The Asian American Students Association had its annual SKIN fashion show on Saturday in Levin Ballroom. The celebration, featuring An Vo, was met with very positive responses.SKIN was started in 2001 as a show designed to promote awareness of Asian culture and to prove that Asians are more than just the stereotypical math and science student. It has now become the high point of Brandeis' celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. To do this they assembled performers ranging from a composing Lego artist to a multi-cultural rap ensemble to a hard rock band.

The show started out with a runway filled with traditional Asian clothing representing a wide variety of nationalities. The models were accompanied by Top Score, a Brandeis orchestra which specializes in performing songs from soundtracks. Led by Masaya Uchino '06, the orchestra played the theme from Spiderman for the models and then the symphonic suite from Lord of the Rings on their own.

Following Top Score were performances from a spoken word artist Shiuan Butler and folk singer Melissa Li. Butler performed first, she recited a piece about Asian American heroines, describing them as women who were strong enough to stand up for themselves and empower their lives. Li followed and played a very Ani DiFranco inspired piece, which was surprisingly good for a college folk artist. They combined to perform a piece called "Our Youth," which demanded that youth not be treated as a crime.

Another fashion show followed, this time presented by Blacklava, an Asian company which tries to uses its products to help further the notion that Asians are not stereotypes. Their T-shirts, bare such phrases as "I do not do math," and "I will not love you long time." To hammer home the message and close the show, the last model came out in a shirt that said stereotype and ripped it in half.

Henry Lim, a composer, writer and Lego artist performed an untitled piece that he described as "a break from his traditional classical works." The song was very poppy and accompanied his slide show art presentation. Lim has constructed paintings and mosaics of everything from dinosaurs to the Beatles.

After a brief intermission, we were introduced to Kite Operation. Kite Operation is a very loud emo/hard rock band, which had a rather impressive set of songs for that genre. Their two frontmen Joseph Kim and David Yang were really putting it all into their performance, so much that they actually bled from playing their guitars. Though they spent too much time plugging their "merch" stand and despite the obvious iTunes background on the screen, the show was quite good, and with only a five song set managed to show quite a bit of variety and depth.

Masia One followed with a performance full of technical difficulties; however, the lack of a background beat created the opportunity for them to openly freestyle with the audience. The two soloist got the crowd clapping and freestyled about Asian culture and how Levin looks a like a gymnasium. They tried very hard to get the audience into their performance, and were met with some success despite a wearying crowd. Their song, "Second Strike," split the audience in two as the performed a call and response rap.

The evening closed with two fashion shows from GeeHa and Nautica. GeeHa, which is designed by Gloria Ha '05, was visually impressive and extremely flattering. Many of clothes seemed fitted for the particular models that wore them, which really set the wardrobe apart from some of the others that were presented.

Nautica, while not a student designer or one that speaks to the specific intent of SKIN, was founded by David Chu in 1983 and has since helped to revolutionize the sportswear industry. It incorporated high technology with fashion sense and new fabrics. Nautica is now one of the most popular and respected fashion houses in the entire industry. So really, Chu is another one of the many example of an Asian breaking from stereotypes to find successful careers beyond math and science.

Overall, the show was quite a success. Despite the low attendance of a Saturday night, all of the performers really tried to put on a good show for the audience that was there. Patrick Sherman '05 and Maggie Del Sid '06 did a fine job as MC's and kept the audience entertained during the long transitions between performances.