By kelseydeemer
DAVIS CENTER, FOURTH FLOOR — The year has started and it is new. Last Saturday the Asian Student Union hosted a Lunar New Year celebration that knocked our socks clean off. Entirely organized and orchestrated by student leaders, from live performances and dope raffle prizes all the way to delectable catering, they deadass did this shit!!
The night was kicked off with a performance from UVM Taiko. Water Tower reporter Claire Fagan described the experience as, “VERY impressive. I was awestruck by how they all memorized everything and how they had such good senses of rhythm or internal metronomes.” This was followed by performances from dance groups Alkali and Jukiyo which were SICK. I was left without words, amazed that people can control their bodies so well. From within the UVM community Jazbaa, UVM’s only Bollywood dance team rounded out the dancing portion of the evening amazing me yet further. At this point you might be thinking, drums? Three different dance groups? Surely nothing colder could occur this evening! You would be sorely mistaken. Enter stage right Sasha Sriracha, Vermont’s Spiciest drag queen. To quote Water Tower associate Savino Barile “that’s the hardest thing that’s ever happened in the Davis Center.” Her performance was a welcome and erotic switch up to the show’s line up.
I got a chance to sit down with ASU president Ellery Finn to discuss the event, its logistics, and that DRESS!! For those who had the pleasure of experiencing Ellery’s fashion feat you would know she stole the show in a red Yes Style dress. From the back of the grand maple ball room she was shimmering and shining in the spotlight. A beacon of beauty and the picture of glamour, the water tower is happy to title Ellery best dressed at Lunar New Year. This is not Ellery’s first rodeo with Lunar New Year as she served on the ASU e-board last year putting together a virtual event to celebrate the New Year. She was super excited to have it in person this year and we were super excited to see it in person this year. As for her general presidential work on ASU she has loved bringing her own ideas to the table and building community at UVM. Thank you for taking the time from your busy event to speak with the press, Ellery. It was an honor and all we can say is thank you one million times for such a fun night.
The party continued after the event was over with a spread of food and activities entirely prepared by members of ASU. Our sources from UVM dining tell us that they made exactly zero food, just kept it warm and transported it up and down the DC. We saw the ASU instagram stories! These students worked day and night and day again to cater this event with simply scrumptious spring rolls, mango lassi, and vegetable curry just to name a few dishes. As for activities there was this dope passport mechanic that if you played all six games and stamped your passport at every station, you got a dope prize! It was awesome. I got a little pink slinky.
Lunar New Year was a smashing success. Selling out before the event even started, the room was overflowing, and the crowd was hyped the whole time. No thanks to certain FSL groups who asked ASU to give presentations to their specific fraternities and sororities rather than coming to Lunar New Year! Similarly no thanks to The Vermont Cynic who didn’t have eight dollars in their budget to pay for an event ticket to cover the event. We at the water tower say support your campus’s affinity groups. This opinion is my own, me Kelsey Deemer says if you can’t dedicate 2 hours of your day and eight dollars of your money to ASU’s biggest event of the year you need to seriously reevaluate your organization. Prioritize money in your budgets to support affinity groups on campus and prioritize your time to come see the good work that they do. Lunar New Year rocked and I am so impressed by the work that ASU did to make it what it was, and I eagerly await next year’s!
Categories: around town, feb 8, kelsey deemer