Walk It Out celebrates West’s diversity
Students came together to celebrate diversity during West High’s Walk It Out through a multicultural fashion show
Students and families gathered in the West High cafeteria on Saturday, March 31 to enjoy the second annual Walk It Out.
Sophia Chen ’19, one of the leaders of the event, commented on what the event entails.
“Walk It Out is a multicultural fashion show… that showcases diversity through fashion, music and dance. A bunch of the cultural groups at West High get a chance to showcase the visual and musical aspects of their culture, which is really cool,” said Chen. “The event itself has been around for a while at the University of Iowa, but last year was the first time we had one at West. We use all of our ticket sales to donate to the University of Iowa HIV clinic.”
Although the event was challenging, Chen believes it’s worth it.
“Doing an event like this is always pretty difficult logistically, but since we had to coordinate a bunch of different groups together, it was even more so. Luckily, I wasn’t alone in planning the event out, but it has definitely been a long journey to get to the end,” Chen said. “I will say that I was extremely relieved when the show was done. I really felt like our work had paid off given the audience’s reactions. I even found out that we had over 240 people in attendance, which totally blew me away.”
Students put in hours of work to perfect their performances, including performer Khushi Kapoor ’18. She said that her favorite memory of this year’s show was the South Asia dance.
“[The group] decided we wanted to do a dance the day of the show, so starting at 1:30 we started choreographing and after many run-throughs and lots of stress we were able to put something partly acceptable on stage a few hours later,” Kapoor said.
According to Kapoor, all students should participate.
“It’s a great time to showcase your culture and origin because nowadays there aren’t many opportunities to do so,” she said.
There were some newcomers that attended the event for the first time. Madeleine Roberts-Ganim ‘19 was one of them.
“I had a blast. I would not want to miss out on all the awesome clothing, food and dance,” Roberts-Ganim said. “It was so cool to … glimpse into so many different cultures, and frankly, I didn’t want the night to end!”
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