By SUZANNE MOORE
PLATTSBURGH — In their minds, Jin Xiong and Yi Song will imagine a peacock.
"How they turn around, how they move their legs "¦" said Song.
And the Plattsburgh State students will dance.
The Flying Peacock is a much-loved folk dance of the Yunnan Province of China, one that signifies good luck and is performed at such special events as Chinese New Year celebrations.
"It's just so pretty," said Fred Zheng, stage manager for Saturday's Night of Nations, when the pair will introduce the dance to the Plattsburgh community.
This is the fifth year that Plattsburgh State has celebrated International Week, which is capped off by the evening of performances from around the world.
"This year, it's going to be the best," said the Plattsburgh State senior and biology major, whose native country is also China.
The event at Hawkins Hall will feature more acts — a total 17 — and more diversity than ever before, he said. International students, also from Japan, Vietnam, India, the African country of Ghana, Brazil and the Caribbean, will sing, dance, put on a fashion show. And, representing the United States will be the Plattsburgh State Gospel Choir and an act made up of American students playing guitar and singing some traditional songs.
For the first time, Night of Nations will be open to the public, and organizers expect last year's attendance of 200-plus will swell to more than 600.
The event, with more than 70 involved backstage, onstage and in promotion, is hosted by the International Student Services, the campus's new Club International, College Auxiliary Services and the theater department.
FAN DANCE
Plattsburgh State has almost 500 international students on campus this year from more than 60 countries, with most coming from Japan and Canada, said Kate Friedrich, graduate assistant for International Student Services at the university.
As of the onset of this year's first semester, more students from other countries attended Plattsburgh State than any other school in the SUNY system.
The slate of Night of Nations acts demonstrates the enthusiasm international students have for sharing their cultures, Friedrich said. From the Japanese Cultural Association at Plattsburgh (JCAP), 30 or so members will sing and dance. Six or so dancers from Ghana will perform. The fashion show will feature clothes of the Caribbean.
And also hitting the stage will be The Visionaries, a dance troupe with representatives of several nationalities that was voted best dance group of 2009 by the campus community.
Song and Xiong, joined by four other Chinese students, will also perform a fan dance, blending traditional and modern steps.
"They created this dance by themselves," Zheng said. "I saw them practicing it — it was very good."
The fan, wielded in the hand of a practiced female, can express a multitude of feelings.
"They can show their personality just with the fan," he said.
Song, from near Shanghai and a junior studying finance, and Xiong, from Hunan Province and also a junior, with a nutrition major, both took lessons as children to learn the peacock dance. They don't expect Americans to know the tradition behind it, for they have found there is little knowledge about their country here except for major events and cities.
And, of course, Chinese food.
There are 56 separate cultures in China, Zheng said, and the Peacock Dance is a sampling from just one of them.
"It's quite classic," Xiong said.
The young women are a bit nervous about performing before a large crowd, though they got a warm-up of sorts at last weekend's Moon Festival, when they danced the fan number with the rest of their group.
And they are eager to see the rest of the performances.
"It's a cultural exchange," Song said.
E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com
