International Night

Last Friday, 11th of February at 7:00 p.m, the Great Hall of Sherfield Building was packed from Imperial College students, friends, parents and staff. The reason? One of the most entertaining and full of fun event that is organized annually by the Imperial College Overseas Societies Committee; the International Night 2011!

OSC was very proud to welcome for the very first time four Guest Judges who were responsible for choosing the best performing group; Fleur Estelle – International Dancer who has been a guest judge on Strictly Come Dancing as well, OSC Senior Treasurer Professor David Stuckey, the ICU President Alex Kendall and the ICSMSU President David Smith.

Christina Kontoghiorghe, the I-Night Chair, was very satisfied from that amazing night and she said with pride that they started organising the event in July last year having great expectations for that night, which were finally met! This year we had 16 acts and 190 performers in total.

Each society presented a characteristic act according to its culture, its favourite habits and hobbies. For more than 3 hours, the audience was supportive of all of the participants and the atmosphere was very warm and friendly, something that shows that people in Imperial College are not only good at Maths, but they also respect the diversity of cultures and recognize the equality of people all over the world.

However, some acts had greater impact on the audience than others, for example, after the performance of the last year’s winners, the Japanese Society, Alex Kendall said with a sense of humour that “he was now confused about his sexuality”!

Although the first decision of the judges was to elect the Techtonics society, they quickly changed their minds because no representative was there at that moment and they decided to give the prize to the most popular society of that night, the Cypriot Society. Greeks and Cypriots were very excited about this, as you can imagine.

The President of the Cypriot Society, Constantinos Christou, said that “The secret of our success this year was that during the rehearsals and the performance we were having a lot of fun and we were enjoying ourselves. We were a batch of 13 friends having a traditional Cypriot party.”

Although, the Cypriot Society presents a pretty much similar program every year, this year they had some innovations that entertained the audience. The main part of their act was to perform traditional Cypriot dances, but instead of using playbacks, they chose to play live music (guitar and violin) and sing live. The whole scenario took place in a typical coffee shop, where people could enjoy a glass of zivania or koumantaria and a game of cards.

One of the most risky dancers of the show, Faethon Milikouris, performed the traditional and very demanding dance of tatsia, in which he used a tray with a glass of koumantaria in it and he spun it all the way around in all directions, leaving everyone there speechless. He confessed that he was really nervous for this particular point of his performance because he couldn’t make any mistakes in order to keep everyone safe. But he finally managed to make it and impress the judges, showing his expertise!

I believe that the detail that distinguishes the Cypriot team from the others is that it was the most interactive and pioneering team, as they offered the audience Cypriot traditional food sampling (halloumi cheese and lountza) and drinks, showing the Cypriot hospitality.

Constantinos, who was playing the violin as well, believes that “Everyone in the group was dedicated and well organised, something that was highly appreciated by the judges.” He seemed very proud about the result and at the end of the show he thanked everyone who supported him and the Cypriot Society.

At the end of the show, I heard some people murmuring that this was definitely a Cypriot night and I think they were right as in addition to taking the iNight prize, the winner of the raffle, Maria Zapiti was Cypriot, too! (note that a prize was a return ticket to Cyprus..!)

Well done guys!