This past Sunday, the TCNJ Asian American Association hosted a production of their show, Mystique of the East, Avatar: The Last Airbender. The show was a collaboration between TCNJ’s Asian cultural clubs, featuring performances by different groups, including singing, dancing, martial arts, yo-yo, and a fashion show.
2017 Mystique Chair Nikki Huang introduced the show with some words describing the groups that collaborated to produce it, as well as the time and effort that it took to perfect the performance for students and family were able to see. TCNJ’s Trentones followed her with the National Anthem, and then the cast of the Avatar characters set the scene for the plot of Aang’s journey.
The theme of the show was Avatar: The Last Airbender, and each performance told a different aspect of Aang’s story as he tries to save the earth from pollution and corruption. Sandwiched between each performance was a scene of Aang as he progressed in his mission to save the planet, with the plot developing as the show went on.
The show featured aspects of both traditional culture, such as in the Taiko drumming and modern Asian culture, with the Korean hip-hop. Some performances, such as the tinikling and the fashion show, combined the traditional and the modern culture.
With gravity defying feats such as those seen in the Chinese yo-yo performance, and cliff-hanging moments in the plot of the Avatar scenes, the students put on a show to be proud of. It was, in essence, a showcasing of the cultures of TCNJ’s Asian American students as they live with it today. Congratulations to all of the students who put in time and effort into making this production. It was a great experience to watch!