Mirror
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Beauty
of diversity The afternoon’s events started with a bang, with an informative and colourful presentation on culture and its importance by the Interact Club of D. S. Senanayake College. Eight schools, instead of the initial ten schools participated this year as two schools had dropped out due to unavoidable circumstances. The programme was divided into three sessions. The first being, a presentation where each school had to give an introduction of the country they were representing. They had to cover the aspects of the culture and lifestyle, current affairs and history, the political arena and any other additional information about the country. St. Joseph’s College’s presentation of Italy was the first among the lot. St. Bridget’s Convent’s presentation of India was a well-synchronised one, and as the compere put it, he said it was as well synchronised as a “water ballet”! The school, which presented Malaysia, Wesley College, was quite innovative, backed up by the national anthem of that country. The British School in Colombo, who made a presentation on Canada, did not seem very confident on stage and the audience and judges were informed that they only had a day to prepare for the presentation, thus, to bear with them. The school presenting Saudi Arabia, Zahira College, was the only school, which used cue cards for their presentation, which was notable and Isipathana College, made a presentation on Samoa and the presentation was a solo one, which made it stand apart from rest of the schools. Hindu College, made their presentation on the United Stated of America. After the eight schools finished with each of their presentations, the main sponsor ACCA gave a presentation . The second session was the Quiz. At the point of registration, the schools were given a general knowledge questionnaire and had to hand it in an hour later. The questions were reviewed and the three schools with the highest marks went on to the finals. The two teams who competed in the quiz were St. Joseph’s College and St. Sebastian’s College and the winner of the quiz was St. Joseph’s College. British School came third in this session. Session three which was entertainment was quite impressive. It began with a dance by the Interact Club of St. Bridget’s Convent. It was well choreographed and the colourful costumes enhanced it, making it a very entertaining performance, which certainly did highlight the culture of Indian dance. Two Interactors from The British School in Colombo recited the poem, “Sing Irishman Sing”. A song by an unknown artiste was the choice of the Interactors of St. Sebastian’s College. Another song was followed by Zahira College. The boys were dressed in traditional Saudi Arabian attire and they sang a Sinhala song. There was also a small skit improvised on the lines of the song. Wesley College performed a funny skit in their attempt to highlight the culture of Malaysia. They spoke on the tallest building in the world, the ‘Petronas Towers’, drug abuse and alcohol and also about the pretty Malaysian lasses. It was performed mainly in Sinhala and the story was brought to life with the help of a Lankan couple, Dingi Banda and Maggie! Hindu College was next. Theirs was a semi skit/dance item. Where they imitated popular artistes like Ricky Martin and Eminem. The compere in fact commented that this was “a part of USA that he has not seen in his life!” The famous war dance, the Samoan ‘haka’, was performed by the Interactors of Isipathana College. They had their bodies painted with streaks of black paint and gave an enthusiastic and energetic performance. The last item was by the Josephians who performed two songs “Jesu Redemptor Omnium” and “Laudate Omnes Gentes”. These Interactors were dressed in brown hooded costumes, which simply enhanced the beautiful singing. The overall champions who were awarded a cash prize of Rs.10,000 along with the challenge shield was St. Sebastian’s College. For the presentations, the winners were Zahira College in first place followed by St. Sebastian’s College and St. Bridget’s Convent, in second and third place respectively. Isipathana College and St. Bridget’s Convent were jointly awarded first place in the entertainment session. St. Joseph’s College came second and St. Sebastian’s College were awarded third place, in this session. The judges were Rosy Senanayake, Feroze Kamardeen and Kevin Francke. The objective of the organisers was to create and promote international understanding amongst the youth of today. I am sure that even in a small way, the organisers managed to promote their objective through the schools that participated in the cultural festival. The main sponsor for the Interact Cultural Festival was the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) and the co-sponsors were Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) and SINWA Holdings. |
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