Gumboot, Bhanghra, and the Imagine Festival!

Saturday April 24th was an eventful day on the Whitman campus. Between the Renaissance Fair, the sports games, and the Imagine Festival--brought to us by the amazing Intercultural Center--no one was left without something to do! In fact, many people planned ahead to do everything!

The day before, though, was Nick's nineteenth birthday! Sorry this is late, but we are sure you celebrated and had fun. 

Cheers!

BSU spent the early afternoon on Reid Side Lawn, the scene the Imagine Festival. At the festival, clubs sign up for a spot and prepare all sorts of fun activities for everyone to enjoy. We ourselves had passed through many potential activities on the quest for the perfect event--jeopardy games, to Name-that-Black-guy, to races--until Allan came up with the perfect idea: handprints!

Mukulu Mweu, who manages the Intercultural Center

The idea was that we'd have a large sheet of high-quality paper and and array of different colors of paint...

...and everyone who stopped by could make a handprint on the paper! 

It was the perfect easy and fun idea for what was becoming a lovely spring day.

Sarah Deming and friend enjoying our booth!

We had a lot of traffic at our table--everybody wanted in on the fun!

Students enjoying the memories handpainting brought on from the kindergarten days.

Mukulu marvels at the rainbow of colors on her hands while Tumi captures the memories

By the end of the event, our canvas of identities was overflowing with beautiful colors.

What a beautiful finished product! 

With the wind threatening to blow it right out of my hands, I sturggled back to my section lounge with nine feet of paper in tow, where I let it dry for a few days.

Still too wet!

To commemorate the day, I painted over with black the title "Imagine-2010" and added the iconic BSU logo to dot the i's. 

Can you imagine (heh heh) me lugging this around?

After THAT dried, we presented the finished artpiece to Mukulu...

Mukulu and her son!

who had it laminated to last longer. The finished product hangs outside of the Glover-Alston Center (GAC--where we hold our BSU meetings) to this day!

Bao-Tram and I show it off at its new home

 I have heard many funny stories with first years who refer to the GAC as "the Imagine building". Oh silly first years. Well, we have to make a mark somehow!

But the Imagine Festival was filled with all other sorts of activities, including a performance from the campus Gumboot Dance group, who had their first performance in three months! Many of BSUs members were (and are) part of Gumboot, including creator-president Nick, yours truly, Allan, and Laetitiah!

Shosholoza postion, everyone!

We were all super nervous! Thankfully, Sarah, Olivia, and Tish took lots of pictures.

 For those who don't know, though, Gumboot is a South African dance that is inspired from workers in mines.

 Since they weren't allowed to communicate verbally, they developed a complex way of communicating by clapping, stomping and splashing the water with their boots--thus, gumboot!

Us clapping, stopping, and splashing, um, the stage

It's very active and so much fun! 

There's Nick, front and center, and me, sort of in the back :)

We had opened the show for the main performance and after a loud round of applause, hollers, and cheers, sang a song...

...and took a bow.

And since everyone enjoyed it so much, I'm posting a portion of the performance here, via video! Be warned, though, it's not our best.

After our performance, the main attraction took the stage. The Interculutural Center had brought University of Washington's Bhanghra Dance group!

Here's a little information on Bhanghra from Wikipedia:

Bhaṅgṛā is a form of dance and music that originated in the Punjab region. Bhangra dance began as a folk dance conducted by Punjabi Sikh farmers to celebrate the coming of the harvest season. The specific moves of Bhangra reflect the manner in which villagers farmed their land. This dance art further became synthesized after the partition of India, when refugees from different parts of the Punjab shared their folk dances with individuals who resided in the regions they settled in. This hybrid dance became Bhangra. The folk dance has been popularised in the western world by Punjabi Sikhs and is seen in the West as an expression of South Asian culture as a whole. Today, Bhangra dance survives in different forms and styles all over the globe – including pop music, film soundtracks, collegiate competitions and even talent shows.

The beautiful colors certainly brightened up the day and the stage!

The performers were very friendly and interactive with the crowd and after their performance, they even gave lessons! There was a little mob pit at the base of the stage where everyone had gathered to join the dance.

All in all, their presence was a success and the Imagine Festival came to a graceful close. Thanks for coming!

There was still one major event left, though: Sarah's birthday party!

Yes, Sarah and Nick had birthdays back-to-back, wow! Congrats, Sarah! We hope you enjoyed your big twenty-two!

Enjoying the night at Sarah's

And so the long day (and night) came to a close. Hope you had as much fun reading about our experiences as we did living them!

Toodles!

BSU