Irina Pearson
World Culture is Coming to Pierce
From a Friends Gathering to a World Festival
World Culture on Pierce Stage
The night of music and poetry at a friend’s backyard turned into an International Music Festival event at Pierce College.
The local art event called The Shadow and Soul that Sarah Tadayon, Pierce student and now vice-president of the festival, put together with her best friend a year ago, bringing performers and artists together.
“It was just the poets and musicians that I knew in my community back then,” said Tadayon. “I wanted to do something to promote everybody and when I really wanted to bring it to Pierce.”
The idea got picked up by Noble Eisenlauer, instructor of anthropology at Pierce along with the International Students Club.
They tried to make it a multicultural event and bring in the whole world into it.
At first they didn’t succeed.
Back then the Anthropology Club was just beginning to gain strength.
The luck of serious commitment from the students also hurt the project. Some of them did not even believe it would happen at all.
Finally there were simply no money to pull off such an event.
“I kind of gave up on it,” said Tadayon, who is majoring in liberal arts. “Then three weeks ago Jocelyn Chan came up to me and told me they were going to do it no matter what.”
Jocelyn Chan, the president of the International Students Club, took everything in her hands. She was determined to bring the festival to Pierce before she graduates and “throw one big meaningful even for the campus.”
Chan worked on putting together the festival’s schedule and contacting people, sometimes pulling late hours.
“I’ve worked really hard on this, but I really think it’s going to be a great event,” said Chan. “I hope that people come out of it experiencing something new about culture.”
Besides the entertainment, filled with music and dance, the team working on the event, made sure to include international cuisine funded by ASO and most of it prepared by the students.
As it often happens during the difficult financial times, people tent to turn to art and entertainment for relief.
“Artists get more empowered during the times of depression,” said Tadayon. “And I think that this is why this thing is going to prevail and people are looking forward to it now.”
She said that everyone “pulled something from their connections.”
Students from the International Club are bringing people from their community and some of them will perform for free.
There will be african and sri lankan dancers, mariachi bands and possibly japanese drummers.
For anyone interested there will be free dancing lessons and plenty of great food.
“It’s a good idea that the school does this,” said Ariss Gohari, history major. “Most people are familiar with the local music, like rap for example, but this would be an opportunity to introduce a different culture to the community.”