In the Hindu culture, the Holi spring festival of love and colors signifies ridding oneself of past errors and embracing a new refreshing life with music, dancing, singing, as well as the popular color fights. Everyone celebrates it in the Hindu culture; young and old, friends and foes, rich or poor, everyone joins in the activities of the play of colors. Its correlation with change in seasons from winter to spring and summer is no coincidence, as the new seasons signify life and regrowth.
This time of year, Stout students can relate to this idea of shaking off the shadows and stepping into the bright new world. The week of finals is drawing near and it seems that the warm weather is finally here to stay at last. Classrooms seem a little less crowded as we all are drawn more towards the outdoors and nice weather instead of the stress of the last few days of studies. Along with the annual throwing of all class homework and tests into the ceremonial bonfires, consider joining the Stout Ally Initiative group in our campus’s very own Holi festival.
The idea of Holi has slowly made its way into our own Western culture by means of the latest trend and popularized fun run The Color Run. Shelby Schuppe, the Stoutreach Specialist for Ally Initiatives, wanted Stout students to understand the cultural and religious background behind the Color Run but still partake in the festivities of tossing powdered colors at one another. After discussing with Nepali exchange students on campus, she and other Stoutreach students started the Stout Holi festival last year.
Traditional Holi festivals are celebrated by a sacred bonfire followed by singing and dancing the night before. During the next day the free-for-all carnival of colors is observed by everyone. The Stout festival will only be celebrating the color toss. Last year our festival lasted about twenty minutes, but Schuppe hopes that this year a higher participation will help boost the party, “This year we bought twice as much color so it can go on longer.”
The Holi event is free to all students, so spread the word! Go by yourself so you can experience the letting go of this school year’s difficulties, invite your friends so you call all celebrate the end of this year and the start of a new one, or invite that group mate that did none of the work in your class project because no one can get mad at you for throwing color at them. (But it’ll still feel satisfying to throw it.)
While Schuppe and the rest of the Holi event planners would appreciate an RSVP to the festival, they will still allow people to show up the day of. “We need all participants to sign waiver forms for the event, so if they RSVP online we can save on time and paper.” (Not only does the Stoutreach like to put on cool events, they like to save the environment in their spare time!) To RSVP please go to their events page on OrgSync https://orgsync.com/15455/events/1050192/occurrences/2320398. If you’ve never been on that section of the Stout website you’ll have to sign in with your student ID and password as well as answer a few questions to update your profile on the page. The festival will be held on the MSC South Lawn Tuesday, May 5 at 4:30.