Editors Note: On February 9th, 2026 there was a correction made to the last name of “Hammond” and “Keppler”. 

At the Taiwanese Culture Show, Maxwell Hammond, the president of the Taiwanese Student Association, had two goals. 

Hammond defined the first goal as “spreading a message to the [Taiwanese] population, our mission is to give Taiwanese people, domestic and international, a place for them to feel free and feel like themselves.” 

The second goal was directed toward the non-Taiwanese guests. 

“To learn more about us, who we are as a group, and hopefully they feel safe enough for themselves to feel free and express themselves while learning about our culture,” Hammond said.

People slowly started entering the event space, greeted by the mini flags of Taiwan that framed the entire room. The room was filled with laughter and conversations. 

As people finished grabbing the native Taiwanese dishes that TWSA prepared, the lights slowly dimmed, and the show began. 

Hammond and his co-host, Han Ting, started off with brief introductions and expressed their pride for being Taiwanese.

“I’m proud to say I’m Taiwanese American. We share our culture with everyone here tonight,” Hammond said.

Hammond then introduced all the officers of the TWSA, personally thanking them for their help with organizing and putting the night together.

The hosts introduced their first performers, exclaiming that the upcoming performances would bring in good luck, the first group was The Lion Dance group at Oregon State University.

This group to come on stage featured three dragons, one drummer, and one cymbalist. The three dragons were expressed in three different colors, one was bright red that had yellow accents, one was vibrant pink with white accents, and the last one was yellow with red accents.

The musicians began, each of the dragon dance performers successfully showcased their talents and tricks with a synchronized dance and individual solos. The audience’s enthusiasm only started to escalate when the dragons came down to the main floor and danced around the tables, having full and close interactions with the audience.

The second performance was Kinetic, a kpop-based dance group here at OSU. For the first part of the performance, the dancers entered the stage with light blue and white casual clothing. They performed with a song from a Taiwanese pop girl group. 

The audience cheered for each dance member’s appearance and their exciting instrumental dance break. The second half of the performance was a dance from a Taiwanese boy pop group, a new set of dancers came in and wore clothing that had dark blue and white colors. 

The dancers continued to charm the audience with their movement, ending their performance with the final bow.

The third act was by a professional dance company, The Eastern Traditional Dance Company. Their performance consisted of cultural dance with added contemporary dance elements. 

The dancers wore significant cultural costumes, using different sets of props for each dance. The first part of the performance involved traditional red lanterns into their dance performance. 

In the second half, they wore a head piece with a long feather sticking out, they used that feather to complete their movements, making the audience memorized with each step they took. 

The fourth act was a dance performed by Anomly, an Asian Pop Dance Group at OSU. The dance started with the whole group, to then split off with a duet, the duet consisted of contemporary-hiphop dance fusion, the two dancers then split to having one dancer perform a contemporary dance solo on the stage.

The audience cheered for each technique the dancer executed. For the second part of the performance, Anomaly performed a dance from a girl pop group that contained hard hitting hiphop with feminine elements and a boy pop group with masculine hiphop movement, their sharp facial expressions and impressive dance breaks successfully swayed the audience.

Entering the fifth act, TWSA alumni known only as Kevin, came on stage to sing a variety of soft and slow songs. Even without dancing, Kevin continued to impress the audience with his singing talents and showed their appreciation by waving their hands and flashlights to the rhythm of the songs. 

Hammond and Han appeared back on stage to start off TWSA’s raffle. People cheered and jumped up and down when they realized their numbers were called. TWSA’s prizes contained multiple goods such as giftcards, blindboxes, a boba station, and a hotpot cooking set.

Intermission arrived. In a conversation, Hammond, Yutaro Enoki, TWSA’s vice president, and Haley Keppler, TWSA’s treasurer, shared a few words. 

Keppler shared, “Leading up to it and being really nervous about it, you’re always worried about what can go wrong. But during it, it’s like the anxiety is worth it, and it’s a lot of fun.” She continued, “It was really awesome to see people’s reactions and everything.”

“I’m just so happy we could get this amount of performers on stage tonight, it took so much effort to do that, that’s what I’m happy about right now.” Enoki said.

The event resumed from intermission, the next set of performers were called up, the Dragonfly Yo-Yo Sisters. In their matching and sparkly outfits, the two sisters impressed the audience with their yo-yo skills. From doing tricks with one hand, to throwing and passing the yo-yo to each other, they kept the audience’s attention throughout their performance.

Last performer, known as EJEAN, a singer based in the Bay Area, California, performed a couple of her original songs and covered a few songs from another known music artist, Keshi. EJEAN’s voice and guitar skills captivated the audience, her Rnb pop based songs and in-between song conversations built a rapport with the audience. It perfectly tied a bow onto end TWSA’s cultural night, wrapping up the evening.

As night came to a close, TWSA’s team came back on stage, giving out their thanks and goodbyes. TWSA cheered with joy, celebrating the cultural night’s success with a loving group photo on stage.