On October 23, the Ithaca College International Club kicked off its annual International Education Week. The club used the week to invite students around Ithaca to learn more about multi-culturalism through “funducational” and discussion based events. The club also uses the week to engage students in meaningful discussion about the compounding topics that effect the school’s international students directly.

Monday: Around the World in 60 Minutes

Tuesday: Transnational Feminism Discussion

Wednesday: Light It Up: A Diwali Celebration

Thursday: Salsa Night

Friday: One World Concert

The final event — The One World Concert — is a culmination of all that the club attempts to promote throughout the week. The concert is a showcase for international and domestic students where students choose to perform and represent their heritage in a variety of ways. Some students perform dances that are culturally significant and sing songs that are popular in their countries, while others present original content.

The highlights of this year’s concert were many of the internationally inspired performances. A Chinese fan dance was the first performance of the night and the first to wow the audience. The dance was led by Ly Do, an integrated marketing and communication major from Vietnam, accompanied by friends. Rilya Greeslamirya, a sophomore business administration major from Indonesia, who performed one of her favorite Indonesian songs to acoustic guitar. Sairam Reddy Potlapadu, a sophomore film, photo and visual art major, got the audience super-excited when he walked on to the stage, solo, in his kurta pyjam and danced a more contemporary Indian classic. Earlier in the week, he had been one of the leaders of the club’s Diwali celebration, to celebrate the Hindu festival of light that had occurred the week before.

Walt Martzen-Yu, the International Club’s Creative Director who hails from Singapore, said that the entire week is essential to exposing domestic students to multiculturalism, but the One World Concert, which has become the club’s staple event, puts its own unique stamp on the message the International Club attempts to convey year after year.

“I guess a big importance I see in having events like the One World Concert is that it allows people to be exposed to the beauty of difference and the beauty of multi-cultural perspectives and ways of doing things. Performance is a great way to showcase that,” he said.

The club’s emphasis during the educational week is to both instill education and incite appreciation in its fellow students. The impact of the performances at the concert is that students from the U.S. and other parts of the world come in contact with other cultures and see them represented in a light that doesn’t mock or appropriate, but cherishes and remembers them with respect. Additionally, they are shared in a form that cannot be denied or dismissed. If a dance grabs your interest or a song touches you, it’s hard to deny it. It’s music, it’s dance, they connect us.

“A lot of closed-mindedness, a lot of bigotry comes from a lack of exposure to seeing differences be performed,” Martzen-Yu said.

He said it is the mission of the international club to create a home away from home for international students and it’s responsibility to educate on the topic of multi-culturalism and facilitate the open dialogue between cultures and the eradication of ignorance.

“[A]s international students, while we are learning from people in the U.S. how to live in the U.S. with them, it’s also important that we create opportunities for people to get the same thing from us.”