By Noel Ceriani
UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH – Planning for American University of Sharjah’s Global Day is hard work. Just ask Ann Jacob, media coordinator and performance planner of the Korean Cultural Club.
“It was such an amazing experience but it was super stressful,” said Jacob, who could have been speaking for her counterparts in other cultural clubs and student organizations.
She was managing the lights, costumes, the song mix, the video background, rehearsal timings, the choreography and choreographer, who was very busy.
“It took up a lot of my time with planning and I was definitely working on it every day,” Jacob added.
In addition to managing all aspects of the performance, planning for the pavilions was an even longer experience.
President of the Jordanian Cultural Club Mouj Al Sheikh said that all cultural clubs were informed last semester that Global Day 2022 was happening and the JCC met with the pavilion designers two months ago. They discussed in multiple meetings what the pavilion would look like inside and outside, and how it will represent Jordanian’s culture, food, and clothes.
“We represented downtown Oman as it is a commonly known place and the different types of food,” Al Sheikh added. “We wanted to make a downtown supermarket theme, which explains the pictures on the walls and the table with all the snacks.”
Aside from pavilions, there were also indoor and outdoor performances from 15 cultural clubs.
“There are around 60 people dancing and the majority of dancers are part of the Indian Cultural Club and the rest are also Indians who joined for the Global Day dance,” said Kashish Samtani, AUS student and Indian Cultural Club performer. “We didn’t do the dance ourselves, there is a choreographer who helped us and the dances aren’t that hard, they are very easy to follow so everyone can learn”.
The dance was approximately 18 minutes long and with three costume changes. The theme was an Indian wedding, added Samtani. “We hope that the audience gets the feel of what an Indian wedding is like and can experience it through our performance.”
The performances included students who were experienced in dancing and also people who have never danced professionally or in front an audience before.
Nadia Altaf, a Korean Cultural Club performer, said “I was hesitant because I didn’t have dance experience prior to this but they were looking for any experience level. I thought let’s just give it a shot, and we practiced two to three times a week for a month.”
Working with the choreographer was a new experience and rehearsing was exhausting, mentally and physically, added Altaf. She got used to it towards the final days and her stamina increased.
“I’m satisfied with how the performance worked out even if it wasn’t perfect,” said Altaf.
