The Sac Auditorium was filled Friday night as students of all cultures joinedtogether for the annual PUSO Fest. PUSO, the Philippine United Student Organization,was founded eight years ago in 1994 and has been holding these events for thepast couple of years.
The show started off as a cultural event and gradually evolved into a cultural/comedyand variety show.
‘We wanted to get a more diverse crowd. That’#146;s why we made it intoa variety show, not just a cultural show. We wanted to cater to everyone’#146;sinterests,’ said Ian Medina, judiciary and former President of PUSO.
There were about 15 skits ranging from singing and dancing to hip-hop to comedysketches. One pair sang and played guitar to Michelle Branch’#146;s ‘AllYou Wanted’. Attendants and participants of the show stated that it couldbe compared to Saturday Night Live or even Mad TV.
The theme for this year was a bit different from past years because the eventdid not have an emcee. Instead, they began the show as if the participants werecoming back from rehearsal for PUSO Fest and were sitting down in their dormsto watch television.
Each live skit would be a television show. For example, a modern dance skitwould be a show on MTV or BET. In between skits they would play commercialsor videos of someone changing channels. They even added some clips of TV Guide.
‘It was an extremely elaborate scene,’ Medina said.
This year, a major problem in organizing PUSO Fest was timing. Although thedancers and singers had been rehearsing for months, the comedy sketches wereonly practiced a few weeks before the show. However, the audience could notnotice this.
‘I thought it was very well put together and the participants were extremelytalented,’ freshman Shalu Rajin said.
Although Medina stated that there were a few minor glitches, the show was anoverall success.
Aside from PUSO Fest, the organization held the national conference for theFilipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue last semester. This is a conferencewithin the Filipino community that is held every semester at different schools.
Stony Brook’#146;s PUSO held it here last semester and recruited almost everymember to participate. Next semester, the club hopes to hold another ‘InternationalFood Fest’, in which PUSO joins with others organizations such as the AsianStudent Alliance (ASA) or Latin American Student Organization (LASO) to bringculture and food to the university during campus lifetime.
As an end of the year event, PUSO plans to hold a barbecue outside of WhitmanCollege for members of the club and all those who participated in PUSO Fest.