The 8th annual Barrio Fiesta,
held Friday, Feb. 19, attracted a room full of students and community members
for an evening of food, games, and music. The evening began with a blessing
over the food served, a buffet of traditional Filipino cuisine. By 6:30 the
line for food stretched the length of the conference room as people filled
their plates.
As each person entered the fiesta,
raffle tickets were handed out for the three prize drawings held throughout the
evening. Prizes for the raffle included gift cards to Subway and Starbucks, and
chocolate bars. For those wanting to up their chances of winning, more tickets
could be bought for one dollar a ticket.
Spaced throughout the night like
the raffle drawings, the games and performances kept fiesta-goers laughing and
entertained. The games included a Filipino flag drawing contest, “Chubby Bunny”
featuring Filipino words[1]
and a “Singing Bee.” While the crowd enthusiastically cheered the best flag drawing
to victory and urged “Chubby Bunny” participants to stuff more marshmallows in
their mouths, the crowd favorite seemed to be the “Singing Bee.” Volunteer
singers were asked to listen to a song, and finish the following lyrics when
the music stopped. The crowd actively sang along with the contestants to Adele,
Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys and Miley Cyrus, as the winner of the
contest was chosen by process of elimination. Music seemed the star of the
night as SMU Moves performed an awesome dance montage preceding the last event
of the night: musical entertainment by Melvin Gutierrez and Jeremy Passion.
The
highlight of the night was the music provided by the two guest singers from San
Francisco. Gutierrez began with ukulele covers of songs ranging from Bob Marley
to Justin Bieber to Ed Sheeran. As custom for the crowd that evening, everyone
sang along to the well known songs beautifully sang by Gutierrez. This was
Gutierrez’s third consecutive year performing for SMU Barrio and he was a crowd
favorite.
Following
Gutierrez, many from the crowd moved from their tables to sit directly in front
of the stage and Passion performed songs written by himself. His set included a
tribute to his mother, called “32,” and a single he is releasing next week called
“All Smiles.” He ended the night with his popular song “Lemonade.”
The Barrio
Fiesta was a wonderful success. Countless people gathered for delicious food,
hilarious entertainment and beautiful music. The laughter of happy individuals
enjoying themselves was only outdone by the amount of singing everyone did when
not laughing. Before his set, Passion stated that he hoped to “find common
ground through music.” The Filipino Heritage Club successfully brought a large
group of people together through the same sentiment; all who attended found
common ground through Filipino food, games and music.
Find
Melvin Gutierrez music on youtube.com/melvinsings, or follow him in instagram
at @melvinsings. Connect with Jeremy Passion by visiting his website,
jeremypassion.com, where you can access his music and social media accounts
[1]
“Chubby Bunny:” a game that has contestants place marshmallows in their mouths
and repeat words or phrases. Marshmallows are continuously added until
contestants can no longer speak or are forced to spit the mallows out. Last
contestant standing wins!
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