The International Students Association (ISA) performed its annual Ethnos Culture Show last weekend in Cullen Auditorium.
This year’s theme was “Stories Untold” which celebrated the student body’s talent and its cultural diversity.
The 10-act show featured eight group acts and two solo acts which consisted of dancing, skits, spoken work and other entertainment performed by members of ISA and other student groups.
Monica Bae, kinesiology major from South Korea, participated in a Korean martial arts act.
“The process was stressful, but you get rid of all the stress when you are on stage and people give you an applause,” Bae said. “It just goes right away.”
Bae was a part of a tae kwon do act last year and said she saw a lot of improvement in this year’s show.
“So we had six boys and one girl, who was myself, last year, and this year we had only two boys and five girls,” Bae said. “It was a little bit harder but at the same time easier because they were more obedient. They worked really hard. Everyone was cooperative, so it was good.”
Solo acts consisted of yodeling and slang poetry. The group acts comprised of a hip-hop act, tae kwon do, a Chinese act, a Japanese act, a Latin act, an African act, the Omega Dance group doing an Indian dance, and the Swing Cats performing a dance.
Each group was responsible for creating and coming up with its own performance.
“They were all original acts,” said Denzil Lim, ISA president and director of Ethnos. “The groups met up with themselves and put the music together. We just oversaw the administrative work to bring them together and to work together. Overall, it was a great and successful show.”
This year, the show was shorter than it has been in the past. ACU dance groups Shades Step Squad and Sanctify Hip Hop Company usually perform in the show, but did not participate this year because they are restructuring their programs.
“This year, they were not around, but it’s fine because it gave us a shorter act to put on for people,” said Lim, senior convergence journalism major from Malaysia. “It was tighter and we got done earlier, which makes people able to get home earlier, which is easy.”
Lim said the turnout for the weekend surprised him.
“It was about 500 on Friday night and 500 to 600 on Saturday night,” he said. “So about 1,000 total people that came, which was great.”
