Asiafest: Interwoven 

By Lotus Qu
Introduction by Lily Galapon

The making of Asiafest: Interwoven didn’t start all that simple. From FaceTime calls over the summer on potential theme ideas, we cycled from stories ranging from getting kidnapped on stage, staging our version of Inside Out—and initially—were hooked on the premise of milking K-Pop Demon Hunters (our group chat name is still saja jgals). But for some reason, on an arbitrary day in the fall semester, we all sat down with each other. There was one underlying theme, passively recognized underneath all of our previous conversations, before lightly trickling its way to the surface: “What if this year’s Asiafest is as simple as red string theory?”

Our theme was based on the ancient Asian folktale that soulmates are destined by fate to meet each other, tied by an invisible red string. 

Asiafest, in previous years, focused on exactly that—the past. But this year, we wanted to focus on a different question. Not just exploring, “Where did we come from?”, but acknowledging the troubling, dissonant, yet beautiful emergence in being Asian American by asking, “Where can we go?”. We wanted Asiafest to celebrate the reality of reflecting on our roots away from the motherland while also learning to build ourselves. Culture is not always about following in the footsteps of someone’s story, but also learning from it to create your own. With Interwoven, We wanted to expand Asiafest as a cultural festival that deconstructed the character arc of going from a blatant American to a “realized” Asian, enlightened of their culture. We are all real people outside of this archetype; we all are on different points of exploring our culture, constructing who we are with the culture we are taught and come across over time. 

The month of February, to say the least, was intense for everyone: A multitude of practices, too–fast act previews, late night film editing, last-minute script changes, and strings onto our microphones. I’m proud of everyone for believing in themselves, their culture, and this festival where, for one night, we truly pooled our energy into the celebration of today, cultured by a million yesterdays that will illuminate our tomorrow. 

But even though our theme was red string theory, the real thread was the one you couldn’t see. If you look hard enough, you can trace its lines, imagine the shape through the laughter of those on stage. The space between the steps of act to act, the first note of each song. The applause from the audience, the late night conversations decompressing into afterglow after the show. Culture ties us together. 

The art of creating Asiafest was a magical experience. It’s about being unafraid to get creative with your culture, collaborating with officers now turned into your good friends. Asiafest is about breaking boundaries and expanding what representation can look like—by representing ourselves.

With the thick layers of January snow and ice, and February’s BBR floods, captains, management, and tech had little more than three weeks to put into action a two-hour long show. With spoken words, host trailers and interludes, backstage management and tech design, and twenty-one acts, everyone came together to deliver, to a completely booked audience, a wonderful show – booming mic included! Welcome to a quick recap of just a few of this year’s many great performances.

When the tikling bird weaves through stalks of grass and nimbly dodge traps set by rice farmers, they move with agility and grace. Their movements are what inspired the Filipino folk dance Tinikling: the dancers weaving through the bamboo sticks are the birds, and the sticks the traps. “It’s normally a three count rhythm, like 1, 2, 3, and [the sticks] close on the third beat. So you jump out on the third beat,” Casey Foeller says. This year, the act was broken into three parts: traditional Tinikling; Singkil, depicting princesses and performed with dresses and fans; and a modern twist featuring Bruno Mars. “I’d never done Tinikling before I came here.” Casey says. “I ended up joining last year, and it was really, really fun. I’m really glad that I got to share that experience with people this year.” 

Similarly energetic but hailing from a completely different background, Kuthu, a South Indian dance, is often done at funerals. “It’s a way to celebrate that person’s life and not be sorry for their death,” Nandhini Thangamani explains.  “It’s a very free dance. Anyone can do it as long as you’re feeling the music.” There are no barriers to Kuthu, and that’s what the performance is all about. People bring their friends, and even if they didn’t understand the music or lyrics, every performer could feel the energy. “Especially when we made [a] circle and we were all on the same beat,” Nandhini says. “We came together and made that thing that was bigger than us. [We took] those traditional elements and blended it with what the youth these days actually enjoy. So I find that’s very SSM core.”

By using popular, energetic songs, K-Wave is also all about the accessibility of the contemporary Korean identity. “The Kpop genre does have that slight nuance where some people are intimidated, or don’t know if they want to join the act,” Lily Galapon says. “[We] want it to be a fun act where people don’t feel afraid to step out of their comfort zone,”

In contrast, classical ballet, rising from eighteenth century French royal courts, is usually thought of as a much less accessible art. After watching November’s LAF performances involving Chinese ribbons, though, Jeté captain Lily Galapon remembers realizing that classical and contemporary are not exclusive, and this Asiafest, she wanted to bring the two together. With dancers in traditional balletic tights, leotards, skirts, and flats, waving Chinese ribbons and dancing to bedroom pop, this performance, much like Jeté itself, is less about how the style itself is culturally rooted and more about where the performers take it. As captain Perry Kim puts it, Jeté is more about what it means to the captains and how they “incorporate [their] culture within that act.”

