About 31,000 undergraduate students attend UCLA, but less than 30 of them identify as Hmong. A small group of Hmong students formed the Hmong Arts Collective in fall 2017 as a collaborative space to come together and celebrate their ethnic and cultural identity by supporting and critiquing each other’s artwork. The members of the group […]
Author Archives: Sage Bitter
Dance allows student to embrace identity, find support from community
The concrete floors and booming music of parking lot dance practices are major sources of stress relief for Justine Banal. The fourth-year Asian American studies student, who has danced competitively since high school, said her rehearsals are a therapeutic outlet for her depression. At UCLA, Banal began dancing with NSU Modern, before co-founding an exhibition […]
Modern version of Greek classic aims to highlight future of women
The cast and crew of “Trojan Barbie” prepared for their first dress rehearsal on a stage littered with dismembered doll parts. Directed by Beth Lopes and written by Christine Evans, “Trojan Barbie” is a reinvention of Euripides’ “The Trojan Women” starring a cast of primarily female UCLA students. The play tells the story of Lotte, […]
Theater student crafts symbolism into stage costume design
Kaylin Riebli discovered her love for costume design while crafting her first grade Halloween witch ensemble. When she was a child, the second-year theater student bought Halloween costumes with her mother and customized them until they became her own creations, changing the color of the buckles on a leprechaun outfit or the texture of a […]