

Staying Shipshape

When Chris Jarvis, E'05, made the 2004 Canadian Olympic rowing team, he had to work double time. Sure, he wanted to help capture the gold, but he also needed to stay on top of his Type I diabetes.

"You need to be your own doctor to take care of yourself," says Jarvis, whose daily blood-monitoring regimen was nearly as grueling as the six-hour daily workouts, which included twenty miles of rowing and ten miles of running.

"I use a lot less insulin than the average diabetic," Jarvis says. "My body is more efficient." But he had to keep his blood sugar on an even keel. "When a regular athlete is finished training, his mind goes to relaxing along with his body; he can eat, drink, and be merry. But my mind had to be constantly alert to be able to train again."

During the Olympics itself, Jarvis tested his blood up to twenty-five times a day. "I'd gone pretty far toward being a high-end athlete, and it was scary to think diabetes would stop me," he says.

But diabetes hasn't even slowed Jarvis, who was diagnosed when he was fourteen. The St. Catharines, Ontario, native earned his high school crew's MVP award for two seasons. He gold-medaled in rowing events at both the Canadian Royal Henley Regatta and the U.S. Nationals. At Northeastern, on an athletic scholarship, Jarvis was named most-improved rower in 2002 and made the Canadian under­twenty-three national team that placed second in the world championships.

In his senior year, when the Northeastern crew placed fifth nationally, Jarvis was voted team captain. "I wouldn't have gone to the Olympics if I hadn't participated in NU sports," he says. "It wasn't a dream of mine until I was a Husky. The competitive nature of the NU team made me want to try for Athens."

A medal eluded his Olympic crew. But another event buoyed him. Last year, Jarvis was one of three—and the only oarsman—to win a $5,000 Athletic Achievement Award from the U.S. Diabetes Exercise and Sports Association.

— Katy Kramer, MA’00