Bright colored lights filled an otherwise darkened ballroom. Music hummed through the room as audience members sat around a runway. All eyes were on the models, each adorned in outfits representative of their culture.
The Caribbean Latin Coalition held their “For the Culture” fashion show in the Student Union Building ballroom on Sunday, March 22.
The first act was titled the “Museum,” where five models represented statues holding cultural artifacts of Latin American and Native American descent. The statues, wearing historical pieces, circled around the runway, each posing with a historical artifact. At the end, two more models walked into the scene, one playing a security guard with a flashlight and the other playing a museum patron taking selfies on a phone. Co-President Nadia Sanchez also walked in this scene, standing in the middle of the circle of models in the first half and clapping to signify when they should change position.
The museum scene is very near and dear to the club’s heart, as the CLC also runs El Museo Escolar in the Student Union Building.
“Our museum is basically the landmark of our cultural club,” said the CLC co-president Aaliyah Sullivan, who MC’ed the event. Sullivan said that the club is trying to remake the space to become more of a campus hangout.
“We want to rebrand it, to make it a space where people can play board games and maybe you might learn something on the side. Just a homey little mini community in New Paltz for people,” Sullivan said.
Sanchez echoed Sullivan’s points, saying that the club wants to make it a destination for people on campus. “We want it to really not just be a space that holds culture. I want it to be a space for students to make memories,” Sanchez said.
The next scene of the show was the flag scene. Seven models walked the catwalk flying the flags of various Latin American and Caribbean countries. The flags represented Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and China. All the models did two loops around the ballroom waving their flags, before walking the runway posing with them.
Sullivan spoke on the inclusion of the Chinese flag, saying that “there is a small portion of Chinese immigrants who made their way to Argentina” in history, and that Asian representation was included because “it’s very hard to tap into Asian culture on this campus.” Sullivan also said that the event should be a place where everyone can feel represented.
Sullivan added, “That is what I want everybody to kind of have an essence of. You don’t have to be ‘a part of our culture’ to be a part of our culture, because our culture is the people.”
Further on was NOVA, New Paltz’s Asian-based dance team. NOVA walked the runway in black and red ensembles, then broke out a routine set to songs Gabriela by KATSEYE and SPAGHETTI by LE SSERAFIM & j-hope, among others.
After NOVA’s interlude, the next scene was called “Protest.” Two models walked into the ballroom in black leather ensembles, inspired by the protest movements of the Black Panthers. They held signs reading “ICE Out” and “Fascism.” Following behind them were three models in professional wear, one even posing to resemble taking an oath of office.
“I think protests can come in the form of professionals just taking [up] space, or even the lawyers working pro bono for certain cases. I think that that was a huge inspiration for us,” Sanchez said. “The law can be used to uphold unfair institutions, but it could also be used to protect human rights.”
After them, five protesters emerged in modern streetwear, reminiscent of actual protest wear seen in “No Kings” and Black Lives Matter protests. Two protestors carried signs saying “No Kings” and “Free Sudan.” Two of the protestors were members of In Living Color, a club at New Paltz that provides a space for “QTPOC [Queer Trans People of Color] students and their allies,” according to their Engage page.
The protest scene was a favorite of Sullivan and Sanchez. “I would say I definitely liked protest,” Sanchez said. “Protest was one that we had so much thought and consideration behind it, the messages we wanted to say as a club.”
“Undoubtedly, our protest scene was definitely my favorite,” Sullivan said. “We knew we wanted to do something where we got to talk about some of the bigger issues and make our community feel heard. But I think what it came down to is how it was done.”
Sullivan said that instead of opting for a lengthy speech or rant, they wanted to portray action as it actually is happening across the country, by reflecting protests as they actually appear.
“I don’t want to just stand here and rant and rant and rant. Some people want to see it. Some people want to have the oohs and the ahhs of it. So I was like, why not put it in the show as it is?” Sullivan said.
The final scene was Carnival, where models picked their songs and wore costumes reminiscent of the spring festival. Adorned in large feathered accessories and revealing outfits, models danced and celebrated the end of the night, emphasizing the celebratory nature of the night.
One model, wearing a gold crown with pink and green feathers and matching gold shorts, ran out onto the catwalk to “The Time Is Now,” a song made popular by wrestler John Cena. The model flipped, ran around giving high fives and reveling in the spotlight. Other highlights include a model in a champagne pink bedazzled set with a pink feather headdress. Another, wearing a tangerine orange bedazzled set with orange feathers, appeared on stage seemingly out of nowhere to the tune of “The Bzzzz Drumline” by Beyonce.
In the end, both co-presidents hoped the audience left feeling an appreciation of culture and the multifarious ways it manifests.
“The message of today was to take space and really just culture,” Sanchez said. “There’s just a big emphasis on culture and celebrating culture.”
“I wanted everybody, no matter where they were from, to feel like they weren’t out of place when they came here,” Sullivan said. “People make culture the same way that culture makes people. And I would want everyone to leave knowing that our club is not hyper specific to Caribbean and Latin people. It’s about everybody. And we encourage people to come to our club, because our club holds the history of a lot of people on this campus, especially the most underrepresented people on this campus.”
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