Students at Washington University celebrate the Cardinals’ game 6 win on the South 40.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt sings “Words We’re Wailing” at hitRECord WashU in Graham Chapel on Tuesday, October 25, 2011.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt sings “Any Day Now” by Sam Cooke

Student Life talks to Rabbi Andy Kastner about Sukkah City St. Louis.

Josh Goldman | Student Life

Alyssa Beebe, left, and Margaret Tudor, right, dance, while other members of Boomshaka, the student drum, dance and rhythm ensemble from Northwestern University, keep the beat outside the Danforth University Center on Tuesday afternoon. The group decided to spend their spring break at a friend’s house in St. Louis and came to the University to lighten the mood during midterms.

York’s platform for President is based on uniting the student body through programs that encourage them to engage in the St. Louis community. The founder of Engage360 and last year’s Vice President of Programming, York says he wants to enable students to do the things they’re passionate about.

MaryPat Sinclair | Vice President of Programming

As Vice President of Programming, Sinclair—this year’s sophomore class president—wants to concentrate on the big speakers and events that students say draw them in. She also plans to expand the Social Programming Board to collaborate with other bodies, like RedAlert and the North Side Association.

Mamatha Challa | Vice President of Administration

Challa says she plans to make the internal structure of Student Union more efficient and effective so that the body can better serve the students it represents. The former Speaker of the Senate says that her familiarity with SU will enable her to better direct resources within student government as Vice President of Administration, and she plans to make the Rat—the former home of Subway—a gathering place for students and student groups.

Cody Katz | Vice President of Finance

Katz, the UP slate’s candidate for Vice President of Finance, wants to use Student Union’s 2.3 million budget to “engage and benefit” students. With experience as last year’s Vice President of Public Relations, Katz says that he wants to stay engaged with student opinions by hosting idea bounces for funding and publicizing individual appeals of SU funds.

Amanda Signorelli | Vice President of Public Relations

Signorelli has seen SU from the other side as a leader of the College Democrats, and as Vice President of Public Relations, she wants communication between Student Union and its constituents to be a “two-way street.” She plans to hold focus groups and create a centralized event calendar to ensure more dialogue between SU and the student body.

“Parkour is a way of moving through your environment as fluidly and efficiently as possible, using your surroundings and the human body. It’s an art form, it’s exhilarating, and we do it to challenge ourselves,” parkour enthusiast C.J. Simpson said. This involves moving from surface to surface, including scaling walls and leaping over obstacles.

Since its inception in Lisses, France, during the late 1980s, parkour has slowly spread throughout the world and into the United States.

It has finally arrived in St. Louis.

St. Louis Parkour (STLpk), a network of traceurs (those who practice parkour), was created in 2009 and has since been holding events and monthly “jams” at various locations around the city.

“It’s spreading like a plague. It’s here to stay, and it’s getting big,” St. Louis traceur John Cleeton said.

Last weekend, STLpk held a jam on Washington University’s Danforth Campus. The event had a turnout of more than 30, with traceurs coming from as far as Columbia, Mo., to participate on Sunday, Sept. 26.

According to Jon Walter, one of STLpk’s organizers, the group averages about 10 to 15 at each event, though getting information out about events and ensuring attendance is a challenge.

“There are a few groups that are still trying to organize separate events when it really needs to be one central group, where you can go to one place and know what’s going on…it’s a bit unorganized,” Walter said.

Though parkour is an athletic activity and requires strength and agility, most traceurs agree that it is not a sport.

“I would call it more of a martial art,” said Gaz Jones, who attended on Sunday. “Instead of stylized actions and techniques for fighting, it’s techniques and actions used for getting through an environment.”

“[Parkour is] movement. It’s an art. It’s nothing like a sport because a sport symbolizes competitions and tournaments and with parkour, the challenge is against yourself, not against anyone else,” Simpson said.

Sunday’s attendees noted that there is a prevalent misconception linking traceurs and skateboarders, whom some associate with vandalism.

“I kind of compare us to skaters in our ethic that we never give up, but we’re lighthearted and fun and just like having fun,” said David Reynolds, who attended the jam in a banana costume. “[The costume] throws off the cops a bit because they think that we’re skaters…and that we must be vandalizing something.”

Simpson conceded that while there is overlap between the two groups, parkour emphasizes preserving the environment and respecting the community.

“The people that got me into it used to be skateboarders. Several of the people [at the jam] used to be skateboarders, but with skateboarders, they don’t respect authority,” Simpson said. “With us, we respect authority, and we try to get them to realize what we’re doing isn’t harmful to anything.”

Some agreed that this misconception is one of the largest hindrances to practicing parkour in St. Louis. Often times, they have been asked to leave areas downtown by police officers and security guards and have been, on occasion, completely banned.

“On a general downtown jam…we end up getting stopped by police or even kicked out of places seven to eight times a day. A lot of people think that we’re trying to destroy the environment,” Walter said. “If the cop has an open mind, we’ll explain to them, ‘we love the environment. This is what we do; this is how we do it, and we’d love to have you sit and watch or even come try a little bit with us.’”

On occasion, this explanation has worked. Walter recalled one incident during which he convinced a federal officer to participate with the traceurs.

“It is the absolute greatest feeling ever because we all love [parkour], but even more, we love to further the knowledge of it,” Walter said. “If we can convince someone to try this or even just look at the world around them in a different light for a few days, it’s a great feeling.”