By Luis Rodriguez
Contributing Writer
In celebration of the Diwali festival, ASIA is preparing for its first on-campus performance of the semester.
“The show is representative of Diwali, which is the traditional Indian Hindu festival of lights. It is also known as Deepavali,” senior biology major Kenneth Nguyen said.
Senior biology and theology major and club president Asha Matthews gave some insight on what the audience should expect.
“This year, the audience should expect a brand new type of show,” Matthews said.
The club is trying to move away from a traditional narrative show, and has decided to turn the performance into a competition. The theme is “So You Think You Can Dance,” and the audience should expect to see more than Indian dancing.
“There will be exotic belly dancing and Korean Pop added to the mix,” Matthews said.
To add some humor to the performance, there will be a group of judges that will play the role of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul, judges of national televised talent shows. The 29 dancers will be motivated to showcase their best dance moves with the new judges.
Judges will be Matthews; David Burke, a junior biology major; Mitch Kovacs, a freshman mathematics major and Larisa Tivadar, a senior accounting and finance double major.
Matthews said preparing for the upcoming show has not been easy, and every member of ASIA has been putting in maximum effort to ensure the performance runs smoothly.
“To prepare for the show, we have had to do some major delegating of work to the multiple committees ASIA has created just for the Diwali Show,” Matthews said.
Not only have they been working extremely hard, Matthews believes that this is the best board that ASIA has ever had. Nguyen said they have been preparing for the show for over two months.
“We have created seven committees, who have been preparing each part of the show and afterwards. This includes buying costumes, makeup, props, and the actual dancing,” Nguyen said.
The audience should expect to see organized and amazing choreography in addition to the new themes and judges.
“Ruby Shah [one of the members] has gone above and beyond to help create the beautiful and well-choreographed dances that the audience will definitely love,” Matthews said.
This year’s MC will be Tylandt Doyle, a graduate student in the integrated marketing communications program.
The show will be held in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts on Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. Tickets are sold at the Quick Center for $5 for students and $10 for general admission.
“Afterwards, we will be having refreshments and food prepared from Indian culture, so this is a show you don’t want to miss,” Nguyen said.
