Bridgewater, Va.- On March 15 in Cole Hall, the African Student Association held their annual Afrofest. The theme this year was “vibrance,” and a series of performances choreographed and performed by members of AFSA were featured during the event.

“We decided to go big with the patterns and the colors. We wanted a more modern theme,” said senior and AFSA president Janae Ackerman during a promotional video shown at the beginning of the event.

After the promotional video, Ackerman walked down the Cole Hall aisle, modeling a colorfully patterned dress and matching headband.

Ackerman and senior Amere Langley co-hosted the production. The first main event was a dance choreographed by sophomore Jadon Goldsmith.

“I am doing choreography for Afrofest. The song I chose was ‘DON’T JEALOUS ME,’ sung by Tekno and Yemi Alada. I chose this song because it has a really nice beat to it, so even if you don’t understand the words, you can groove to the beat,” said Goldsmith during the introductory video.

After Goldsmith’s dance, there was a fashion show where members of the club modeled and posed in vibrant attire, and continued down the center aisle for an up-close view of the fashion.

Following the fashion show, sophomore King Bandz performed an original song titled “Taking Time,” encouraging the audience to clap along to the beat.

Following a brief intermission, Langley led a game using volunteers from the crowd. The game involved all volunteers pairing up and placing a plastic cup between them.

Then, following a game of “Simon Says,” Langley would count to three, and the pair would race to the plastic cup between them. Whoever grabbed the cup first would then answer a trivia question.

If they answered correctly, they were safe. Otherwise, they were disqualified, and the opposing participant would be able to steal.

The winner of this game was senior Larissa Niles. Ackerman and Langley then held a raffle for a Polaroid camera.

Following the intermission, first-year Jamiah Mark performed a step routine. The routine utilized no background music as she created the beat with her movements and sang along.

The final performance of the night was a dance choreographed by junior and AFSA social media manager BK Fru. Dancers wore brightly colored shirts, further sticking to the theme of vibrance.

“The artist who wrote the song we used passed the weekend before Afrofest, so it added more emotion to the dance we performed. It showed respect to the artist and shared our culture at the same time,” said Fru.

The song used for her dance was “Big Flexa” by Costa Titch.

To end the event, AFSA members walked down the aisle with the flags of their respective African states.

After the event, AFSA invited students to join them for a reception in the Kline Campus Center lobby, where there was a backdrop with balloons for photos.

“I feel like AFSA is a place where people can come together, hang out and just relax and just spend good time with each other,” said Ackerman in the video played at the start of the event.