Nationality rooms celebrate culture with food and dance

Sporting black pants and gold necklaces and coins, Pittsburgh’s Grecian Odyssey Dancers… Sporting black pants and gold necklaces and coins, Pittsburgh’s Grecian Odyssey Dancers performed the Kalamatiano, the national dance of Greece, as onlookers munched on hummus and sipped sangria in the Cathedral of Learning Saturday night.

More than 100 community members celebrated the 70th anniversaries of both the Syria-Lebanon and Greek nationality rooms on Saturday by holding a banquet and awards ceremony with dancers for entertainment. Both rooms are located on the first floor of the Cathedral, but serve as more than classrooms. This year, various nationality room committees awarded 43 scholarships to students doing research abroad this year.

The Syria-Lebanon room committee awarded its scholarship to Margaret O’Brien, a graduate student in Pitt’s School of Public and International Affairs. She will study how the Syrian government has been handling the huge numbers of Christian refugees fleeing to the country from Iraq. The Greek nationality room committee did not award any scholarships this year.

In addition to traditional pita and hummus, both rooms offered ethnic dancing groups. Our Lady of Victory Dancers performed Lebanese dances in costumes of green, red and black, the national colors of Lebanon. The Grecian Odyssey Dancers, a Pittsburgh group, took viewers “on an Odyssey through Greece and its dances,” director Mary Doreza said.

E. Maxine Bruhns, director of the nationality rooms, said that this event served two purposes: bringing Pittsburgh’s ethnic communities together and celebrating the contributions the nationality room program has made to academics at the University. Since 1948, the various rooms have awarded more than  $2 million in the form of more than 1,000 individual scholarships.

At a time of great political turmoil in the Middle East, Edward Lesoon Jr., chairman of the Syria-Lebanon room, said formal community gatherings like this one are increasingly important.

“The Middle East is going through a very sensitive time. If we can come together in a formal setting and share our music, our dance and our culture, it can show the people of Pittsburgh” that the region has a rich history and unity, Lesoon said.

The Mediterranean countries have more in common than their nationality room anniversaries, said Pennie Hareras, the chairwoman of the Greek Nationality Room Committee.

“Syria, Lebanon and Greece have very similar cultures, religious beliefs, food, dance and music, so this event is a nice fit for us,” she said.

Speaking at the event, Bruhns implored students to seize “this incredible opportunity and see the world.” Other speakers at the event stressed that connecting youth to the culture of their home countries is vitally important in keeping the spirit of the nationality rooms alive. Traditions can serve as a “security blanket of culture [people] should never let go of,” Lesoon said.

Lesoon is part of the second generation in his family to chair the Syria-Lebanon room. Born to a Syrian mother and a Lebanese father, Lesoon’s family seems a natural fit for the room. But the history of the room is also tied to his family’s own history.

The Syrian-Lebanese community in Pittsburgh has always been tightly knit, but originally had no formal organization outside of the churches, Lesoon said. As the University began adding nationality rooms, the community saw an opportunity to celebrate and share its culture.

The Syrian-Lebanese room itself did a lot of traveling before arriving at Pitt. It was originally built for a wealthy merchant in Damascus in 1782 before being taken apart and reassembled by an art dealer in New York. Then, a Pitt professor, Nicholas Bitar, visited the well-preserved room with the dealer.

Bruhns was eager to point out that the professor was able to bargain the price down to a mere $8,500 from the original asking price. After that, the room was broken down and put back together in the Cathedral.

“After my father [Edward Lasoon, Sr.] heard that the room had been found, he became overwhelmingly involved in the project,” Lesoon said.

But while Pitt acquired the intricate paneling and woodwork for a deal, it was so rare and fragile that the room needed to be locked to prevent theft and damage, and Pitt unlocked it only for tours and spcial events.

Disappointed that the culture was locked away from public view, Lesoon helped fundraise for the purchase of the glass door that now guards the fragile artifacts within. The Lesoon family business, Asia Carpet and Decorating, donated the original carpeting for the room and replaced it again a decade ago.

The other hosting room, the Greek room was built with the cooperation of the Greek government between 1938 and 1940. The designer, John Travlos, ordered for the room pure white marble from Mount Penteli in Northern Athens — the same type of marble used to build the Parthenon. The marble was cut by the same company that provided marble for the reconstruction of the Acropolis, Hareras said.

The cut marble was quickly loaded onto a ship and sent to America. One week later, Italy invaded Greece and closed the Mediterranean to American shipping. Travlos would never oversee the construction of the room due to the war. But listening to a BBC broadcast one night on his illicit shortwave radio, Travlos was able to listen to the dedication of his room, Bruhns said.