CAITLIN WHITE
Staff Writer
The fifth annual International Carnival will be held Friday in the Sandbar in the Tyler Campus Center. The Carnival, an event in which students celebrate their diverse cultural backgrounds, is sponsored by the Office of International Student Services and the Pepperdine International Club.
“The event starts at 6:30 p.m., we will have all sorts of different ethnic foods available,” said Rich Dawson, the Director of International Student Services. “But the real fun starts at 7 p.m. with the entertainment.”
In the past, the event has been held in the Caf, and outside entertainment has been brought in, including bands and instructors to teach international dances.
“We’ve had Salsa dancers, Greeks and even Nigerians all come in and teach international dancing, but this year we decided to keep it internal,” Dawson said. “All the entertainment will be coming directly from Pepperdine’s own student body.”
The show will include two students performing a Hawaiian “Ball Dance,” a dance that involves the dancers holding a string and bouncing the balls back and forth between them without getting tangled up.
“We’re lucky to have two pros straight from Hawaii here to perform it for us, Katrina Perry and her sister,” Dawson said.
The show has a whole host of talent, along with the Hawaiian dancers will be a Spanish guitar and rap by the Latin Student Association, a piano solo by Chinese student Peter Teng Gao, a Korean song performed by Grace Park, and another piano solo by Ann Choi.
There will be an acoustical guitar performance by Parkening Scholar Carlo Corrieri from Italy, and an international band with Indian sitar, Syrian ode, drums and vocalists will finish the night.
“The theme is a Coffee House this year and the atmosphere will be laid back,” Dawson said. The fare will be very diverse, with everything from boba tea and hummus to kebabs. The show is designed to be very accessible with its early ending, so that even though it is a Friday night, people can still do other things. Food will be served from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
“Everyone is invited; it is just a chance to get people together to stay on campus and have a little cross cultural activity,” Dawson said.
The entire evening is free, but there will be a collection taken up for donations to an orphanage in Sri Lanka. This year marks the third year that the International Carnival has helped raise money for The Children of Joy Orphanage.
The new aspect of this year’s carnival is that it will be part of a week long celebration of International Education Week. In 1999, President Bill Clinton initiated the celebration to give an opportunity for America to “celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide”.
The official International Education Week takes place from Nov. 13 to Nov. 17, but Pepperdine chose to celebrate it this week, since there was more room in this week’s schedule.
Aside from the carnival, there will be a special international festival menus in the Caf from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. sponsored by Sami Khali from Sodhexo. The menu will include many exotic foods, such as French, Indian and Japanese cuisine. There will also be flags of many different countries hung in the Sandbar on Wednesday to highlight the different countries represented at Pepperdine.
Students can try a new kind of food in the Caf or attend the variety coffee house on Friday night.
11-09-2006