By Hailey Heinz
Last week, Northeastern students paid a visit to Asia, Europe, Africa and South America – all from their seats in Blackman Auditorium.
Thursday night was International Gala Night 2005, a culmination of the annual International Carnevale. The gala, which was performed in front of a nearly-full auditorium, is a showcase of cultural performances put on by student groups and individuals.
Although most students chose to perform pieces from their own culture, Jessica Brioso knows it’s not a requisite. The junior pharmacy major was born in the United States to parents from Guatemala and El Salvador, and considers herself Hispanic. However, she doesn’t consider herself of an international culture.
“It’s just something I got into,” Brioso said, admitting that belly dancing doesn’t represent her own culture. But you wouldn’t know it from watching her on Thursday night.
After an ensemble of belly dancers performed a routine, Brioso came on stage for a solo, in which she shook her hips to the quickening tempo of a drumbeat. The layers of coins on her costume made a jingling sound that could be heard over the music. The belly dancing number, “Shik Shak Shok,” was named for that sound.
The belly dancers in the act wore provocative, elaborate costumes, which made the moments before going on stage even more nerve-wracking for Brioso. She said she would have preferred her outfit be a little less revealing, but when it came time to perform she just went out and danced.
“At that point, you don’t have a choice,” she said. “You’ve just got to go, and everyone has to see. You have to remember that it’s just a costume,” she said.
“Shik Shak Shok” was just one of the 14 acts in the gala, which ranged from solo acts to large ensembles with over 20 performers.
Getting people together for meetings and rehearsals was the greatest challenge of the gala, said Nitish Gupta, co-chair of the event. Gupta, originally from India, is a graduate student majoring in computer systems. This is his second year co-chairing the event with Scott Quint, assistant dean and director of the International Student and Scholar Institute (ISSI), which sponsors the International Carnevale every year.
The diverse range of acts reflected the diversity of international students at Northeastern. The show began with a solo Indian dancer, fusing of folk and classical Indian dance, performed by Mari Shakthi Muthus-wamy. The act was one of several Indian-style dances in the gala, and for freshman psychology major Natalie Chudacoff, these dances were the highlight.
“I love the Indian dances; I think they’re just really cool,” Chudacoff said.
While some acts, like Muthuswamy’s, were fairly traditional, others had a more modern flair. The Northeastern African Student Organization (NASO) performed a dance based on West African rhythms, and although it was set to traditional music it had a contemporary edge and sexual tension that appealed to the college crowd.
The final performance of the night was a short musical play by Latin student organization Proyeccion Ibero-Americana of Northeastern University (PIANU), and was based largely on the actual experiences of international students. It was told from the perspective of a young American woman on her first visit to Costa Rica and showed an unexpected side of Costa Rican life, including chronic lateness, crazy drivers and casual kisses among friends.
Tania Alarcon, a junior chemical engineering major who performed in the show, said the group wanted to put on a big show this year because a lot of people who have been influential in putting on the show for several years are graduating. Alarcon said this led to the idea of doing a play that truly portrayed Latin culture, and that they decided to make it a musical because music is an important part of that culture.
“Most of us have really experienced these things,” Alarcon said. “We wanted to do something big and different … and of course we have to dance.”
