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Fifth-year WAC student Peggy Nguyen’s senior project portrays wartime Vietnamese immigrants

While many UCLA students are in woe over the sixth week stresses of midterms and papers, others are dealing with the anxiety of putting on their own show. Starting today, a selection of 21 seniors in the UCLA World Arts and Cultures Department are performing in “Go Figure!,” a collection of senior projects in which each student creates a seven to nine minute performance piece on a topic of their choosing.

And these projects are hardly the haphazard result of a Red Bull-induced all-nighter. The formal rehearsal process starts in fall quarter, and many WAC students begin thinking about it long before. The performance is meant to be a culmination of all they have learned during their UCLA careers in performing arts and academics, as well as a display of their personal experiences.

“My piece basically reflects my journey to my becoming a woman over the past four years I’ve been in college,” said fourth-year WAC student Alexie Agdeppa of her piece, “Essences of a Woman.” In it, she experiments by dancing with blindfolds and on relevee, and breathing is emphasized rather than being accompanied by music.

“I took a kinesiology class, and that’s where I got the idea for breath. I thought it would be interesting to try to dance without musical accompaniment and try to dance with your internal rhythm,” Agdeppa said.

Meredith Flores, also a fourth-year WAC student, was inspired by memories of people who have come in and out of her life, especially her family and friends in the Philippines.

“Memory may serve as a vehicle to our past, but (it) can also reflect a distortion of the truth,” Flores said.

Flores uses jazz and modern dance with a video presentation for her piece, “Did I Remember Right ... Right ... Right?”

Not all the projects are dance performances, however. The students were given a lot of freedom in choosing a method of display – the only restraint was to come up with a thesis on which to base their project.

Fourth-year WAC student Monica Gray wrote a paper on Bruin Walk and decided to put it into a monologue and video. Her piece, titled “Bruin Walk,” is based on her belief that the thoroughfare is a microcosm of the UCLA campus.

“I’m trying to be funny, entertaining. It’s a new thing that I’m exploring. I’m a dancer, and I’ve never done anything like this before,” Gray said.

Others explore personal cultural issues. Vanessa Sinai, a fourth-year WAC student with a cultural studies concentration, is presenting a photography and writing exhibit titled, “Cuba Querida – A Study of the Jewish Diaspora in Cuba.” Her father is a Cuban Jew, both of her grandparents being Jewish immigrants to Cuba.

“I went there last summer. I had a visa and brought humanitarian aid. This project is an important milestone in understanding my own cultural identity,” Sinai said.

With such a wide array of performances and issues addressed, “Go Figure!” seems a fitting title.

“Its very WAC,” Gray said.