Similarly, incorporating Asian culture into hiphop is what the captains of Enthalpy highlighted in this performance. This year, Jiya Zaveri, one of the captains, for the first time in Enthalpy history, chose a Hindi song she resonated with to choreograph, perform, and lead a dance to. All three captains’ dances highlighted Asian hiphop, and Enthalpy captain Perry Kim says that here, hiphop is “diverse, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary.” 

Non La, in contrast, is a traditional Vietnamese dance using rice paper hats, non la, and often performed in ao dai, was referenced this year to an energetic school dance. “Rather than being used for the purpose they were intended for, nowadays, the tradition is more using the hats as symbolism.” Athena Phan explains. “But the significance of the dance comes from the fact that these hats are unique to Vietnam’s rice patties and agriculture.” Adapting traditions and making the dance their own was a focus of this year’s dance. “A lot of the people in our act are not Vietnamese,” Athena says. “They don’t have a connection to the act’s culture, but they have a connection with us and the people.”

Like Non La, Chinese Yaogu depicts the rural agricultural lifestyle. The dance starts with a single maiden going her way about the fields in the morning. “We use these handheld drums to symbolize maidens harvesting lotus seeds in the spring,” Caroline Wang explains. They are then joined in the late afternoon by other harvesters, telling jokes and singing as they work in the fields. “It’s wild and free spirited,” Caroline says. “And there’s the metaphor of the dancers being flowers themselves. That’s why we had such flowing outfits, the pinks and greens and the blues.” But the freeness, the energy, and the ethereal quality was demanding of the performers – it is a long performance, and one full of movement and balance, described by many performers as “hardcore cardio.”

  In contrast, the inspiration behind Chinese dance were palace performances by entertainers in the imperial court. “It’s meant for beauty and grace,” Caroline explains. “In Chinese dance, you have a reverse move before you commit to a big move. In the fans, you see those closed moves are very tight and restrained when the fan is closed, and then when you open it, you’re sweeping it across the air.” What comes after the lights dim on the blue sleeves and crimson fans is a phenomenon known to most who have connections back to mainland China: public square dancing. “It’s something you see at every mall or courtyard: people doing guang chang wu,” Caroline says. “It’s just a social experience. We like to poke fun at it, but it’s also a really, really cool connection. Many of [the performers] see their family members doing it, and now they’re doing it.” 

Though not a dance, NCSSM’s Chinese Yoyo is also a contemporary take on the traditional art performed in opera and acrobatics. A diabolo, or a Chinese Yoyo, is an hourglass shaped trinket connected to a set of strings and two wooden sticks. As Fei Yu-Ching sings of drifting snowflakes, performers rub  against axles to create friction and perform tricks. Learning the tricks themselves is difficult, but even harder is timing them with the music; making sure the preparations were finished and the physics could take the diabolo where you wanted it to go at the right time. Still, it’s satisfying seeing it spin: “That’s why I kept on doing Chinese Yoyo,” says captain Cathlyn Truong. “Because, once someone showed me a trick, I was like, ‘I want to do that.’ And once it was done, it was magical, honestly.”

Like Chinese Yoyo, Martial Arts revolves around the combination of traditional martial arts with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Each element is linked with a different style of martial arts, each with a different culture. “For fire, I took heavy inspiration from taekwondo.” Nandhini says. “For Earth, Ohm used his bo staff training. For water, Jessica used tai chi elements. And for the Avatar, Noah took his little creative liberties.” 

Similarly intense, Souranbushi opens to a stage of performers squatting, their heads to the ground and hands stuck out towards the audience. One performer is dressed as a sea pickle, surrounded by the rest as fishermen. “It’s a fisherman’s dance,” Kae Saotome says. “They’re getting all the fishes.” Through wide movements, energy, and the shouts in the dance, performers show the audience what was important in Japanese culture. “They value the sea,” Kae says. “And the food, the water, and the fish that they eat. I feel like it really shows in the dance that we appreciate nature, and that everything comes from nature, and how we are made out of nature.”

Each act came together to show that Asiafest is really all about the combination of traditional culture with modern identity. Every captain and every performer worked to make this night their own, and it was this hard work that preserved this tradition for future juniors and seniors to come. “It’s not really a one-day performance for us.” Nandhini says. “Asiafest is something that’s been passed down to us. It’s our impact and legacy.”