Wednesday evening at the Mills International Center, around 40 visitors came to enjoy World Performing Arts Night, a night of performances by international students. An Indonesian poem, a Korean folk song, a Colombian dance and a Japanese comedy play were just a few of the contributions featured at the event.
University student Adriane Bolliger and International Resource Center Coordinator Sonja Rasmussen were the MCs of the evening and announced the performances. Bolliger has volunteered at international events since April.
“I like creating events with a living room atmosphere, where people can talk to neighbors, laugh and ask questions,” said the 20-year-old. Bolliger enjoys international events because of the cultural diversity.
Vania Situmeang, program manager of the Mills International Center, began planning the event in March.
“I like organizing events where people perform and where we create a show,” said Situmeang. “This is also a good possibility to see many different cultures enclose, so I don’t need to travel to see performances from these countries.”
University student Yu Hirasawa, Tate Director of the student group Japanese Performing Arts Company, created a Japanese comedy play with martial arts and fighting sequences.
“It is hard to put a comedy play together that is only five minutes long, but the team and I worked together and joined together our ideas,” said Hirasawa, an anthropology student. “JPAC works as a team and we always switch roles, so that every student has the chance to play the main character.”
Cleopatra Mapfumo and Chiedza Chikawa, international students from Zimbabwe, performed a traditional African dance. Mapfumo wanted to take part at the event because “(she) thought it was a great opportunity to share Zimbabwean culture.” The cousins practiced their dance for five hours before it was ready to perform.
“I like that there were a lot of cultures coming together. It was nice to see different performances from such a diverse selection,” Chikawa said.
Yoon Soo Nam played “Arirang,” a traditional Korean folk song, on the saxophone.
“I wanted to share this Korean traditional folk song with many people,” said Nam, who likes to participate in international events to watch the performances.
Kellen Wertz, office manager of the Mills International Center, played some Hawaiian songs on his ukulele and sang along.
“I enjoyed this event because it gives me the opportunity to share my heart with other people, regardless to what their background is,” said the Japanese major. Wertz practiced his Hawaiian song performance for about three months before the event. He was born in California, but taught himself Hawaiian because he likes the traditional songs that have historical messages.
“When the MIC asked me if I could perform during this event I thought a Hawaiian performance would be most appropriate because storytelling though music is typical for Hawaii,” Wertz said.
According to the International Student & Scholar Profile from the 2006-07 school year, the University hosts more than 1,100 international students from nearly 100 countries. World Performing Arts gave students just a taste of several of those cultures.