Intercultural exchange takes place at performance

by Allison Cayse
For The Post

Ohio University students and Athens community members broke through cultural barriers to come together Friday night at the International Music and Dance Performance.

Only half the seats in the Baker University Center Ballroom were filled, however, and some attendees said they would have liked to see more people at the cultural event.

Suhita Nadkarni and her friend Deepashri Thatte, both OU graduate students, said they enjoyed the evening but wished for more involvement from other international students.

The event is a good start, Nadkarni said, but she would like to have more people involved in International Student Union events.

ISU President Jorge Contreras said promoting cultural understanding and fostering a sense of community between international and American students are some of the group's goals. He hopes programs such as the performance, which was sponsored by ISU, will encourage cultural exchanges among students of different backgrounds.

Wearing a brightly colored dress, Martha Gonzales, a dancer from Mexico, began the evening with a solo to the traditional music of her homeland. Several second-graders from East Elementary joined her onstage to perform a couples dance.

The OU Chinese Students and Scholars Association also performed a Chinese bamboo dance, traditionally done to welcome home friends who have returned from abroad. Dancers jump back and forth between bamboo sticks as other dancers tap the sticks rhythmically on the ground.

The Chinese YanGe, a dance traditionally performed by women to protest their menial duties as housewives, took a humorous turn as male members of CSSA joined in. Carrie Elkin, an American OU student who has traveled in the United States performing her own music, played acoustic guitar and finished her set with an a cappella rendition of "Amazing Grace."

OU graduate student Ashley Capps said she enjoyed the spirit evoked by the N-Goma Drumming Group, which had the audience clapping and dancing in their seats. The group's animated leader brought members of the audience onstage to join him in song and dance.

James Walker, an OU freshman, has been with the drumming group two years. He said he liked the other performers and the way the audience came together during the night.

The evening ended as crowd members pushed away chairs to dance to the Latin jazz sounds of the Columbus group Yubambe. Several international students strutted their stuff and instructed others who were not familiar with the Latin rhythms.