Nine students from the Seychelles clinched the top prize at a cultural competition organised by the University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) on 6 March 2019.
The team – Tania Pouponneau, Julia Joubert, Laura Ah-Shung and Dean Madeleine from UNM and Bertrand Loze, Hillary Pillay, Karine Benstrong, Stephane Labrosse and Beverly Bijoux from Asia Pacific University – performed two dances, which began with a video highlighting the beauty of the Indian Ocean archipelago. The team also performed a sega dance, a type of dance native to the Seychelles, which earned them a huge round of applause from the audience.
“We were really surprised to be announced the winner and even more surprised at the support we received from the audience. We were telling each other that it was ok if we did not win anything as long as we had fun performing and representing our country. When Seychelles was awarded the winning performance, I think it is safe to say that we were all overjoyed as well as shocked!” says Julia, the team leader.
She explains that the team chose to do a traditional dance because there is only a very small community of Seychellois at UNM and they wanted to showcase how unique and vibrant their traditional dance was.
Second placed went to the team from Bangladesh while the team from Pakistan was awarded the third prize. Other entrants for the competition came from the UK, Maldives, Yemen, Japan, India, Malaysia, Palestine, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
The performances culminated with a fashion show where students from each participating country showcased their traditional wear. Students also set up food and drinks stalls with delicacies from their home countries to introduce those present to their dishes.
Since we have a very small community of Seychellois here at Nottingham, we sought help from other Seychellois students at APU. Initially they were the only ones who were going to perform. At the last minute, four of us students from Nottingham randomly decided that we wanted to participate despite being few in numbers. We wanted to showcase how unique and vibrant our traditional dance is. That's how we ended up having two performances which was luckily much appreciated by everyone that night.
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For media enquiries please contact, Josephine Dionisappu, PR & Communications Manager on josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my.
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Posted on 1st April 2019