Making Change
Caring for our community
Robinson International Show
A colorful celebration of student culture
Above: Pauline Thai’s daughter (in red) performs the Vietnamese Lion Dance. (Photo: MainStreet Bank)
It’s a Thursday night and families are packed in the James W. Robinson Jr. Secondary School auditorium, in Fairfax, Virginia. The lights dim and the crowd goes quiet as students dressed in costumes from all over the world come out on stage and welcome the audience in 11 languages. It’s time for the Robinson International Show!
MainStreet Bank’s Pauline Thai, Portfolio Manager, AVP, is using her $1,000 Making Change donation to help the school put on next year’s show. But tonight she’s here to see her youngest daughter perform two dances with the Vietnamese Student Association.
It’s the first time the school’s been able to hold the show since Covid, and the students have worked hard on their acts. For the next hour and a half, they present over a dozen performances that represent 12 different countries. There’s a Bollywood dance, a live K-Pop band, a historical Chinese fashion show, an East African dance medley, and a powerful warrior dance from the Tobas indigenous people of Bolivia.
The crowd cheers as the show ends with a parade of nations, where all the students come on stage carrying flags and dancing to the song “We are Family” by Sister Sledge.
Top left: a student performs a dance from Nepal. Top right: a Tobas warrior dance. Bottom left: a Bollywood performance. Bottom right: a K-pop dance group. (Photos: MainStreet Bank)
The Robinson International Show is organized by two student clubs: the Asian Student Association and the Latin American Student Association international. One of the organizers, a student named Rebecca, wrote in the program that she used to feel she had to hide her interests in Korean dance and Taekwondo to fit in. But now she’s learned to embrace her cultural heritage. She sees the International Show as not only a way to share her culture, but also as a way to show younger students that they can be proud of their roots.
Pauline said she loves to see young people carrying on their cultures and sharing them with the community. Her youngest daughter is headed off to college, so she decided to donate to next year’s show to make sure it would continue on.
“It’s good to learn about different cultures,” she said. “I wanted to pass it along to the next generation and keep it going.”
On stage, the students take a final bow as the audience gives them a standing ovation.
“Our world has so much to offer,” said one of the student hosts.
And so do the students of Robinson Secondary School.
To learn more about Robinson Secondary School visit robinsonss.fcps.edu