Posted on April 2, 2007
The Wilson Hall auditorium stage sparkled, glittered and jingled Saturday night as the International Student Association took students and visitors on a trip around the world during its annual culture show.
A crowd began to gather outside the auditorium doors around 8:30 for the show, “Mosaic of Colors,” which began at 9 p.m.
“It was great to see so many people there,” said ISA secretary junior Reetika Sethi. “We worked so hard on this show, I’m really glad so many people came out to see it.”
Admission was one dollar, and ISA sold international cookbooks for $6 and 50/50 raffle tickets for $1. Cookbook and admission sales went to the ISA.
ISA President Heeral Bhalala was impressed with the turnout.
“Everything just went really smoothly,” Bhalala said.
Bhalala and Seethi welcomed the audience and introduced the show with a multicultural slideshow with pictures from around the world. Masters of ceremony Vinod Narayan and Nishal Patel introduced each act. Patel also performed an Indian dance to a medley of Indian songs. She said she wanted to perform in the show to represent culture within the JMU community.
“JMU’s obviously not so diverse,” she said. “So when we can show it, we like to bring it out.”
The evening included dancing from around the world, including a Chinese ribbon dance; Turkish belly dancing; a Latino number featuring belly dancing, meringue, and reggaeton; a flamenco, three Indian performances, Greek dancing and a piece entitled “Fusion,” which combined salsa, belly dancing, Indian dance and hip-hop.
“The flamenco was really good,” freshman Anna Stark said. “And the Chinese ribbon dance, that was really cool too.”
Freshman Madina Bakenovka said she liked the Arabic and Turkish dances.
“[The show] was amazing,” she said. “I will attend another one.”
While some enjoyed the dances, others liked their traditional costumes.
“The costumes were beautiful,” junior Sheena Suwal said. “It was awesome to see the dances performed in outfits from each country.”
The evening included selections of poetry as well as dancing. Tatiana Kopaeva read poetry about her home, spring and love in both English and her native Russian. Gothami Gunasakera read, “The Pearl in the Indian Ocean,” about Sri Lanka.
Visitor Jay Patel, 23, said the poetry was his favorite part of the evening.
“It was pretty and articulate and very nice overall,” he said. “It was a really good show.”
Other performances included Wei Wu singing a Chinese folk song with an R&B twist about a girl who fell in love and would follow her lover anywhere.
“He sang it R&B, but in his own language,” junior Amanda Zawad said. “I didn’t know what he was saying, but I was feeling it.”
Junior Robert Gay said he enjoyed the entire performance.
“Overall it was a really fun experience,” he said. “It was cool to see the dances from all the different cultures.”
