International Night highlights individuals, cultures
Members of NDSU’s International Student Association performed to a full crowd Friday night, showing the community the music and dance typical of their cultures.
The acts included a dance from the Philippines that imitated the movements of birds, several bands, a Nepali interpretive dance, a Celtic bagpipe band, an international fashion show and many other acts.
ISA President Gerard Beaubrun, a senior economics major, said when he and the other ISA officers planned the event, they wanted performances that showed who the students were as individuals as well as reflected their culture.
He also said the audition process was very competitive; thirty acts tried out, but only 16 were chosen to perform.
The Sri Lankan band Chartter opened the show with their original song “Rosa Male,” which translates to “Rose Flower.”
The band has been together with their current lineup since January and plan on releasing an album May 15.
Next onstage was Yellow Star Crew, a reggae-style band from South Sudan.
Yellow Star Crew got its name from the yellow star on the South Sudanese flag and have performed in Minneapolis.
Winga Chow, a sophomore accounting major from Hong Kong, played the erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument that sounds similar to a violin, only with a richer and hollower timbre.
Chow said the song she played was a traditional Chinese song about people enjoying a prosperous time in the nation’s history.
Nini Bisimwa, a sophomore nursing and fashion student from Congo, sang two a cappella songs, one in the Lingala language and one in Spanish.
Bisimwa speaks six languages and also helped plan the costumes for the show as well as perform.
One of the dances performed was an Indian dance based on an ancient exorcism ritual.
The story behind the dance is that a Sri Lankan king with a mysterious illness invited an Indian shaman to come cure him.
The shaman performed the dance, the king was soon cured and the dance spread throughout Sri Lanka.
Another highlight of the evening was the NDSU Hip Hop team’s premiere performance. Freshman Sara Lesnau and sophomore Elisabeth Knapp, both interior design majors, started the team during the fall 2006 semester.
Beaubrun said there was some debate as to whether or not the team would be allowed to perform, but in the end the officers felt the American culture should also be represented. “International does not mean ‘not American,’” Beaubrun said. “It means global.”