JANA SUMMERS Vani Sodhi rehearses her
routine Saturday for the ISU culture show.
By Michaele Turnage
Daily Bruin Reporter
Cultural shows at UCLA bind many communities, as they reinforce
identity, educate students about culture, and enhance the
university experience.
“When you participate, you learn more first-hand,”
said Hoang Pham, a fourth-year economics and biology student who
demonstrated martial arts in Vietnamese Culture Night in April.
“You actually have to go out and find the culture
yourself.”
Students describe the experience of being onstage as
invaluable.
“To perform in front of 2,000 of your closest friends is a
rush,” Pham said. “You feel so proud of what you are
showing people.”
The exhilarating sensation of stepping onto the stage for the
first time and facing a sea of faces in the audience leaves a
lasting imprint on many students.
“All of a sudden something just hits you, like it meant a
lot to you before, but it means a lot more all of a sudden,”
said Roy Cervantes, who teaches the Ginuum Banog dance with
fourth-year English student Bret Galeste for Samahang’s May
19 Pilipino Culture Night.
For most culture shows, the final performance is the culmination
of a year’s worth of effort, struggle and discovery. In the
case of PCN, background technicians and organizers begin working a
year before the event, and performers practice eight months before
the show.
Organizers draw from the greater Los Angeles community to get
the materials needed for props and costumes, which students often
times sew or assemble themselves.
 JANA SUMMERS Engineering student Giselle
Aquino (right) and biology student Dela
Cuesta rehearse for the Pilipino Culture Night on May 19.
“It’s really enriched my college life,” said
Woojae Kim, a fourth-year biochemistry student and member of
Hanoolim.
Hanoolim, formally known as Korean Cultural Awareness Group,
hosted Korean Culture Night in April. The show featured 70
participants and 12 acts, including the fan dance, a Tae Kwon Do
demonstration, skits, hip hop performances, Poong-mul ““ a
band of Korean instruments ““ and guest speakers.
Cultural shows provide a sense of pride and a way students can
actively take part in their own education, participants said.
“Your education is great when you learn how to think, but
you also need to learn how to incorporate your feelings. Art really
speaks of the emotion and speaks of the feelings within
people,” said Noni Limar, a second-year theater student and
co-artistic director of the African Arts Ensemble’s Spring
Showcase.
The event, to be held June 1, will feature 50 performers and
acts such as West African dance, hip hop, theater and Afro-Cuban
dance.
Cultural shows also provide a forum for political statements as
well as to deconstruct false perceptions. The Indian Student Union
is using Saturday’s culture night to advocate for the
creation of a South Asian minor.
Students hope the establishment of a minor will ensure Indian
classes that appear in UCLA’s general catalog are actually
offered. They also hope the minor would make it easier for students
to partake in academic curriculum on their own heritage.
“We tied in the South Asian minor, because if professors
come and watch the show and see how much of a presence the Indian
community has at UCLA they’ll be able to support us,”
said ISU President Vimal Bhanvadia.
ISU’s culture night, titled “Yatra,” or
“Journey through India” breaks down Western perceptions
of India by representing an Eastern view of the country through
skits, dances and speeches.
By celebrating culture, which is central to many students’
identity, culture nights can bring together the UCLA community.
Organizers of culture shows often reserve tickets for groups from
other campuses, and vice-versa.
“All the other clubs ““ Samahang Pilipino, Nikkei
Student Union ““ they come to watch our shows and we come to
watch all of their shows,” Pham said. “It ties together
all of our communities.”
Limar said events like Worldfest bring together acts from
independent cultural performances.
“Everyone talks about diversity and working together, and
art is a great way to do that. I was just thinking how you
don’t often see an African and a Latino and a Pilipino
onstage together,” Limar said.
Some students said that on a campus as ethnocentric as UCLA,
where people from different walks of life don’t often
interact, culture nights provide an outlet for expression and a
space where people can learn about others.
“It’s the biggest voice of our community,”
said Vimal Bhanvadia, a fourth-year economics and history student.
“These culture nights allow other people to be exposed. It
allows people to feel what you feel, to understand your struggle
““ it’s your voice.”
Participants in culture shows said the current UCLA curriculum
does not adequately address their heritage and pointed to the
absence of a diversity requirement.
“We get cheated every year because we don’t get a
chance to learn about our traditions,” Bhanvadia said.
Culture shows foster communities that often become the
foundation of mobilization efforts by community leaders.
Scheduled practices and other gatherings provide a valuable
infrastructure that leaders use to disperse information, cultivate
leadership, and create social bonds.
“For Samahang, this is the major mobilization,”
Galeste said. “It gets like 200 to 300 Pilipino students out
working together for the same production. There’s nothing
that would mobilize the community like PCN.”
The gatherings facilitated by preparations for culture shows
also help develop social and academic networks.
“Before I did PCN I would rarely venture further than my
immediate surroundings, like my dorm room and my friends,”
Galeste said. “Being in PCN and getting to know everybody,
it’s a different feeling going onto campus and knowing that
you are going to see a lot of people you know you’ve worked
with.”