Students celebrate cultural diversity

The CultureFest committee hosted its annual Culture Show in Shriver Auditorium on Saturday, Nov. 9. The event was part of Culture Week, which runs from Nov. 7 through Nov. 16. It presented various campus groups that shared the traditional music and dances from their respective countries of origin.

This year's event had the theme, "One love, One heart, Let's Get together and Feel Alright," a quote by musician Bob Marley. CultureFest Co-Chair Connie Everett chose the theme for this year's CultureFest.

"Basically, I had to present a proposal to the Student Council (StuCo)," she said. "I was trying to think of something that had to do with unity...I wanted something people have heard of before, what they can relate to."

The theme reflects the purpose of CultureFest to spread appreciation of the many cultures present at Hopkins.

"CultureFest is a way of celebrating the different cultures we see everyday around campus. I decided to participate in CultureFest this year because I wanted to get closer with my peers whom I share cultural interests with," said sophomore Evita Belmonte, who participated in the dance performed by members of the Filipino Students' Association (FSA).

Ami Bhatt, president of the South Asian Students' of Hopkins (SASH), and Warren Huang, president of the Chinese Students' Association (CSA) emceed the Culture Show. Junior Kartik Anand played the music that the groups chose for their performances.

When asked how she became involved with the Culture Show, Bhatt stated, "I was approached by Connie Everett over the summer and asked to emcee CultureFest. Connie knew me both as a friend and as my role as SASH president and thought I would be suitable as an emcee."

The event took many hours of practice, both for the emcees and the performers.

"I met with Jennifer Saito and Warren Huang, three or four times before the show itself to go over the acts, the sequence and other logistical components of the show in the weeks leading up to the show," Bhatt said. "We worked on group introductions and attended a few rehearsals to get a feel for the show. The day of the CultureFest Show we had a run-through with Warren and I doing the segment introductions before each group."

Saito added, "We (the majority of the performers and I) were in Shriver since 1 p.m. on Saturday."

The opening performance included all the performers, and it introduced the groups that participated in the show. These groups included dance troupes such as Egyptian Sun Productions, the belly dance troupe on campus, sororities such as the Asian-interest sorority Sigma Omicron Pi, the fraternity Lambda Phi Epsilon and cultural groups such as the Filipino Students' Association (FSA) and the Caribbean Culture So ciety (CCS).

In describing the dances performed on Saturday night, CultureFest Food committee chair Eun-Ju Lee said, "CultureFest is promoting cultural awareness on campus, so I thought that the dances, like the Indian dance and the dance by the BSU, really fit into the goal of CultureFest."

Freshman Emily Cohan composed the music used in the opening act, and Entertainment Chair Jennifer Saito choreographed the dance.

"The Culture Show took a lot of planning and preparation. I wanted to use Freshman Emily Cohan's original music in the show, and the opening number was the result of the incorporation," said Saito.

"My vision was to get all performers out on the stage so the audience knew what they had in store for them," she added.

To help them decide which groups would participate in the Culture Show, the CultureFest committee held auditions in early October.

"We had auditions in the first weekend of October. Every group and individual piece was accepted so long as they met the requirements of five minutes maximum (extended only for the BSU/ASA/CCS collaboration) and no profanity," Saito said.

"As many people have heard from me in the past week, the purpose of CultureFest is to unite people and groups together to learn from and celebrate each others' diversity," she said.

"Therefore, I implemented the five-minute rule so that we could accommodate all groups without having a 10-hour long performance," she added.

The CultureFest committee gave out free prizes to audience members.

They gave out three Silk Road Bubble Teas, a gift certificate for a free haircut at Tenpachi and two free tickets to the CultureFest banquet at the end of the week.

The CultureFest committee publicized for the Culture Show and other CultureFest events in multiple ways.

"For publicity, [we used the] News-Letter and The Gazette, posters (general and at least one for each event), leaflets handed out on breezeway and in classes, mailbox stuffers, DailyJolt, StuCo e-mail, separate e-mail to the whole student body, breezeway banner, working with cultural groups and having them publicize to their members. We publicized through letters and posters to departments about larger events. We postered in the Charles Village area," stated Publicity Coordinator Christina Pommer.

All in all, many people came to the Culture Show and enjoyed the performances.

"I was very impressed with the turn-out of Saturday's event. There were over 600 people present, not including most of the performers," Pommer stated.

"As a senior, I honestly think this was the most successful Culture Show that I can remember," said Bhatt. "The crowd seemed really enthusiastic and became engaged with the acts on stage, which I think bolstered the groups' performances."

She also said the performances were "phenomenal."

"There was a wide variety of culture being represented. The acts were really energetic and brought parts of these cultures alive to the audience," she said.