Get hyped– Heritage Night will be expanded to two shows this year!
Heritage Night is widely seen as the most important night of the year, when students get to showcase their cultural backgrounds via a fashion show and dance performance. This sold-out event has viewers crowding the auditorium, sneaking in, and doing whatever they can to get a look at the performances.
“We realized in years past that Friday night got packed. We were having issues with tickets, ticket scanning, kids not getting in, who bought tickets, but they scanned them, or just, adults not being able to buy tickets at the last minute,” Director of Student Activities Brandon Sutphin said.
In response to this heavy demand, the event has been moved to a Saturday and a second show has been added. A matinee from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. will be followed by an evening show from 6 to 8 p.m.
“Especially because Heritage Night gets sold out and so many people miss out on it, this gives our community the opportunity to see Heritage Night,” Head Heritage Night Coordinator and teacher Selvana Ayoub said.
Sutphin added: “What better way to provide our students more of an opportunity to show their culture and be proud of their heritage, than to provide two opportunities for them to perform instead of just one?”
Thanks to the hard work of the school’s Leadership class, run by Ayoub, who also teaches PE and other classes, organizers have found even more ways to improve the experience for everyone.
Ayoub noted that other changes include a more traditional-looking fashion show compared to past years: “We are going to call out countries and have them come out on stage, strike a post and then walk down the aisles of the auditorium so that the audience can actually see the outfits more close up and hopefully get the audience hyped,” she said.
Additionally, Leadership will provide food to all performers and volunteers between the shows.
The balcony area will also be reserved for performers to view the performance when they are not in queue or on stage. This is a major plus for participants who in previous years have had to stay in ‘green rooms,’ watching the night from TVs displaying the YouTube livestream of the show.
To increase audience engagement and organization, each country will be limited to performances of five minutes, capping the show at a maximum of two hours.
“There are certain groups that are performing at significantly greater lengths than other groups, which is sending a message that maybe one is more important than the other and those kinds of things,” Principal Shawn DeRose said.
While these changes bring opportunity for fair representation of each group, the five-minute time restriction is heavily disliked among the groups that sometimes perform for upwards of fifteen minutes.
Junior Fiker Shewangizaw, a member of the Ethiopia and Eritrea group from last year, spoke to this: “We’re not performing anymore. In my country we have a lot of tribes, and it’s just really hard to fit all of the tribes under the five minute time limit that they gave us.” she said. “I’m a bit sad, because I was looking forward to performing this year.”
Several of the countries previously represented in Heritage Night may not even make a showing this year. Many of these groups were favorites and really got the crowd going. This was not the intention of the Leadership team, however.
“It is a bummer that some might not do it because of the time limit, but hopefully after this year and groups who aren’t doing it can see that others can adapt to a shorter time limit,” Ayoub expressed. “Hopefully it’ll encourage them to be creative next year, adapt and maybe jump back into doing it.”
Just World, which usually preludes Heritage Night, will remain scheduled for the Friday before the show.
“As we’ve gotten to Heritage Night that evening, we’ve had to kind of shut [tables] down and push them out the door, but now Just World can actually go a little bit longer on Friday night, so they’re not gonna be rushed to get out the doors,” Sutphin said.
The change will ensure that the event does not get overshadowed by Heritage Night and extends the event to a full weekend of culturally related activities.
Some are apprehensive about how the night will turn out with these changes, but Leadership can promise that it will still be a night worth remembering, like always.
“Heritage Night is super important to the school and my favorite event. So finding ways to celebrate our diversity that we have in this school is something that matters a lot to me,” DeRose said.
