Cultural Evening – Let’s visit your country!

Cultures shape the identity and personality of every human being, and especially also as an actor. Therefore it is very beneficial to broaden one’s horizon and delve into understanding the diversity of human interaction better. One way of promoting and celebrating intercultural awareness is through our Cultural Evening from the Department for Acting in English and Schauspiel auf Deutsch (Acting in German). Students are encouraged to invite us to visit their country by doing a presentation on the country and the language of their choice and telling their audience what they should see, do and experience when they travel for the first time to this country. Some students decide to teach us some basic words in their mother tongue, some cultural ways of greeting or give us a culinary experience by letting us taste food from that culture. Other students share with us highlights about the country side, explain various festivities or celebrations that exist in that culture, talk about traditional clothes, jewelry, nature, mentality of the culture, the school system, the languages in their country, the political situation, economy, currency, etc. Some also bring a flag of their country or show us on a map what the shape of their country looks like.

The goal of the Cultural Evening at Cours Florent is to celebrate the international heritage our students incorporate and enjoy the fun, interesting and eye-opening elements of their various cultures and countries. At the end of the evening the Acting in English and Schauspiel auf Deutsch students, are excitedly talking with each other while enjoying food and culinary treats from around the world. Who wouldn’t be eager to get on a plane and visit the country of their fellow-student themselves after such an introduction? One of the games played is called “Where are you from?” which seems like a quite straight-forward question for a person coming from one cultural background, but an almost impossible question to answer for many of the multicultural, international students studying at Cours Florent :

• “My parents are from [insert country 1],
• but actually my mother grew up in [insert country 2].
• Their parents are originally from [insert country 3]
• and my grandmother on my mother’s side was [insert nationality]
• and lived in [insert country 4].
• Due to the job of my father, I grew up in four different countries (including [insert countries 5, 6 & 7] and [insert country 8] and now I’m studying at Cours Florent in Paris… Where I am from? I guess I’m from many countries.”

If you attended last year’s event, you were amazed by a speech on South Africa and Lesotho, a play on words & puns between the English and French language, a speech on the topic of “Being an Actor and a TCK (Third Culture Kid)”, as well as poems in Antiguan Vybez and a Chinese song. If you are now asking yourself what a TCK is and what that has to do with international students at Cours Florent, you know that you missed out on our Cultural Evening last year.

This year students shared songs with us from their home countries, and did great dance performances. We travelled to different continents (Israel, Romania, Oman, Namibia, etc.) and if you’re wondering where these countries are and who their neighboring countries are and what they eat in these countries, it confirms that you’ll need to attend our next Cultural Evening!

Understanding each other better, making friendships across borders and continents, laughing together, while also studying hard and becoming better and respectful actors, are all part of the students’ experience in the International Department at Cours Florent.

Read below some comments of our students on how they experienced the Cultural Evening:

• "The highlight was being able to converse with people that I knew and also with other classmates of the colleagues and get to know them on a deeper level. I learnt a new way to learn a language I was struggling with so....yay! As a third year, I’m gonna miss it every year!” (Jordan)
• "I was very happy to attend this evening. It is very nice that Course Florent organizes events for students from which all can learn something and share nice moments and food. It was very exciting to discover new cultures, new foods, new languages, traditions, dance, music. What I learned from this is that it's amazing to open your heart, your point of view, and it makes you get closer to people from other countries.” (Ela)
• "The highlight of the evening for me was the personal insight into so many countries from people who all share a passion of the arts. It was a pleasure to hear something special or unheard of about all the different countries. Trading and sharing first hand local stories and experiences provided me with something different and that’s what made the event so special. I was able to connect similarities between different cultures in terms of habits and traditions. I was able to realize common ground which will help me to strengthen and forge friendships. I noted that in Uganda for example, Swahili is spoken and I know Swahili is also spoken within my country, Oman. I am amazed at how many countries, cultures and languages are represented under one roof at Cours Florent! I am so happy I attended this special evening and encourage all of Cours Florent to take future advantage of such an intimate and insightful collaboration." (Maimoona)