Today, I had the opportunity to volunteer and help Kwan out at the Global Village grand opening. Global Village is a new gallery that showcases different cultural elements of different continents. Right when you enter the building, you can see a long line of flags against the left wall. Since I got there a bit early, I had the opportunity to walk around the gallery. There were so many outfits, sculptures, and pieces that were really cool and different. There were even people that attended this event dressed in outfits of a very specific culture. I have attached some pictures of different things that I saw, such as the frame with all the different flags, the terracotta warrior, masks, and the lion part of the lion dance costume.
The main thing that I volunteered to help Kwan out with was to wave a flag during the little presentation of the lion dance that will take place during the event. The lion dance occurred right after the ribbon was cut. Kwan played the drums, while two other members of the IACA community did the actual lion dance part. I and another woman stood on either side of Kwan waving the flag. The flagpole was about as tall as I was and the flag itself was pretty big (attached image). We had to stand and wave the flag side to side at an angle. To complete the look, he gave us, a visor, and some yellow baggy pants, and he also tied some orange fabric around our waist (also attached an image). It was really cool to for once be a part of the lion dance rather than just watching it, even if it was just standing there waving a flag.
There was also some representation of other cultures at the ceremony. Other than the outfits that people wore, there was also a DJ playing some music of all cultures and languages prior to the ceremony, which was unexpected and a nice touch to me. Also, Hanako volunteered to play the drum by the entrance as everyone made their way into the building, which I thought was a very nice touch at the event. The ceremony consisted of many speeches, including one by the mayor of Indianapolis (if I remember correctly). One of the topics that many people talked about during their speeches were being inclusive, not only with race but also with age, etc.
I thought it was really cool to see the differences between all the different cultures amongst the different continents. It was also really cool and nice to see different cultures and ethnicities being represented and overall accepted within a community. I feel that after what I have seen with the opening of this gallery, we seem to be stepping in the right direction to being more inclusive.