Those who braved the steep incline of Libe Slope last Saturday night were greeted by a familiar sound in an unfamiliar context: The deep, pumping bass one would normally hear in a dance club was bellowing out from Ho Plaza, and the jumbled sound of several hundred voices, coming from the same general direction, rolled down the hill and towards the gothics. Residents filed out of Cook, Becker and Bethe sporting their best party clothes, headed not towards the weekend’s big fraternity rager, but up the slope and towards those same muffled sounds.
A closer investigation of this strange aural phenomenon revealed an experience far more exotic and compelling than even the most elaborately planned out frat fiesta could ever hope to achieve. As the slope leveled off into the Plaza normally known as “Ho,” pedestrians were greeted not by the usual petulant Cornell clubsters, trying to pass off quartercards that would seconds later occupy a special spot in a Willard Straight trashcan. No, those confused pedestrians, on this warm Saturday night, walked straight into a vibrant party scene that might as well have been called “Club Lebanon.”
During orientation week in 2005, the Lebanese Club at Cornell (LCC) staged an event on the arts quad called “Rated R: When East Meets West.” There was music, dancing, food; even belly dancers were on hand. The event was designed to educate Cornellians about the side of Lebanese culture not often seen on CNN — their wicked parties. Two years later, last Saturday night, the LCC presented the sequal, “Rated R II: Escape to Beirut.”
Just as Michael Bay upped the ante in Bad Boys II, giving audiences bigger shoot outs, louder explosions and a more irritable Martin Lawrence, so too did the LCC elevate the idea behind their first event to an entirely new level in staging Rated R II. What was missing from the original event was the electric club atmosphere, which, according to LCC President (and Sun columnist) Nora Choueiri ’10, “is absolutely a big part of Lebanese culture.” Electric, this event most certainly was.
“Clubbing in Beirut [the capital of Lebanon] is crazy,” Choueiri explained. “Since Lebanon is in the Middle East, what people see are the stereotypes — the camels, the desert, women covered up. This couldn’t be further from the reality. Lebanon is by far the most liberal Arab nation with an out-of-this-world nightlife, and we wanted people to experience that.”
The entire square between Willard Straight and the Cornell Store was roped off (a la night club), the lone point of access located at the far end of the Plaza, towards Gannett. By the entrance to the Cornell Store were four long tables, littered with an assortment of Lebanese delicacies, like falafel and manoush, as well as pizza-esque Zaatar bread.
Near the base of McGraw clock tower, a D.J. was positioned, playing techno beats popular in Lebanon over huge loudspeakers. A crowd of party-goers quickly gathered in the middle of the Plaza to dance — not frat party bumping-and-grinding, mind you, but Lebanese-style night club dancing (which looks, unsurprisingly, a lot less awkward than its western counterpart). Maybe most impressive (not to mention suprising) was the area just to the left of the de facto dance floor. There the concrete was carpeted with blown-up inflatable mattresses, and on top of each of these mattresses were up to a half-dozen attendees reclining, relaxing and sucking on hookah (note: because it’s illegal to distribute tobacco products to underage persons, everyone who entered the event was IDed to verify age). At the far end of the party, a line of 30 or more students waited to get their hands on one of 12 hookahs on site.
And then came the bellydancers — five of them. Dressed exactly as you would imagine a belly dancer would be dressed, the group performed for around 15 minutes, before handing the floor back to those eager to do their own dancing; after their formal performance, they individually drifted through the sea of mattresses, still doing their thang.
The night was, overall, regarded as one of the best University-funded events — contributions coming from a number of entities, including the GPSAFC and the department of near eastern studies — which anyone present could recall having attended.
“They’ve got to do this once a month,” said Faizan Syed enthusiastically. “This is by far the best way to celebrate the onset of summer in Ithaca.”
Through the surreal combination of Lebanese club culture and a Cornell campus setting, roofed only by the stars in the sky, the LCC performed a little bit of magic that Saturday night — transporting everyone present to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, to a little place called Beirut.