By Sharanya Rao
True to its name and claim, Culture Shock proved to be a night of unexpected and totally exciting twists and turns.
Organised by the Performing Arts Committee as well as the supporting teams like the Culture Committee and Stage Management, the concept idea have been formed around three months ago and preparations alone took them a month, says JCRC Performing Arts Director Joo Fee.
Titled Jamming with Jieming, the show was obviously hosted by third-year student Jieming, whose amazing impromptu performance had everyone in splits of laughter.
His quick-thinking skills were tested during a few technical glitches – especially so during the Eusoff Dance performance when their music got jammed twice in a row. Nonetheless, the clever cover-ups by Jieming meant that many could not even tell if the hitches were part of a script or plainly unrehearsed.
Coming dressed as creepy ghosts, witches and the devil – played by conductor Andrew Sophian himself – the Choir also had a few surprises up its sleeves. In line with the Halloween celebrations, they performed dramatic renditions of popular songs like “The Pumpkin Song” and “In the Still of the Night”.
One highlight of the show which had audiences rolling in laughter was helmed by Nikhil, who came in the form of Pandit Birju Maharaj, a so-called Kathak (Indian dance) maestro from India. His Indian accent and punch lines, coupled with his funny antics as he tried to teach Jieming the art of Kathak, kept everybody amused and definitely was a large dosage of “culture shock”.
Conversely there were also a few first timers, such as the Eusoff Band Hat Trick Heroes, who performed their debut show with a bang. They played their version of the popular songs by Matchbox Twenty “Let’s See How Far We Have Come” and another hit by the Dixie Chicks.
During the show, this year’s much-awaited Dinner and Dance theme was also unveiled to be “Time and Again”, through an interesting inter-block game of Hangman.
Ending the night of with a bang was the closing performance by Eusoff Band 10 Minutes Late. Besides a unique mixed rendition of the popular Cranberries hit “Zombie” and “Face Down” by The Jumpsuit Apparatus, the performance was also special in a way that it was vocalist Shanta Arul’s last performance before going on exchange next semester.
The response by the residents was also encouraging, many responded saying it was “a brilliant show”, and most were “extremely impressed by the impromptu action of the host in certain out-of-the-script situations”.
Jamming with Jieming drew a perfect conclusion to Octofest, which also involved resident coming together to put up a show every Thursday in the dining hall for two consecutive weeks. All in all, residents unanimously agreed that “this is a brilliant concept, and we should really do this more often!”
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