Have you ever seen a fashion show with clothes that are popular in India, or a quinceañera dress from South America? Have you ever tasted foods from countries around the world, or heard singing from an African choir? Covenant’s Multicultural Program (MCP) is hard at work preparing all these things and more for this year's week-long Culture Fest in March.
Every year, the MCP puts together Culture Fest, one of the biggest multicultural events on campus. It is an event that allows minority students to display to the campus their culture and its beauty through food, music, dancing, song and a fashion show. The MCP offers students this culturally enriching experience as a way to celebrate diversity and share its beauty with the Covenant community.
Viona Brown ’22 is in charge of Culture Fest this year and expressed her love for the unique event.
“Culture Fest is one of the singular opportunities that I as an international student get to share my culture with the rest of campus. Not just my friends or my roommates, but literally the rest of campus gets to see and experience some part of Africa that I have given them,” she said. “Even if you haven’t been to those countries represented on campus, being able to witness and partake in the event just makes you feel like you’re there.”
Rehearsals for Culture Fest 2021 began as soon as students got back onto campus. The African Choir and K-pop have rehearsals twice a week, and Flag Dance meets once a week. “We have been ‘all hands on deck’ from the start of the semester to make sure that our event this year goes off smoothly,” Brown said. Culture Fest events will be spread out over the week of March 14, with different cultures featured on different days of the week.
Some things will be different this year to remain safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of individual students cooking food from different cultures to share with other students, the MCP is coordinating with the Great Hall to provide foods from different continents throughout Culture Fest week. As previously mentioned, the event is spread out over a week with different parts each night and a finale with everyone on Saturday night. All finale events will be livestreamed and put online for those who cannot attend in person.
Despite these changes, students are working hard alongside the leaders of Culture Fest to make the event fun for all of campus. Michaela Lenk ’21 is participating in the Flag Dance and performing a hymn in Turkish.
“I am most excited about being able to share the culture that I grew up in and see other cultures as well. Because no one here speaks the language of the country I grew up in, or really knows its culture, it is very nice to have a place where I can celebrate that culture because it means a lot to me,” Lenk said.
Csenge Futo ’24 is in the African Choir, the Flag Dance and is singing a Hungarian song with another Hungarian student on campus. She is excited about being able to watch other performances and enjoy all the other acts. “It makes me very happy to be a part of this because I love celebrating our differences and our colorfulness,” Futo said.
From several students working to make Culture Fest happen, the response was the same: joy at the opportunity to share in different friends’ cultures and be a part of a fun campus-wide event. Josiah Cannon ’21 is participating in the African Choir for the first time. He said, “Being a part of Culture Fest is special because I get to represent cultures that are special to my friends’ lives and have fun doing it… the opportunity to represent the school like this is awesome.”
This joyful enthusiasm for Culture Fest comes from both the students and everyone in the Multicultural Program itself. “[The MCP team has] been fundamental and instrumental to the actual working of Culture Fest,” said Brown. “From March 14 to March 20 everything that happens in there is a result of all the work they’ve been doing since the start of the semester.”
The behind-the-scenes work of the Multicultural Program is what keeps Culture Fest running smoothly and what makes it such a fun event for campus to enjoy.