Students raise money for educational projects in developing countriesAs Neimy Miller takes the center of the floor, all eyes turn to her bright purple skirt and plastic flowers. The music starts and the 19-year-old shyly circles her hips and makes vine-like motions with her arms. She’s telling a Micronesian love story through dance.

“It would be beautiful if Micronesian boys were here,” Miller says.

What she doesn’t realize is that for her audience, it’s enchanting anyway.

Miller is one of 25 Tongue Point Job Corps students preparing for the World Festival at Astoria High School.

LORI ASSA – The Daily Astorian

Phuong Van Horn, a teacher at Tongue Point, demonstrates for John Dodge-Perez, who is wearing the paunch and attire of the “earth man,” how to taunt the Chinese dragon with a fan, waddle and rub his belly.Saturday’s festival is a community event to raise awareness of international issues and the kick-off program for Operation Days Work, a student-run organization that raises money for education-related projects in developing countries.

Astoria High School students have participated in Operation Days Work for four years, making donations to Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nepal. This year the money they raise will go to developing schools in Sierra Leone.

The co-sponsored festival is slated to include a mix of traditional dancing, a MORE INFO.World Festival

Noon to 6 p.m., Saturday

Astoria High School Commons

Admission: Freemulti-cultural fashion show, informational displays, games and international food.

Local businesses are providing treats from Germany, India, Mexico and other countries. The Scandinavian Dancers are going to perform, and a Jewish folk band will play.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize how many other cultures there are in Astoria besides Scandinavian,” says Nikole Engel, a AHS senior who is helping coordinate the project.

At the rehearsal, Joe Riak, 25, and Anthony Garang, 23, are dressed in Sudanese ajims, or skirts. Strings of colored beads drip from their necks.

“The use of beads is tradition and to make the dance look beautiful,” Garang explains, jingling the bells tied around his left ankle.

Riak, Garang and their group are going to perform three traditional dances for the festival.

LORI ASSA – The Daily Astorian

Adorned in beads and ajims, skirts of their native Sudan, William Maduok, left, and Anthony Garang dance as Pabior Ador, right, drums a traditional beat.The first focuses on the leader and the community and how people manage to survive the war in Sudan. The second song is about a man whose woman was kidnapped. The final song encourages people to fight for peace and justice.

“I think it’s going to be new to them, and special to learn about a different culture,” Garang says.

Trung Hoang, 21, who is originally from Vietnam, props up the papier mache and cardboard head of a dragon in his hands. The dragon’s body, complete with cloth scales, is stretched out like a bearskin rug on the ground.

“The Dragon Dance brings good luck to businesses and New Year … chases the bad spirits away,” he says.

Hoang says the dance is based on animal movement.

“If you watch how a dog walks, lays down, you kind of do that.”

Phuong Van Horn, an on-call substitute at Tongue Point and the force behind the World Festival, says it has been challenging to encourage the students to showcase their countries’ cultures.

“It’s because of the language barrier and they’re shy and fearful,” she says. “You have to give them a pep talk and bribe them.”

Van Horn said that events such as the World Festival remind students of who they are and the beautiful traditions they come from.

“They come here and it’s so rich and so fast,” she says. “Some people don’t even want to wear their outfit. That’s sad.”

But she says after the students get on stage, they forget their reservations.

“They always feel good, happy and proud after it’s over.”