Last Friday evening, Levin Ballroom looked nothing like it has ever looked before. Bright lights adorned the ceiling, the walls and the stage, and the audience's excitement filled the room. The audience was itching for the much-anticipated show, K-Nite Star. Sponsored by the Brandeis Korean Student Association, K-Nite featured various performing acts, and the audience voted for a winner at the end of the show. K-Nite mixed traditional Korean culture with a modern twist-a spin-off of Korea's televised nationwide talent show, the popular K-

POP Star, Korea's televised nationwide talent show.
For the most part, the show did a great job in showcasing modern Korean pop culture, grounded in traditional performance, blending the contemporary with deep history. They served traditional Korean cuisine-rice, Kimchi, Bulgogi and Japchae-while blaring popular K-Pop music from the speakers.

The BKSA girl group Fan-Narra gracefully glided through a traditional fan dance, creating vivid fan-shaped illusions as their pink skirts paralleled the flowing movement of the fans. Halfway through their performance, they slyly transformed into little-black-dress clad dancing vixens, evolving from traditional garb into modern and fashionable Korean style. They continued to perform the Korean fan dance, but with an edgy and innovative twist. The juxtaposition of the old and new intrigued, compressing centuries of Korean culture into one exciting night.

However, the performances were far from perfect, and some did prove awkward and uncoordinated. The lackluster emcees did little to excite the audience, staring nervously at their notecards the entire night. Guest performer LK, a New Jersey Korean-American rapper, floundered with technical difficulties (the electrical cord disconnected from his microphone within the first minute of his performance), and struggled through minutes of performance while pounding background tracks drowned out his verses. His odd pelvis thrusts seemed to excite the audience, but frankly looked like a overly sexualized Elvis impersonation. While he laboriously gave his performance his full energy, there was something sadly missing to bring it all together.

BKSA's a cappella group Rhythm, Blues and Seoul also began equally as worrisomely. They disappointed with flat background harmonies and less-than-coordinated dance moves, but as their performance continued, they kicked up the energy with their humorous rendition of PSY's "Gangnam Style." Though their amateurish quality made it evident that they were a relatively new group, they shone with soulful high notes and fresh musical choices.

The guest group Massachusetts Institute of Technology Oori, a traditional percussion music troupe, proved very impressive and stood out among previous groups. Their resonantly vibrant and intricate beats fluctuated in volume and in tempo. Throwing their bodies into Poongmool and Samulnori styled music, they mesmerized and entranced the entire room. Their electricity flowed through years of history, keeping the show grounded in the roots of Korean performance culture. 

Yet, the group who truly stole the show was the Brandeis rock band IndiGo6, causing the ladies in the audience to swoon and scream. With their Justin-Bieber-styled hair cuts and their boy band feeling, they ran the risk of entering territory that can only be categorized as "utterly corny," but their funky rhythms and punching percussions succeeded in submerging the room with a musical frenzy. They struck a high note with the audience, who voted them best performing act of the night, proving that the language of music speaks just as forcefully across all cultures.

BKSA's K-Nite Star proved to be a night of duality. It mixed deeply traditional Korean performance with exciting contemporary K-Pop production. It shone with electric highs, but, in the same manner, sometimes flopped with disappointing lows. Yet, the audience seemed to enjoy every minute of it, and the jam-packed room was filled with continual screams and applause. Everybody left energized and delighted-and regardless of the caliber of each performance, K-Nite Star turned out to be a huge success.