Stunning.

After hearing much chatter around campus and seeing a flyer everywhere we turned, all of us at Bwog were itching to see what the Lunar Gala would have in store. We sent staff writer Gabrielle Kloppers to check out the show, and were lucky to have another two staffers, Nikki Shaner-Bradford and Joanna Zhang, working behind the scenes. Here’s what they thought.

Having seen the students at Chinese Students Club and some hyper-willing volunteers slave over the Lunar Gala for most of spring semester, we were thrilled to be able to cover this unifying event and see if it lived up to the hype.

And yes, the hype was a lot. The promotional team for the Lunar Gala was visibly hard at work from day 1, flyering all around campus, creating promo videos, and sending Facebook blasts. Along with all this, the team of designers in charge of the fashion show element specifically organized a spectacular photoshoot in Chinatown, showcasing some of the designer pieces to be shown on the catwalk. A lot of the shoot was brought together by makeup-master extraordinaire, Sam Choi, a self-taught makeup artist that worships Charlotte Tilbury, the British makeup artist whose work often graces the cover of Vogue magazine.

Of the experience, Choi said: “It was amazing. It really is a professional setting where you have a set amount of time to do 5-6 girls’ makeup. It’s stressful to do all of it yourself, but you trek through everything and it’s so worth it when you look at the end results. All of the models turned out beautiful, and the photoshoot itself was really professional with amazing vibes.”

For the Lunar Gala itself, the Chinese Students Club began their preparations for the event almost a year ago. The show this year was led by Stephanie Ding, Leena Dai, and Jason Lei, who are all executive committee members within the club. Final preparations took place starting over Winter Break, which involved innumerable Skype calls and coordination across multiple time zones. While the Lunar Gala is the biggest event hosted by CSC, it is also the final accomplishment for the current board, which will turn over to new leadership soon. For all of CSC’s events, the more experienced members are divided up into several committees, such as design, marketing, and logistics. But interestingly for the Lunar Gala, some free reign was given to newbies who were part of an organizational committee, perhaps to deal with the magnitude of the event. While this complicated some things, according to a committee member, we think they clearly pulled off the task at hand.

In a word, the Lunar Gala was spectacular. Beyond some initial organizational faux pas (shouldn’t VIP be let in earlier than the rest?) the show ran relatively smoothly. Performances engaged every aspect of the senses and included Columbia Wushu, Radiance, CU Generation, Raw Elementz, CU Taiko, Lion Dance, Columbia Dhoom, Columbia Nonsequitur, CU Harmony and Columbia Pops. We felt the Wushu and Nonsequitur groups most deserving of praise, as they truly engaged the audience. For us, the most engaging performance was that of Columbia Pops–who knew that not only the cello, but its case, could be used as an instrument? Truly an innovative break to sometimes staid classical remixes of modern hits. However, all performances were outdone by the distinctly incredible performance by Jason Chen, who covered Bwog’s favorite anthem of 2016, “Pillowtalk,” and a few other hit songs. Following Chen’s performance, the fashion show began, and it was truly so captivatingly amazing that it was impossible not to be mesmerized.

As one of the Lunar Gala’s main attractions, Bwog couldn’t help but be extremely excited for the fashion show. First-time model Elshadai Tesfaye-Biru noted to us that the models were told to “pin the audience with stares and at the same time make them feel like we are oblivious… my resting bitch face makes me feel like Beyonce, the ‘Formation’ Beyonce.”

After an incredible lead-in scene choreographed by Kosta Karakashyan, which drew into themes common to traditional Chinese culture and invoked movement through the performance of the Columbia Wushu group, the show moved into several other impressive and evocative scenes. The second scene was headlined by Tesfaye-Biru, who stunned the audience in her appearance as the Ethiopian queen of proceedings and directed the other models into perfect formation.

The night took a particularly interesting turn with the final scene, which featured sustainable and environmentally friendly fashions, all produced by local artists, including a vast amount of student-created artwork. This was an incredibly special scene to witness, because it tied in to our zeitgeist as Columbia students and particularly showed our dedication to sustainable fashion. Lead makeup director Anisa Tavangar is a major part of Hoot, Columbia’s fashion magazine, which also featured an article on sustainable fashion in last semester’s edition. Lunar Gala’s fashion show this year was comprised of four unique looks, which Anisa’s team spent hours bringing to fruition. However, all of the looks maintained a sense of unity by incorporating bright, gold detailing and edgy hair.

After the Gala wrapped up and we snapped out of our amazed hypnosis (it must have been something with the moon phases…?), we finished off the night at KSA’s Escape party. We gotta say, overall, it was an amazing evening and a job astonishingly well done by all parties involved in the Gala last night.

All photos courtesy of Andrea Arellano