This month, Camosun International will host its annual Cultural Showcase. Featuring performances from domestic and international students, the showcase aims to honour students’ backgrounds and highlight the joy that comes from celebrating diversity.
Now in its 15th year, event organizers Jayanti Bachani and Dana Pankowsky are looking forward to shaking things up. Pankowsky, a Camosun International student experience advisor, is especially excited to share the new format of the show.
“We have a different narrative for this year’s Cultural Showcase, and I don’t want to spoil anything… It has always been a very formal kind of show, this time we want to give it a twist, do something more creative, and give students the chance to decide what they want to do a little bit more,” she says. “So it’s going to be really, really fun and interesting.”
While Pankowsky is employed by Camosun, the rest of the crew that brings the showcase to life are all students—including Bachani, the event coordinator. For Bachani, the production means more than just extracurricular credit.
“It was about building connections,” she says. “It was about having students share their cultures, their talents, giving them a space to be free.”
As a student, Bachani’s very familiar with the limited time the performers have for non-academic projects.
“I’m surprised by their resilience and commitment, because some students are parents, they have other responsibilities,” says Bachani. “They work a lot. They’re taking three, five courses, all of them full time-students, [they’re also] working, and then having this commitment.”
But the time commitment is worth it, because of what the showcase does to bring students together. Pankowsky has repeatedly witnessed the friendships that are forged through the sharing of culture.
“[The students] have built stronger connections and stronger networks,” says Pankowsky. “I’ve heard them saying they met new people, new friends, from different programs, because sometimes if you’re in a cohort, you only interact with your cohort for two years or one year. And then when you get a chance to be part of the Cultural Showcase, you meet people from other countries, other cultures, other programs.”
Friendship isn’t the only reason the event—which this year is in honour of recently retired Camosun International counsellor Brian Herron, who started the event in 2007—is important. Students have sincerely put their hearts into their performances because, as the saying goes, home is where the heart is.
“What fascinates me about this event is how students really honour their roots and they honour their backgrounds where they come from,” says Pankowsky. “I feel like this is a night where they can symbolically bring their families with them, bring them to Canada… I had this lovely student last year from India, it took her, I don’t know, three, four hours to get her makeup done, and wearing her clothes and doing her hair. She shared that this is something she used to do with her mom back in India… We really got very emotional about this, because she felt like she was going to be on stage with her mom, as she used to do it in her home country.”
The showcase will be broadcast live on Camosun International’s YouTube channel, so even students far from home can share the performance with their families. Bachani is busy overseeing finishing touches to the show, and is excited to see everyone’s hard work paying off.
“I love just seeing their connection to who they are and where they come from,” says Bachani. “I think that’s really important… Performers are really practicing their hardest and hosts are putting [in] their soul and their time. So this will be a very special night, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone there.”
The Cultural Showcase will be held at 7:30 pm on Thursday, March 21 in the Gibson Auditorium at Camosun’s Lansdowne campus.