by GILLIAN PUMA, Staff Writer
On Thursday, March 1, the Multicultural Center kicked off Women’s History Month with their third annual SHOUT! Event.
Put together by Hayden Greene and student Gabriella Montes, the event was created to celebrate all kinds of talent that women have culturally.
“The goal was to shed a light on all that women can and have done in the arts, but also to bring a cultural element to it,” said Montes. “We really want to showcase and put on display women’s artistry and expression.”
Technical difficulties did not stop the Multicultural Center from putting on their event. Students Rabea Ali, Kimberly Hall and Nadia Intani opened the event reading an original poem.
The poem was titled “I Remember”, and Itani read the first stanza, Hall read the second stanza, and Ali read the third stanza. The poem had touched upon major issues in society regarding stereotypes of people of different races and religions.
This was then followed by a performance by the Columbia RAAS. The Columbia RAAS are a South-East Asian dance group from Columbia University. The group performed a very upbeat and vivid dance to show off their culture in a very beautiful demonstration.
Finally, Emely Martinez performed an original song with female beatboxer Ara Luke. The song was titled “Give Me A Try”, and Luke surprised the crowd when the song was over and showed off her beatboxing talent.
“I got into beatboxing because I was in an all female acapella group and someone had to step up to beatbox because our senior beatboxer was graduating”, Luke said. “I continue to beatbox because I know there is a small presence of females on the scene and I want to represent! Beatboxing makes me feel independent, powerful, and unique and I want to use my loud voice to speak up for love, peace, unity, and having fun!”
Martinez also gave her input on performing this song.
“She did an amazing job without even having a proper beatboxing mic,” Martinez added when explaining Luke’s talent. Martinez and Luke hit it off very well and were both very impressed with each other’s talents.
“She was very respectful about what I wanted to hear happen and I was also open to her interpretation,” said Martinez. “So with that experience, we found out that we work well together which is something rare to find.”
Needless to say, this unique variety in talents that all the women had shown was a great way to start off Women’s History Month.
The Multicultural Center has several events planned for Women’s History Month, including “Herstory” and a poetry night.