International Festival celebrates diversity

Foreign music, different dance forms and food from nations around the globe greeted visitors Saturday afternoon at the 30th annual International Festival in Dillon gym. The event, which ran from 1 to 6 p.m., capped off a week-long film festival which featured movies and short documentaries by foreign directors and international students at the University.

"I always think people come away with something more. They always gain new cultural perspectives," said Varanya Chaubey '04, who helped organize the festival for the last three years but did not this year because of her thesis. "There is so much negative information in the media about how [students of different nationalities] don't get along. This is a chance to just celebrate."

The event concluded with a flag procession representing the nationalities at Princeton and a two-hour cultural and fashion show from 8 to 10 p.m. The evening show, attended by roughly 300 people, featured performances by Lion Dance, Kalaa, Naacho, Triple Eight, Raks Odalisque, the Black Arts Company, Flamenco Puro, Tapcats, Capoeira and DiSiac, along with several individual student performances.

"My hobby is traveling, and it's fun to see stationary travel," said Eva Vertes '07, who has lived in Italy and visited much of Europe. "I can stand here and watch many of the different cultures of the world come here. It's cheaper."

There was also a fashion show in which students on stage were clothed in garments representing 23 world regions, including China, Malaysia, Kuwait, Romania, Switzerland, Senegal, Bulgaria and Colombia. The colorful patterns and foreign outfits impressed some students.

"I'm glad they had a hippie segment, because sometimes we forget America has a culture too," Brandon Van Dyck '05 said. "But American style pales in comparison to other countries. Contemporary American style is lacking in passion and character."

Some visitors, however, thought the event was not serious enough.

"They should give a less embellished image of what goes on outside the United States. There are some places where people cannot even think about fashion," said Lorenzo Orecchia '05, who helped plan the film festival earlier in the week. "Running away from more complicated issues makes [the show] more enjoyable and entertaining, but less informative from an intellectual standpoint."

Others were bothered by perceived misrepresentations. "I expected people from their home countries representing their home countries, not by Chinese and Korean students," said Antonio Garcia, a graduate student at the theological seminary. "The grace of the culture was not communicated. It was not a good representation."

The International Festival has changed considerably since its inception in 1976, when it was organized to celebrate the creation of the International Center.

"At that time it was a group of volunteers who got together for dinner and brought some of our hangings from our walls to the dinner and had some performances to really thank the local community volunteers who helped us," said Paula Chow, director of the International Center. "It slowly metamorphosized; every year it was a little larger and a little larger." Although exact numbers could not be obtained, International Festival co-chair Melania Strycharska '06 said she and the other organizers were "amazed" at how many community members showed up to the afternoon's events.

One such community member was John Ellis, a Princeton resident who spent an hour at the festival with his son.

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"He had a good time," said Ellis, who learned about the event through a poster in the Cotsen Library. "It's never too early for them to get a sense of the world around them."