Temptasian
I grew up in South Brunswick, a township located in Central New Jersey. South Brunswick is a pretty multiracial place to live; it's not uncommon to have friends whose parents have migrated from all over the world. As of 2011, about one third of the student population was from an Indian descent, and I'm sure that number has risen since. Being Indian American myself, it was a huge part of my society to be a part of the Asian Cultural Club in my high school, especially since most of the people in the Asian Cultural Club were also of Indian descent.
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| Our promotional poster |
Being an actor in the show, editing scripts, and learning how the play is organized gave me the necessary background and experience to run for an officer position, media coordinator, for the club -and win. Now I wasn't following the script; I was making it. It was my job as media coordinator to create the media that makes people want to join our club, to make the promotion advertisements that attract an audience, and to handle all the technical equipment for the show. My duty as a general board member were planning club meetings, writing the script, and organizing and directing the show.
I worked with the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, historian, freshman representative, and publicist, supervised by two teachers as the club advisors to run a successful show. Our structure is similar to what is described as the "simple hierarchy" in the textbook. The advisors were on top since all our content, acting dialogues, dances, and songs had to get approved by them. Next were the president and vice president, who managed the rest of the board (us). Then, the rest of the board had our own responsibilities described next.
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| Temptasian Officers (I'm on the bottom, left) |
We all worked together to plan the structure of the show. We wrote the script together, collaborated to create a story line and plot, and discussed where in the play it would make sense to put in a song and dance. And while we all had the our specific responsibilities that pertained to our particular role (me - like I said, I handled media content, etc), we also had our unique expertise in different areas of performing. The president, vice president, historian, and secretary had dance experience, so they managed the dance teams. The freshman representative and treasurer had singing experience, so they managed the singing group. The publicist had general organization experience, so he managed the modeling group. I had previous acting experience, so I directed the actors.
We translated a common purpose into specific, measurable performance goals because we all had the same purpose of participating in our culture and translating our culture into a final product that was an actual performance. In a school with a significant population of South Asians, we responded the the demand of being involved in one's culture and made it into a purpose which was putting on the show. We were a manageable size because we were able to split our entire group of ~100 people into subgroups of actors, dancers, singers, and models, and even within that, split dancers up by the type of dance they were in. Splitting the group up into smaller groups, and having each member of the executive board take on the responsibility of managing that subgroup allowed for the team to be a manageable size.
This all might sound legit, but keep in mind that we were 16-17 year olds managing other 13-17 year olds. Our work started in September and our final show was in March. We organized countless weekly dance practices, singing practices, and acting practices around busy schedules of serious students who were juggling SATs, APs, college applications, and homework, all while we ourselves were juggling the same. As a result, One thing we did struggle with was accountability. Because we were only still in high school and this was a club, people were only volunteering their time. However, with all the performers being students, those students had other priorities, like their own schoolwork or family things that came before their role in the show. Also, it is very difficult to trust teenagers to come on time to practices and not skip out. Being in show, you have to rely on your other performers to be there because putting on a show is a group effort. You can't have a show where one of your main actors is missing, or one of your dancers is missing and is throwing the formation off for the rest of the dance. In the end, we developed a way to hold people accountable for their parts in the show.
All in all, we were a relatively high-functioning team to manage a sold-out show of around 100 performers, with an audience of around 1,000. Temptasian is a show with high standards that we had to keep up with, so it was imperative that we put on a successful performance. Looking back, it's quite amazing that we were able to balance all of that with our schoolwork, SATs, college admissions, and other pressures of high school. However, this experience was quite formative in shaping me and preparing me to work in other organizations, as it was my first true experience in an organization that had a defined purpose, shared common goal, and a final product.
Interesting story. I have a few questions just about the setup. You talked about Temptasian as a production of the club. Was the club affiliated with your high school? You said the club was supervised by two teachers. What I'm trying to get at here is whether it was a community thing or a specific school thing. In Champaign there are two public high schools - Central and Centennial, and Urbana also has a high school. If something like Temptasian were done here would it be one event for the entire community or done at a specific school? I couldn't understand that from your description.
