The Guangdong Tigers placed first in International Society’s talent show, March 21. PHOTO COURTESY OF MASSAMBA DORSEY ’26
International Society hosted its last talent show on the University City campus in the Athletic/Recreation Center March 21.
The annual event featured 11 different acts, with performances from dance groups, singers and a band, all organized by International Society, a multicultural organization on the UCity campus that celebrates the diversity of different cultures. Jessica Sautter, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology; Beatrice Bolger, International Society’s founder and former advisor; and Tyler Tillinghast ’24, former president of International Society, served as judges.
Serena Liao ’25 and Lina Basheir ’25, president and vice president of International Society, respectively, were in charge of putting on the show. Liao said she is unsure exactly how many years the club has put on the show, but she estimated it has been running over 10 years.
Due to St. Joe’s plans to sell multiple buildings on the UCity campus, International Society expects spring 2025 to be their last talent show in UCity.
“We wanted to have it as kind of a last hurrah for the UCity campus because they are trying to sell it,” Liao said.
Liao said she hopes International Society can expand to Hawk Hill in the fall 2025 semester, but transferring the club and recruiting on a new campus will take time.
“I think [having the talent show on Hawk Hill] would be a great opportunity to expand our outreach to that campus with those students,” Liao said. “We wanted to expand onto that campus this year. It was just really hard with interest, and because we were still at our campus, we had to finalize everything here and then branch over. It’s obviously not going to happen overnight.”
When planning, International Society reached out to groups on campus who may be interested and asked people if they knew anyone who might want to participate. These groups included UCity-based dance groups and a UCity rock band called Dose of Harmony.
“It’s so amazing to see how much talent we have here,” Basheir said. “I feel like we focus on academics and school so much that we don’t recognize the talent that we have on campus.”
Along with Dose of Harmony, six dance groups and five singers performed. Sejin Kim ’26 is a member of Z-Nith, a K-pop dance group that performed in the first half of the show. Kim, who is from Korea, started dancing as a hobby and wanted to continue that into college.
“I used to dance in Korea, so I wanted to dance again,” Kim said.
Aastha Morker ’24, PharmD ’28, another member of Z-Nith, also joined the team after picking up dance as a hobby. Morker said her favorite part of being in the group is the friendships she’s developed with the other dancers.
‘We’re all in a big friend group,” Morker said. “When we correct each other, we all make sense. We all know that it’s for the best of the group, so it’s fun to do that.”
Sautter, who had most of the performers as students, was asked by Basheir to be a judge. Sautter said she loves seeing the performers share talents that aren’t shown in the classroom.
“Everybody here is exceptionally smart, exceptionally driven,” Sautter said. “They’re all doing fantastic things in science and healthcare, but then seeing them dance and sing and have fun together is amazing.”
After the show concluded, the judges tallied up their scores and crowned first, second and third-place winners. Dose of Harmony, who performed covers of “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes and “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne, placed third. Dhadkan, a Bollywood fusion dance team, placed second. Guangdong Tigers, a hip hop/R&B group who performed a cover of “Worth It” by YK Osiris, took first.
Guangdong Tigers, who got their name from a line on “Inside the NBA,” a popular basketball talk show, started rehearsing about a week before the talent show. Eli Gan-Dy ’25, a member of the group, said the choreography was a collaborative effort between all five members.
Gan-Dy said the talent show was an opportunity for the UCity campus to “have everyone together,” even though the campus “has gone through a lot of changes.”
“We didn’t really have winning on our minds. We just wanted to spread positivity and joy to the University City campus, and that was our main goal,” Gan-Dy said.