BY: Kevin Dai
The VSA Show is a student-run show that highlights Vietnamese culture and its fusion with American culture in today’s society. The show introduces various acts and skits that teaches viewers parts of Vietnamese culture and as well as how Vietnamese culture is integrated into American society today. Each performance was very entertaining and captured the fusion of Viet-American culture.
The first act of the show was the Vietnamese and American national anthem, which not only showed the difference between the two cultures, but also revealed the similarities between the two. While the major difference between the two being the two different languages, the similarity was how similar the beat and music of the anthem were to each other.
The second act of the show was the members’ dance. The performers were dressed in ao dais, a traditional Vietnamese garment which usually consists of silk tunic over a pair of trousers. However, while the performers were wearing ao dais, their choreography incorporated both Vietnamese dancing and American dancing. They started out with a traditional Vietnamese parasol dance, but for the second part, used electronic dance music and their dance became more vibrate. It definitely highlighted the fusion of American and Vietnamese culture.
The third act included performers Evelyn Le and Ngoc Ho who sang a Vietnamese song while wearing ao dais. Their performance gave an audience a feel of what Vietnamese songs are like especially if they have never heard a Vietnamese song before. The audience becomes more knowledgeable about Vietnamese culture. Junior Jenny Ha and Senior Gretna Truong were also performers who sang in Vietnamese.
The fourth act was by Ayana. Ayana’s skit was a cute dance that told a story of people meeting falling in love with each other. While traditionally the dance would be performed by a man and a female, all the performers were female which made the dance even cuter. Even though the song was sung in Vietnamese, the audience was still able to get a good grasp on what the song was about by observing the dance that Ayana put on.
After the couple’s dance was the traditional fashion show. Everyone in the traditional fashion show were dressed in ao dais and did their own poses.
The rest of the acts after this were performances from other clubs and people that did not have much relation to the VSA show. However, these performances were still great and made the show an even more enjoyable experience for the audience. Some of the performances include a skit that made many people laugh, especially when performers put on a Reeses Puffs’ commercial, KDT or Korean Dance Team, and MHS Misfits or Hip-Hop Club.
The MC’s of the VSA show were very funny and kept the audience entertained the entire time. There were no notable mistakes that were made and the transitions between each act was smooth. They also had an ongoing theme of marriage and how the two MC’s were not looking forward to their arranged marriage. But, in a series of fortunate and funny events, the MC’s meet each other without knowing that they were arranged to be married. They eventually fall in love with each other and look forward to the marriage instead.
Each performer of the VSA show put in tremendous work to make the a great show for those who came to see. They spent countless hours working and improving to make people not only enjoy the show but also learn about Vietnamese-American culture. Performers constantly practiced even the most basics steps to ensure that nothing went wrong during the show.