A report on the Cultural Afternoon held at the IPBA’s auditorium

Last Thursday on the July 24th, 2003, a Cultural Afternoon was being held at the IPBA’s auditorium. It was organised by the MTCP participants and the B. Ed. TESL cohort 1 students. The theme for the Cultural Afternoon is Unity In Diversity. Unity In Diversity is a poem written by the MLCP participant from Papua New Guinea.

The afternoon was conducted by two of the B. Ed. TESL students. They conducted the event very well. After that, Mr. Mahmud from Turkey was called upon to recite a prayer. After he had finished reciting the prayer, the event continued with the first performance by the B. Ed. TESL students. They presented a compilation of the Malay Traditional Dance. The dance was choreographed beautifully and the dancers danced gracefully.

The special thing about this cultural afternoon was the way the organiser changed the conductors. The next conductors were the participants from Tunisia and Gambia. The way they conducted the afternoon was very interesting. After they had introduced themselves, they called upon participants from Krygystan, Miss Ainur. She sang a song called Mahabbad, which means love. Even though the audience could not understand her, but the message of the song were well interpreted.

Then, all the MTCP participants were welcomed to join the conductors on the stage to introduced themselves. All the participants were introducing themselves with different ways. Some of them made some jokes, holding their traditional flag and so on. There were 26 participants that day who has came from different countries such as Zimbabwe, Croatia, Tunisia, Gambia, Bosnia, Thailand and other countries.

After that, Mr. Bernard from Bosnia presented his performance by singing a song using his own language. Followed by named and Ameir from Bosnia. They showed and explained about a poster of the Bosnian Movie, which had won oscars award 2000/2. The movie title is ‘No Man’s Land’ has won the award for Best Foreign Language. After that, they sang a Bosnian folk song.

After changing conductors once again, B. Ed. TESL students performed their Kung Fu performances. After the Kung Fu show, a participant from Turkey sang a wonderful song. The audiences gave her big claps because she had sang the song well even without the background music. All the audiences had paid full attention on the stage to see the traditional costumes show from the other countries. All the participants wore their own traditional costumes and did some explanations on the costumes.

After watching the colourful fashion show, the audiences were very surprised to watch the Indian dance that was led by our B. Ed. TESL student, Danielli Devi. The dance was noisily merry with energetic dancers and famous Bollywood song played. After that, the Cultural Afternoon continued with the performances by the MTCP participants. The participants from Sri Lanka sang a song. The song also a love song.

After that, the East Timur participant did a traditional dance. She wore her traditional costumes and a gong. She knocked the gong using some rhymes and then danced followed the rhyme. It was far different from other MTCP participant’s performances. After that, a participant from Turkey also sang a love song.

Another interesting performance was from the Thailand participants. They showed and taught us the right way in greeting. Their performance is quite useful for us. After that, the Cambodian participants danced as soon as their song was played. Next performance was from Gambia. He sang his national anthem. The audiences rose up to show respect.

The most waiting performance was Para-para Sakura Dance. The B. ED. TESL students performed this dance. They danced gracefully with many astonishing steps. The dancers were very energetic and noisily merry with their red and pink costumes. All the audiences felt refresh after watching this energetic dance.

Lastly, before the Cultural Afternoon ended, the participant from Papua New Guinea recited her poem entitled ‘Unity In Diversity’. She very well wrote the poem. The event ended as soon as the conductors declared it was closed.