ReplyDeleteThen you said the community was about one third of Indian descent. Were any students not of Indian descent part of the Temptasian production? How would it have worked if some such students expressed an interest in participating?
Then I wondered whether you had any persistent interest in the dramatic arts that you've continued to pursue since coming to the U of I. Economics is perhaps not the best major for expressing such an interest. Are there clubs on campus here that do productions like Temptasian?
While I was not part of this because I was engaged in other activities, when I was in high school there was something called Sing, a stage production that students put on with a lot of rather absurd skits and songs. My recollection is that they practiced at night and that practice was kind of a social activity - kids hanging out with their friends. You said it was hard to keep the kids to come to practice, and I gather that kids nowadays have more things that tug them in other directions. But you never mentioned time of day for the practices and if there was some social aspect to them, which would make the kids want to come.
The club was affiliated with my high school. We would meet every Tuesdays right after school, so from 3:30 to 4:45 usually, but we would go until 5:30 or 6:30 some days, especially the closer we got to the show. So this was a school thing, but since there is quite a bit of Indian Americans in my town, it became a community thing. I also should have clarified that my high school was the only high school for our township. We have about 3,000 students, and my graduating class was around 750. Neighboring schools, like North Brunswick, East Brunswick, and the West Windsor-Plainsboro townships also had similar clubs/shows at their schools where the students in those schools would be involved in, and we would see their shows too. If something like this was done here, it would probably be a school thing, and other schools would have their own shows if there was enough of a demand from students. There's actually something a little similar to it here on campus, hosted by the Indian Students Association called "India Night", I believe.
DeleteThere were a few students not of Indian descent that were part of the Temptasian production, but they participated because their friends, who were of Indian descent, were involved. I'm actually not sure why the club is called "Asian Club," when it's mostly Indian American centric. I think it started many years before (early 2000s) when there wasn't that huge of an Indian population, and there were other cultures incorporated into Asian Club. So as the Indian population grew, the content of Asian Club because more India-focused.
Like I mentioned before, I think the Indian Student Association (ISA) has similar performances to Temptasian. However, I didn't think and still don't think I want to pursue a career in performing arts because it's not something I can see myself do full time. I'm not involved in ISA here on campus because I wanted to explore using my extra curricular time focusing on other areas, especially since I had already done all that in high school. I think ISA here serves a different purpose for the students who might not have much of an Indian American community in their hometowns. Since I already have a huge community at home, I don't feel the need to participate here on campus.
Practices certainly were very social. Part of the reason why so many people were involved in Temptasian was because it was sort of "cool" to be in the dances and performances. We were also friends with everyone. We were kind of known as the "Temptasian clique" and it did become quite cliquey. But there was also a little peer pressure to be involved and show up to practices. However, like you said, sometimes there are other priorities that tug them to other directions. Sometimes, practices would become tedious, or the people in charge of the practices felt the "power" go to their head, and this would turn some people off from coming. But all in all, the main reason why people participated in Temptasian was because it was a way for friends to hang out and have fun. We would horse around a lot, another difficulty in managing everyone.
I like the background information you gave about Temptasian. I also attended a big high school, and we had many student-led groups. I was part of the drama club, and I must say that it was hard finalizing our script or getting members to attend rehearsals. It was very difficult because most of our scenes needed prior acts to flow properly. So the absence of a drama would result to a non-productive methods.We were always struggling to meet deadlines, and most people only became serious when closer to the event date. Like you said, it is really easy to flop during these events if group members are not doing their parts well. Holding them accountable is definitely a good idea. I must applaud you guys for having 100 students to work with. I wonder if people had to audition to be in accepted into the club, or people just joined according to their preference.
ReplyDeleteAttracting up to 1000 audience means that the performances was amazing if people were willing to attend. Now, it is so much hassle to get college students to attend events without any food incentive. I also really think that when members have the same goal, then it would be easier to work in a team because everyone is on the same page.