The Asian Student Union invited the Binghamton University community to the Broome County Forum Theatre on Saturday for its largest annual showcase of tradition and talent. This year’s Asian Night welcomed a variety of Asian cultural and interest groups to the stage.
Since 1987, Asian Night has sought to highlight the diversity of Binghamton’s Asian community through both a traditional and contemporary lens. Themed “Mire,” 21 different acts were featured this year “to mix old with new” — an ambitious undertaking compared to ASU’s previous events. The program also included a special performance by Boston-based and Singaporean-born artist hongjoin as this year’s musical guest.
Leah Chan, ASU’s multimedia chair and a sophomore majoring in mathematics, crafted the vision behind this year’s theme and helped plan and produce a skit spanning the entirety of the show. She reflected on the tension between ambitions and expectations in a conventional Asian-American household.
“This summer, the [event coordinators] and I met to discuss possible themes surrounding immigrant stories and Asian intergenerational trauma,” Chan wrote in an email. “I wanted to make something meaningful and not just some love story. Last semester, I watched a short film called ‘CTRL Z,’ where the main character has an infinite number of attempts to impress a girl. I was inspired by the idea of time and time loops. We merged the two concepts, and the product became Mire.
Doris Gan, ASU’s event coordinator and a junior majoring in nursing, explained that planning for Asian Night began during the summer, when she started reaching out to the Forum Theatre’s management and recruiting a line-up of performers long before classes started.
“With such a large event, it takes a lot of time outside of being a student, so just finding time to coordinate such a large event is challenging in itself,” Gan wrote in an email. “I think something we were often worried about was making sure everyone was on the same page, and trying to make everyone happy, which isn’t always possible. But obviously, we have a great E-Board to lean back on, who helped us a lot through these challenges.”
Gan and her co-chair Matthew Cho, a sophomore majoring in business administration, also served as the hosts for the evening. They introduced each act before they entered out onto the stage, including all seven subgroups under the ASU umbrella and the new addition of first-time performers like Collision, Diabolo and Masti.
Binghamton Diabolo, a newly established performance team working with the traditional Chinese yo-yo, mesmerized the crowd with a demonstration soundtracked to “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters.” Performers tossed luminescent, colorful yo-yos into the air and balanced them across a delicate string, similar to the style of flow arts.
Fiona So, the president of Binghamton Diabolo and a freshman majoring in nursing, founded the organization this year after having practiced diabolo and competed nationally growing up. She wanted to create a space dedicated to transforming the pastime into a performing art, with influences from movement-based techniques like dancing and juggling.
“The group originally began as a small circle of friends,” So wrote. “Diabolo and the community that comes with it has always been an important part of my life so I wanted to bring it to Binghamton. I was lucky enough to find our club’s vice president, Katelyn Wang, [a freshman majoring in biology] who also has diabolo experience, as well as many friends willing to not only give it a try but also commit many hours to practicing it.”
“I hope we were able to entertain the audience members and spread joy and excitement among the crowd and that they experienced a sense of childlike awe and wonder,” she continued. “It’s fun to keep the audience on the edge of their seat wondering what is coming next. In my opinion, some of the best performances are the ones that catch you by surprise.”
Several performances drew inspiration from viral Internet memes and moments. Masti, a Bollywood fusion dance team, channeled Louisiana State University Tiger Girls’ winning routine to Ciara’s “Like A Boy,” which has amassed millions of views across TikTok.
Binghamton Fujianese Union’s recreated girl group KATSEYE’s trending choreography to Kelis’ “Milkshake” in their campaign for Gap and imitated the “aura farming” Indonesian boy recognized for guiding a canoe-like racing boat by dancing at the prow. The Taiwanese American Student Coalition and the Vietnamese Student Association both decided to incorporate more traditional dances, whirling ribbons and fluttering fans as props.
There were also musical performances by Unkai Daiko and Sulpoong, Japanese and Korean traditional percussion groups, respectively. Performing Yuta Kato’s “Dokokara” and Daihachi Oguchi’s “Isami Goma,” Unkai Daiko’s drummers brought about a conversational back and forth, alternating between striking their drumsticks against the circumference of the instruments or producing a deep reverberation from making contact with the surface of the drums. Sulpoong’s musicians chanted to accompany an intense escalation of beats that grew from a tremor to a roar, with the shiny timbre of cymbals echoing through the concave halls of the theatre.
ASU invited singer-songwriter hongjoin to perform at Asian Night, having previously opened for Ricky Montgomery and Matt Maltese with a discography blending indie-pop, alt-rock and R&B. His set included a balance of upbeat, groovy originals accompanied by live electric guitar solos and drums and slower, more heartfelt songs. At the request of some of ASU’s E-Board members, he also delivered acoustic covers of Daniel Caesar’s “Always” and Sam Smith’s “I’m Not the Only One,” to which the audience sang along.
One of the final performances of the night was a fashion show where students flaunted traditional garments representative of their cultures, including the Chinese hanfu, Korean hanbok, Vietnamese ao dai and Japanese hakama, among many others.
Beyond the theatrics of the event, Gan explained that she hoped that Asian Night could expose audience members to the multifaceted dimensions of the Asian community within the student body.
“The overarching goal for Asian Night is to have people leaving with a stronger appreciation and understanding for Asian/Asian American culture,” Gan wrote. “Some people coming in may not realize or appreciate the Asian culture here at Binghamton University, so we hope Asian Night shows people that Binghamton’s Asian community and culture is so beautiful, talented, and bigger than they think.”