BISV Lunar New Year Gala

Previously published Apr 2. 2021

On February 26, 2021, one hundred members of the BISV community gathered on Zoom to celebrate the Lunar New Year celebration. Attendees were treated to various artistic performances from students and parents alike, ranging from traditional Chinese dance to voice and instrumental performances, which were interspersed with Chinese riddles. The show was hosted by Tim T. and Judy L (‘22).

“The organization for this event was to not only celebrate the culture and tradition of Lunar New Year but also to engage with the community more,” Jackie L. wrote to The Quill, one of the students involved in organizing the event, where she worked alongside Catherine T. and Michelle B. on editing together the performance clips.

But throughout the process of organizing the lively celebration that took place, the team faced significant challenges. The original event—which was initially planned to be held in February 2020—was canceled due to COVID-19 shutdowns, and the organizing team, headed by Tim T. and aided by Josephine Z., XiaoFeng L., and Simon T., was given only a month’s notice to plan out the performances for this year.

“We had the performance list finalized only by the end of the week before the scheduled performance, and the final recordings came in two days before the performance,” Jackie wrote.

The video editing team invested a significant amount of time in creating the borders and backgrounds to accompany the performance videos and rehearsing transitions between background sequences on late-night Zoom meetings.

“We hoped that we could see this performance become an annual tradition amongst the BISV community, in which more talented students and family members would be able to be celebrated and contribute to the vibrancy of this community in general,” Jackie wrote.