BHS Multicultural Show

Before the Berkeley High School student body parted ways for the Thanksgiving holiday, the Associated Student Body (ASB) Leadership team hosted an event to celebrate the school’s ethnic diversity. On Tuesday, November 22, a large cast of students, staff, and other members of the community performed in the third annual BHS Multicultural Show in the Florence Schwimley Little Theater. They entertained classes throughout the day with varying combinations of short presentations on aspects of culture from around the world, led by emcees Luna Lewis and Junior Class President Momo Aledlah. The show was kicked off with a world fashion show, in which a sassy catwalk featured traditional dress from around the globe. The line of models then introduced the event with a warm welcome delivered in multiple different languages, and the series of performances began. These included everything from Brazilian Capoeira and Korean martial arts to two types of Indian dance and an original poem about culture in our community. The show’s acts also varied at different times of the day based on when the participants were available. “We wanted to have variations for different periods,” said Shakti Rajput, ASB Commissioner of Multicultural Affairs and one of the main people in charge of the event. “For example, the martial arts didn’t perform fourth and fifth [periods] so we had Ethiopian dance,” she said. The Chinese song sung by BHS Mandarin students and teacher Amy Chen was only performed during certain showings, as well as the presentation about the Chinese Dragon Boat club and the yoga display by English teacher Laurie Rodney and some students.

Rajput, a sophomore in Academic Choice (AC), was not the only student involved in organizing the show. Internal Operations Manager Hajin Yi played a major role in the running rehearsals and technical affairs, and many leadership students volunteered their time to help with cleanup or fill necessary positions.

With help from Chris Young, the BHS Director of Student Activities, the team found students and groups to participate in the show via social networks and leadership connections. They also reached out to groups outside of BHS, but some of these charged fares that were beyond the budget.

In addition to the World Show, leadership held a food fair at lunchtime, in which different cultural clubs at BHS contributed food to sell. The participating clubs including the Chicano Latino Club, the Filipino Club, and Asian/Pacific Islander Club and others. This addition was a successful supplement to the performance, but Rajput actually hopes to make the event even bigger next time. For the first time ever, she hopes to hold a second culture show in the spring and put on a number of other events that will bring more attention to the show itself and celebrate cultural diversity in new ways. “I want to make it a week-long event, topping it off with the culture show,” Rajput explained. For the spring show, “We already have a Tibetan Yak Dance group lined up,” said Young. Rajput is also considering designating dress-up days for different types of traditional dress, or lunch days dedicated to eating food and watching dance performances from certain countries.

The leadership team also encountered obstacles in running the event, and hopes to avoid these through better preparation in the future. Rajput explained that, for example, a number of the performers didn’t show up to rehearsals, which made the performance day stressful for the leadership students in charge. “Each time we do the show we learn what works and what can be improved,” said Young. “We will have better organization in the theater seating, ushering, and door management in the future.”

Although the different segments of this year’s show collectively represented an impressive number of cultures, the leadership team does hope to increase this number in the future. “I want someone to do salsa, [or] Brazilian dancing,” Rajput said as an example.

This year’s show was unprecedented in the range of entertainment it offered and ethnic traditions it demonstrated, and generated a lot of feedback from those who were able to see it. “Not so many years ago, [English Language Learners] students and generally our cultural diversity had little presence or voice on campus,” said Young. “I personally was so proud and happy for these students that I was brought to tears. This happened for some other teachers too, who know how far we’ve come.”