The importance of culture at Renton Highschool is a big part of the school. At Renton, we have different people with different backgrounds. Every year, the school has a multicultural show to showcase and celebrate everyone’s diverse backgrounds and customs. The clubs at Renton are the ones putting on the fantastic show including, BSU (Black Student Union), K-pop club, ASU (Asian Student Union), and many more! Let’s first dive into why the importance of culture is important. The word culture refers to a group or a community that shares common experiences that shape the way its members understand the world. You are usually born into a culture depending on your race, gender, national origin, and religion. Enough about that! Let’s get into the aftermath of the show and the brief history behind each performance.

¨FSU – Tinkling: A Folk Dance¨

The dance tinkling originated from a species of bird called ¨tinkling”. The dance includes a bamboo stick, with at least two people beating, tapping, and sliding the stick with one or more dancers in between. The idea of tinkling came from when the rice farmers would set up bamboo traps to protect their crops from the birds. However, the traps didn’t work, and the birds would jump over the bamboo poles that were meant to trap them. The locals started to imitate the hopping motion of the birds, then the dance was born! During the multicultural event, The FSU club used the sticks given and played modern music to hype up the crowd.

¨BSU – Multiple Dances¨

During the multicultural event, The BSU switched between different types of dances like stepping and Jamaican-influenced dances. Using popular music by artists like Nicki Minaj’s “Megatron” Chaka Demus’s “Murder She Wrote” and Juveyl’s “Do for Me”

Stepping uses the body as an instrument, including footsteps, claps, and spoken words to produce rhythms. The dance stepping or step doesn’t have a specific origin date. Still, it has origins in Africa back in the 1900s when African-Americans attended colleges in more significant numbers or on campus. They created their own Greek-letter organizations to support the students. An organization that is known as ¨Divine Nine¨ used stepping to express love and pride for their organizations.

¨ASU – Fan Dance¨

The Chaoxian ethnic group of China created the fan dance over 3,000 years ago. A group of female dancers usually perform the fan dance. The dancers are in beautiful costumes representing unique designs and shapes using a large fan made of colorful silk or satin. The original designs vary. Some include butterflies, birds, peacocks, flowers, butterflies, and waves. ASU came out in beautiful cultural attire during the multicultural event with its orangish-colored fans and danced beautifully throughout the entire performance.

¨FSU – Candle¨

The dance is called, ¨Pandanggo¨ It’s between a man and a woman holding candles, using the candles to simulate fireflies. The candle dance originated back in the 15th century in the Philippines when the Spanish first colonized the country, It came from an island called ¨Lubang, Mindoro.¨ During the multicultural event, they switched from a traditional song to a love song, keeping the same movements but giving a modern twist which is what culture is all about! To change traditional dances, foods, etc, and give them a modern twist.

¨LSU – Modern¨

LSU performed multiple different cultural dances including Batcha, Merengue, and Zapateado. Bathcha dates back to the 1960s in the Dominican Republic, the dances include going from front to back but nowadays however, it’s commonly danced from side to side. There are different types of Batcha dances including Moderna, Dominican, and Traditional. Merengue also originated in the Dominican Republic, it emerged as a popular dance among slaves and laborers working in the sugarcane field. This dance is usually danced with Merengue dance music consisting of the performers facing each other, holding hands then switching to an open position no longer holding both hands or just one. During the multicultural, the performers wore different-colored skirts,

¨RHS Freedom¨
A new performance joined the multicultural performance at Renton Highschool, during the multi, the performers used different songs ranging from different artists, like ¨Industry Baby¨ by ¨Lil Nas X¨, and  ¨Pick it up¨ by ¨Famous Dex, feat. Asap Rocky.¨ These songs were very popular during their time, and the modern dances tied everything together during this performance! The new RHS Freedom is here to stay.

¨Kpop- Multiple Dances¨

Our KPOP club did multiple dances to multiple different songs like ¨Hype Boy¨ from the group ¨NewJeans¨ with its addictive and catchy chorus, ¨Shutdown¨ by ¨Blackpink¨ using a sample from 1826 by Paganini called La Campanella, and ¨Hot¨ by ¨Seventeen¨ that is influenced by pop, hip-hop. Each song had different special choreography to showcase the meanings of each song.

Here are some performances that I couldn’t get any information on!

“A Duet-Singing By Elaine Bailon and Angel Perez representing Latin Student Union”

“A Solo-Dance by Daisha Flame representing Samoa.”

“A group performance by Filipino Student Union called Colliton”

The multicultural performance was phenomenal and this year’s collaborative performances show how much diversity we have here at Renton High School. It’s always important to show appreciation for your culture and other’s cultures and I know that next year’s multicultural performances will be a hit!