Story by Keegan Clements-Housser
Photos by Matt DeBow
Africa today is likely very different from the way you imagine it. That, above all else, was this year’s message from the African Student Association’s (ASA) annual African Cultural Night.
The group’s effort to promote this point started early at the entrance to the EMU Ballroom, where images of things more commonly associated with Africa—colorful traditional dresses, mud huts, village water wells, and the like—contrasted sharply to the pictures of very modern-looking city centers in a number of African nations.
This juxtaposition technique continued inside the Ballroom where two slowly spinning, painted suns projected onto a red background flanking a tastefully simple silhouette of the continent on the stage’s backdrop. This, coupled with the lights on the side of the room color-coded with colors found most often on African flags, decorated the entire event with a very modern, artsy feel.
Although there was also “traditional” material aplenty during the rest of the event, the fact that Africa is modernizing along with the rest of the world and is even becoming prosperous despite its myriad of problems remained a strong theme throughout.
According to Nkola Zotegouon Lucas Roberto, a performer at the event, it’s this very theme that the night intended to bring home to the audience.
“What we see on TV is really different,” Roberto said. “Those problems are there in Africa, but there are a lot of good sides to [Africa], and we want people to see that through us.
The message certainly reached plenty of people. The 300 tickets available sold out well before the day of the event, and an extra 100 people were admitted just before it started. According to ASA Secretary Joanne Gbenjo, this came as a pleasant surprise for the ASA staff who was highly pressed for time while organizing the affair.
“Last year, there were maybe a hundred less people,” she said, “but this year, the room was full. It was definitely more than we expected.”
The root of this year’s success, she expressed, was probably because of the increased publicity and advertising. The free food (meat or veggies of your choice, flat bread, and spinach) also seemed to help initiate attendance. UO student Cory Gordon, one of the people attracted by the fliers distributed around campus, certainly agreed with that assertion.
“I came for the food. I will admit that straight away,” he said. It wasn’t the food that kept his attention, however.
“I was really impressed by the dancing, the drums, and the differences between North and South, East and West [Africa]—things that I didn’t know too much about before,” Gordon explained. “I’ll definitely be coming back next year.”
