When Weinberg sophomore Jackie Le was brainstorming themes for the third-annual Vietnamese Cultural Show, she said she couldn’t stop thinking about paralleling it to the hit Prime Video series “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
And that’s just what the Vietnamese Student Association did — this year’s cultural show, performed in the Ryan Family Auditorium on Saturday, was titled “The Summer I Turned Vietnamese.”
The show featured modern dances and Vietnamese pop music as well as traditional Vietnamese dances and vocal numbers. Between performances, a series of pre-recorded skits based on “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” were projected on a screen.
“Every year previous to this year, I have cried,” Weinberg senior Barak Tucker said. “(The show) is absolutely stunning, and I recommend that anyone and everyone who goes to Northwestern go to the show.”
Le, who serves as VSA’s outreach chair, said VSA members started planning the show in the fall and began rehearsing Winter Quarter. The largest performance was the finale, “A Little Dream of Me,” featuring the whole cast. Other large numbers included the “Hat Dance” and “Fan Dance.”
Weinberg first-year Vivian Luong, who joined VSA in the fall, participated in three performances in the show, including “Hat Dance” and “Fan Dance.”
“VSA is really important to me because it connects my Vietnamese cultural heritage with my personal identity,” Luong said. “It creates a family in this school for me, and I feel like the bond is really strong.”
The final act of the skit was performed live on stage. Students played characters from the show — Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah — in an alternate ending.
After Belly decided to study abroad in Vietnam on her own in VSA’s reinterpretation, Conrad appeared in person while Jeremiah texted her a picture from a plane window. The skit ended there, leaving the audience unsure if Belly picked a brother — or if she chose herself.
To close out the night, the club’s executive board performed a dance, followed by thank you speeches to seniors. Finally, the club presidents signed a hat and handed it to the incoming presidents.
“VSA is such a place for home and family,” Le said. “We have such an amazing culture that we love to show off to the student body here, especially in shows like this.”
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