The student group Kultura Pilipinas held its Filipino Culture Night on Saturday in the Gerlinger Hall gym to promote the club and raise awareness about the culture of the Southeast Asian island nation of the Philippines.
KP served almost 200 guests with a traditional Filipino meal and entertained through dancing demonstrations, speeches, videos and skits depicting the evolution of the group.
Because the club has been inactive for the past few years, it held the event as a sort of grand re-opening. “Pagbubuhay,” translated as revival or rebirth, was the theme of the night.
“It’s the first club in a couple of years, so there’s a lot of stuff we’re learning about in terms of setting up an event like this,” said freshman Theresa Galvan, director of KP.
Filipino clubs have been inactive at the University since around 2003 due to lack of leadership and interest. This year, however, Galvan restarted the club with the help of University students Matt Boyce and Stefan Dinglasan and other members of the Filipino community.
The culture night was the first big event for the club since it was re-established this year and they hope it will raise awareness about their club.
“Overall, we want this to be a big recruitment tool. We want to introduce our culture as Filipino Americans and let people know that just because it’s a Filipino group, you don’t have to be Filipino to join,” said Dinglasan, director of recruitment and retention for the club.
Boyce, the club’s Executive Finance Director, said the club has special meaning to him because his brother Jeff ran the club in 2002 when it had a large presence on campus
“The main theme here is that we’re back,” he said.
The night began with welcoming speeches from Boyce and members Sothreaksa Keo and Justin Tandingan, who stressed the importance of preserving Filipino culture.
Tandingan said Filipinos are a vastly underrepresented group in America and because of that, the club will strive to promote their culture through community outreach and education.
After a warm welcome and a Tahitian dance performance, club members invited guests to dine on traditional Filipino cuisine such as lechon, which is a roasted pig dish, adobo, a marinated chicken dish and lumpia, the Filipino equivalent of an egg roll.
Freshman Kristina Banks, who was there to support her friends participating in dancing demonstrations, said she thought the food was delicious.
“It’s not dorm food and it’s real and it’s different,” she said.
As the crowd ate, members of KP performed skits depicting the evolution of the group and described their experiences attending a Northwest conference of the Filipino-American Student Association in Bellingham, Wash. earlier this year.
Dinglasan described his experiences as a Filipino-American. He said he had a hard time when he went from living in San Francisco to the less-ethnically diverse Eugene. He said KP has been an important part of his life because he has been able to make friends and explore his culture while studying at the University. He said the group is about sharing culture, and you don’t have to be Filipino to enjoy the time they spend together.
Throughout the night, the group showed videos about the history of the Philippines and slides of famous people of Filipino decent including Cheryl Burke from Dancing with the Stars, actress Tia Carrere, actor Lou Diamond Phillips and actor Rob Schneider.
The night concluded with a crowd-pleasing demonstration of the traditional Filipino war dance called Maglalatik. Two dancers with coconuts strapped to their arms, chest, legs and thighs performed the dance in which they rhythmically clapped the coconuts together while simulating hand-to-hand combat.
Galvan said she was pleased with the turnout for the event and hopes the success of night will help the club plan for next year.
Sophomores Nelson Leung and Linda Kim said they thought the night went extremely well considering the group is so new.
“I can’t wait for next year,” Kim said.