Cultural Extravaganza: Celebrating cultural diversity through performance art
The Vietnamese Student Association dances and sings Ghe Ben Sai Gon & Sai Gon.
Alicia Nguyen
The Signal Staff
Students representing different countries came together March 27 in Bayou Theater to showcase their cultural heritages. Cultural Extravaganza is a show put on by University of Houston-Clear Lake students to share their culture with the community through singing, dancing, poetry, food and much more.
The show is held once a year in the spring. It is the biggest event hosted by the Office of Intercultural and International Student Services this semester. Susana Hernandez, coordinator of educational and programming outreach, coordinated this year’s Cultural Extravaganza.
More than 500 people filled the Bayou Theatre to attend the 15th anniversary of this annual show.
Chris Greenfield and Clare Leonard perform a traditional Welsh children’s song named Franz O Wlad Awstria.
“The show promotes well-rounded individuals who showed their diversity at its best,” President William Staples said.
A lot of effort from the students went into this year’s Cultural Extravaganza.
I’ve had a lot of positive feedback.”
This year’s show included students representing India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Germany, Mexico, Nepal, China, America and many more. It was a blend of the different cultures. Students had a chance to give a brief insight of their heritage.
“This is the first time the Nepalese Student Association represented Nepal,” said Prashanti Pandit, sociology graduate. “Most people don’t know much about Nepal and it was so much fun representing and sharing Nepal with them.”
There were 20 performances in this year’s showcase.
“This year’s show, I thought, was really diverse,” Hernandez said “In the past we had a lot of Vietnamese and Indian performers, but this year we had a couple more. We put a lot of effort into this year’s show; I felt it was really well organized.”
After the show students provided samples of their international cuisine such as tamales, spring rolls, samosa and much more.
Lola Ogunmoyela dances the Bata dance, a cultural dance of the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria.
“It is a really good event to learn about other cultures and represent your own,” said Nallely Carmona, education major. “It makes you feel really patriotic.”
Students who performed for the first time look forward to performing next year as well.
“It was an excellent show and I would encourage other students to get involved next year,” said Udeshika Amarasinghe, psychology major.
“This is the one time that all of our students from different backgrounds can come together and share about their culture with the university,” Hernandez said. “I’m happy that our office can do that for them. I honestly could not have done it without the students and I’m looking forward to planning this event again next year.”
Click on the videos below to see more of this year’s Cultural Extravaganza.
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