Sampling mouthwatering delicacies from around the world, listening to songs in foreign languages and viewing fashion from Spain to Indonesia, students and faculty were exposed to the cultures of Andover’s diverse student body at the annual International Festival (iFest) on Saturday. IFest, presented by International Club (iClub), featured iFeast, the food bazaar, and a talent and fashion show. IFeast transformed the George Washington Hall mailroom into a vibrant food market, as customers crowded and clamored around different food stations. The food bazaar offered a range of home-made international foods, including savory choices such as basil fried rice, pad thai, Lebanese meat pies and pelmeni, a type of Russian dumpling, as well as sweet delicacies such as tiramisu, bubble tea and crêpes. The Chinese Taiwanese Student Association (CTSA) station was among the best-selling food stations that evening. Their bubble tea in particular was very popular among the customers who visited iFeast, and sold out very quickly. The International Talent and Fashion Show provided a wide variety of entertainment for the audience, including song, dance and a martial arts demonstration. Dressed in colorful traditional skirts, Janani Hariharan ’14 and Meghana Jayam ’14 performed a contemporary interpretation of an Indian traditional dance to “Beedi Jalailee.” Ashlyn Aiello ’14 and Ian Song ’13 provided a demonstration of Aikido, a form of Japanese martial arts that is founded on principles of nonviolence and development of inner peace. The staging of each aggressive and defensive movement was timely and technically intricate. “We wanted people to come and [say], ‘Wow! I’ve never heard someone sing in that language or I’ve never seen a dress like that.’ I think we succeeded because people learned new things and had a good time,” said Nickhil Nabar, co-head of iClub. The Talent Show also featured the public debut of Andover’s parody music video of PSY’s “Gangnam Style.” The song is a pop phenomenon in South Korea that has gone global. A collaboration between Andover Korean Society and Andover Movie Makers Club, the video evoked laughter and applause from the audience as they saw their fellow peers, faculty and administrative members, including Head of School John Palfrey, Aya Murata, Dean of Pine Knoll Cluster and Becky Sykes, Associate Head of School, enact the famous horse riding dance. Two acts also took the audience to South East Asia. Wei Han Lim ’15 sang a Malaysian song, “Getaran Jiwa” and played the keyboard, along with Nicodemo Scarfo ’13 on an electric guitar. Accompanied by guitarist Shay Collins ’14, Stephanie Hendarta ’14 and Sierra Jamir ’14 sang a rendition of a contemporary Tagolog song “Tuliro.” The show also included more domestic performances in its line-up. The June Bugs, a band comprised of bassist Amo Manuel ’14, drummer Junius Williams ’14 and keyboardist Harvey Wu ’14, performed an audience-interactive improvisational act. They played an impromptu melody based on “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” a song chosen by Haonan Li ’13 from the audience. Alec D’Alelio ’14 and Sophiya Chiang ’14 took the stage with an acoustic, emotional and heart-felt duet of Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.” Esther Cohen ’14 sang Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie,” and Jorge Piccole ’14 did a hip hop dance to the song “Who’s That Chick?” by David Guetta, bringing pop culture to the talent show line-up. “[The Talent and Fashion Show] was beautiful and was a great way to showcase the diversity at our school, but I do wish more faculty could come out to support and participate,” said Lilia Cai-Hurteau, Instructor in Chinese. As a final act of the night, Andover students, both international and domestic, streamed into the Kemper clad in traditional outfits. The audience was greeted in different languages by students from South Korea, Indonesia, India, Spain, Syria, Morocco, China, Romania, Singapore, Japan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Thailand. Jennifer Kim ’16 of Singapore, Yasmine Larzak ’13 of Morocco and Allison Dumitriu Carcoana ’16 of Romania modeled traditional clothing from countries that were not featured in last year’s fashion show. “We have been planning [iFest] for the last two months. We started [the talent show] recruitment early so people would get psyched to perform. [The board members] split up into teams; we had the food bazaar [team], the fashion show [team] and the talent show [team]. We attacked it from there,” said Nabar.
