The Stanford Vietnamese Pupil Affiliation’s (SVSA) Tradition Evening was an distinctive show of fun-filled performances and celebration of the Vietnamese neighborhood. After months of cautious planning by the membership following two years on-line throughout COVID-19, the two-hour occasion returned to campus in full pressure on Saturday with an evening of music, dance, comedy and vogue. Tradition Evening is a signature occasion of faculty Vietnamese Pupil Associations throughout the nation.
Emcees Brandon Lieu ’23 and Benjamin Zaidel ’24 had been wonderful, stringing collectively every efficiency with witty banter and crowd interplay. The pair additionally wove in some Vietnamese historical past and tradition between acts, recognizing the occasion date’s difficult significance. Zaidel is an editor for The Day by day.
SVSA’s Tradition Evening was held on April 30, the identical date in 1975 when North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, marking the top of the 20-year Vietnam Conflict. Per the occasion’s program, “To some it’s Reunification Day, acknowledged as a public vacation in Vietnam; to others, it signifies the Fall of Saigon and Black April.”
An indicator of every 12 months’s Tradition Evening is the full-length play. This 12 months’s play was titled “Nhà Là Nơi Để Về” (“house is the place you belong”), which was additionally the evening’s theme. The play starred Zaidel and Serena Tran ’25 as former childhood finest buddies who stumble upon one another a few years later and reminisce on their shared recollections. As Zaidel and Tran sat frozen in reminiscence, actors Annie Trinh ’24 and Kyle Nguyen ’23 acted out flashbacks as their highschool counterparts.
With only a sparse few comedic moments — each by way of jokes from the solid in addition to the awkwardly humorous moments in scene adjustments — the play was one of many extra severe moments of the evening, tackling assimilation, immigration and discovering neighborhood.
The Múa Lân, or Lion Dance, was additionally a standout efficiency. Two lions, one crimson and one yellow, emerged from the wings of Dinkelspiel Auditorium with intrigue and character. Two college students operated every puppet: Anh Huynh ’25, Brandon Kenery ’23, Daisy Wang ’25 and Nicolle Hendzel ’23, shifting along with spectacular coordination in order that the viewer virtually forgot the lion wasn’t really alive.
The Lion Dance moved to the beat of an on-stage drum and cymbals, and included spectacular stunts requiring each athletic and creative talent. In a single notably notable second, the entrance half of the lion rose and stacked on high of the again, creating the phantasm of rearing again legs. Mid-performance, the crimson lion ventured by way of the center aisle of the theater, permitting the viewers to see the beautiful element of the costume and complex motion of the character up shut.
The act additionally went comedic when the disembodied again half of the yellow lion returned to the stage to be chased by the still-intact crimson lion. The skit ended with the crimson lion spewing dozens of candies into the viewers, a lot to the gang’s delight.
The skit “A Vietnamese Wedding ceremony,” directed by Camille Luong ’25, was a crowd favourite. The skit was filled with Stanford-centric references, together with allusions to the Marriage Pact, LinkedIn and Symbolic Programs majors, which introduced raucous laughter from the gang. Although there gave the impression to be a handful of inside jokes focusing on particular members of the solid, the skit was simply pleasant by these unacquainted with the behind-the-scenes info.
The evening featured a number of giant group dance performances by Múa Lạc Hồng, together with the gang favourite “Attractive Dance,” a “Conventional Dance,” “{Couples} Dance” and “Fashionable Dance.” The group’s dedication and pleasure had been contagious, and the performances had been addictively enjoyable to look at.
Along with dance, the Tradition Evening included a number of singing acts. “Đông,” a last duet carried out by Vy Tran ’24 and Vy Thai ’23, stood out for its alluring stage presence and chemistry, with the singers having vocal chops to match. The top of the music was marked by an viewers member screaming, “That was so sizzling!” adopted by vocal settlement all through the gang.
The viewers felt as necessary to the evening because the performances themselves. The group’s vocal assist was incessant, with buddies cheering on performers in between, and even throughout, the acts. A trivia portion examined the gang’s information of Vietnamese geography, tradition and language, whereas a spring-roll-making competitors put culinary abilities entrance and middle.
SVSA’s Tradition Evening was at occasions touching, whereas additionally being humorous and completely entertaining. Put merely, the SVSA’s return to the stage was an amazing success.
Editor’s Be aware: This text is a assessment and contains subjective opinions, ideas and critiques.
